Cathlan.
Mountainous, untamed lands. Farmland shallow and frosty at best, crawling and putrid at worst. Far from the cool, refreshing breezes smuggled through the heat of the midday from the grand incarnate oceans in the West, and equally inacessible to the scarf-wrapped desert traders winding their way through the domestic, civilised continent from the serpent dunes and beyond in the Southeast, carrying the
melange, the intoxicating spice that lulls the mind, dampens the wit, and makes all men look on one another with the friendly, soporific eyes of brothers. The spice, which encourages commerce, stability and wealth, while instilling a reluctance to enter war, never makes it as far as Northern Cathlan.
In this part of the world, conflicted, feral, needy Cathlan is the only country changing and growing. It's an inspiring place to be alive, right now. But not always an easy one.
Cathlan itself is made up of three city states surrounded by a few hundred miles of land they control: warlike Hasloc, archaic Mossholm, and vibrant, eerie Cobble.
You cannot recall where the the lesson went from there, but you keep your eyes screwed tightly shut.
You are a boy?/a girl?
You are of noble, if modest birth: child of a small duke of the city-state:
A.
The central city here is nestled in a deep mountain vally, riding high on crests some men say were made by Gods themselves. Hasloc has traditionally defended the area from greedy Western states, not to mention the barbaric Nuthmen of the frozen North and the strange, inscrutable, taciturn peoples of the South. A race of warriors, the people of Hasloc are assigned duties and trained almost from birth, and their borders even impinge on the wild, knotty Mossholm forest, guards stationed in squat, solid earthy bastions in spite of the agression of the forest beasts against intruders. They maintain military control over Cobble, though the Cobble legion are almost an army unto themselves, and Hasloc is economically dependent on the flesh-forges and factories of the fetid ReMaking metropolis.
This city-state vaules discipline and martial prowess, and is easily entered if the inhospitable mountains or warlike inhabitants do not obstruct you.
B.
Mossholm, the most ancient and puissant of the city-states. In the sombre heart of the Mossholm forest, full of overgrown ruins and threaded with the bizarre tracks of woodwolves, predatory trees and leaflings, dryads and those that lurk in murky sacred pools by day, this city is spread out circularly, crossing brooks and sweeping round or over small lakes, presenting another thronged, musty library or underground altar every few miles from the central glade you go. With massive overgrown ziggrurats, submerged libraries of ancient arts and rituals, and quiet glades where even the sunlight pours down upon one's shoulders like a long cool drink of spring water, the people live in temporary, flimsy structures, or sleep in the welcoming openness of the forest floor, beneath the loving canopy. These people detest ReMaking, preferring to call on the forces of their lands, and to use the magic of their birthright, from the pettiest cantrips to the grandest ensorcellments.
The people here all can perform some magic, and are at one with natural creatures, plants and sprites. This city-state is ruled by a small and seldom seen alchemist bureaucracy, while peddlers of ancient and forbidden artifacts dominate the root-laced underworld.
C.
Cobble. Youngest of the nations, but already the most overbuilt and packed conglomerate metropolis, teeming with all manner of peasants, factory workers, immigrants from Mossholm, Hasloc, and even beyond in all directions, not to mention floods of ReMade, bandit FreeMade, industrialists, scholars, and disfigured human guineapigs. This city is the home of the relatively new, but already highly developed and powerful, if a little crude, practice of ReMaking: the combining of the vegetative, human, alchemical and mechanical, the animal, the inanimate and the supernatural in every way one could imagine, with antennae replacing willing or unwilling ears, pincers teeth, tentacles legs, cilia hairs, trunks pistons, vials and tubes... hearts. This is done to every convict from Cathlan, and even some from the Western nations beyond, not just as an example, but also to ensure a limitless supply of ReMade workers, one fit for every strange and specific task or function. It is cruel, but incredible, and great things can be done with as little as the human form and practically any useful objects that come to hand, if the most powerful ReMakers work determindly. Cobble is a great seething meltingpot, with armed and violent police at almost open war with equally battle-eager criminals, while oblivious human and inhuman masses flow around them to the daily grind, ready to fill the bunkers and depots and slaveships of the highest bidder with fantastical men, creatures and devices.
The nobler people of Cobble have all been taught some remaking as they approach the threshold of adulthood since the city sprung up about the castles and dwellings of revolutionary and masterful new alchemists and scholars. Much ReMaking is also practiced in the packed and malevolent slums.
Don't worry, Cobble won't be as badly draw if I have to draw another scene from it. Is image size ok, guys?
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