III: Outlying Districts

THE BENDING JUNGLE

Ten miles South of Urd Thlol, in the disputed region of Urd Avalor (see Section I), lies a league-long thicket of bamboo. It has no business existing in the Mesonorthern climate, and no one knows how it came to be there.

In the year 220 of the New Empire, invaders from Ning Verrawn—best known for their cavalry assaults—came sailing up the Glomefall in tall ships, catching the Thlolian Army offguard. They had almost succeeded in breaching the city's defenses when a huge group of bamboo farmers, who had seen them sailing by, arrived to turn back the invasion.

The tough, springy bamboo for which the Jungle was named has many uses. To this day, many farmers harvest it with machetes; and it was this long-practiced blade-swinging skill that enabled the bamboo farmers to fight off the men of Ning Verrawn. Ever since then, a paramilitary contingent of machete-wielding martial artists called Harrowers have been the city's second line of defense.

BABBLEBROOK

A town of bards and minstrels, founded in 273, Babblebrook has long been a hub of poetry and the musical arts. The citizens are noteworthy for a high rate of literacy even among the peasant classes. They are also known for their remarkable skill at archery, which has enabled them to defend their home against many determined bands of marauders over the years. Babblebrook stands about twenty-five miles to the Northwest of Urd Thlol.

ROOKSNEST

Thirty miles to the Northeast, there stands the small village of Rooksnest. This seemingly forgettable place has been the subject of countless songs and tales for many years, on account of the endless march of supernatural creatures through its humble streets.

Some have theorized that the town happens to occupy a prominent spot on a mystical ley-line; others, that it was inadvertently built on the site of a rip in the veil between worlds. Whatever the case, it's an interesting place to pass through, but not a popular place to live. Most of its citizens belong to families which have lived there for generations, and they tend to be profoundly quirky, often bordering on madness. Suffice it to say, roving creatures of the night are not the only weird and unsettling things to be found there.

THE HAUNTED ORCHARD

The graveyard across the river from Urd Thlol has stood from time immemorial. It has, naturally, grown with every passing year, until it has nearly reached the outer edge of the aptly named Orchard. The spirits of the dead frequently arise from the sprawling hills and meadows of the nameless cemetery to wander the gnarled and twisted branches of the ancient apple-trees. When the living walk there at night, they rarely return unchanged.

HYLOMORIA

The rainy country of Hylomoria reaches from the Endless Ocean’s Western shore to the Horrible Chasm in the East. A vast, wild region pockmarked with loose confederacies and tiny independent nations, it is a disputed middle zone between the sculpted enlightenment of the Southern Kingdoms and the snarling chaos of the North. Up there, beyond the Mesonorth (a smaller region within Hylomoria), lie Goblinsmoor and the Dark Lord's Spire of Grief; up there is Sorrowfen, pirate town on the coast of the Gelid Sea. The rainy country extends (roughly) down to the borders of Avalorium, but is inherently difficult to chart because of its aggressively anarchic nature.