You declare war against the Ur-Uk, at least to retake Orcworld Fortress and find the reason behind this terrible transgression against Methiantese people!
Next, you meet with the intrepid cartographers.
"Greetings, Empress Ruberta! We have arrived from our tiresome journey, and brought knowledge from the west!"
After they've traversed the Eldrican Kingdom, your explorers wandered into the ash-covered, mist-covered, eye-watering lands of the Aelsass' Sorrows. They have wandered it for few days before they decided that it was a foolish and lethal attempt; the water was polluted and no guides nor adventurers in Eldrican broderlands wishes to accompany them. Thus, they went south and the west, through the pleasant and quaint Alsas Duchy. It is a lovely land, full of grasslands, herds of sheep and peaceful peoples. According to what your cartographers learned, Alsasians have received a special grant, excluding them from most taxation as well as military service; in return, the land is producing most of the ingredients requried for Fireblood manufacture, especially sulphur and pine resin.
Next, they had a brief visit through the dwarven land of Amalath. The dwarves there were suspicious of them and didn't let them inside Amalath fortress, althought their human contractors and dwellers had more than enough to accomodate for explorers' passing-through.
Once they got to Republic of Calvendocia, they quickly noticed two things - the land is bontiful in metals both precious and of industrial use; iron, gold, tin and lead are aplenty in Calvendocian mines. The other thing is that Calvendocians have quite a police and guard force; numerous times the cartographers wanted to cross a bridge, a gate or rest at an inn, they had to explain themselves to the Bloodeagle Guard there. The atmosphere of oppression didn't seem to bother the Calvendocian peoples, who were more absorbed with everyday life, trade and religious pursuits; in Calvendocia, numerous faiths are represented, and while Damed seems to be the most popular deity, some others are also represented, most importantly the Tavlak (the cartographers will soon explain, they say).
The lands of the Republic didn't offer much more than that, so your brave scholars decided to take a road north and visited the Duchy of Tavlak. It's in fact a single city with several surrounding villages and hamlets. It is mostly producing and exporting grain to Calvendocia. The main feature of Tavlakian Duchy was worship of Tavlak, a gigantic two-headed phoenix that is said to protect the city from invasions. Apparently, the last time Tavlak intervened to defend the town, it was in early 900s, destroying fifty thousand Atulak horsemen in fiery blaze. While your scholars are skeptical of that, the fact that the history of the town has no mentions of nomad rule and both Calvendocians and Prawlantese left the city independent might suggest that there is a tiny, tiny grain of truth in the stories.
Speaking of Prawlant, your scholars visited it next. There, they've seen equity and brotherhood that moved past racial borders; elves and humans and even dwarves lived together, dealing with each other on daily basis. Dwarven smiths bought elven trinkets, while human ladies eagerly allowed themselves to be courted by elven males. Your scholars even met few Centaurs and Goblins; the former often working as depot workers or otherwise in manual labor, while the small greenskins (which seem to be of least numbers in entire Prawlant) were often collaborating with dwarves on alchemy or metallurgy.
It is Prawlant where your cartographers met with true bounty of the West; numerous mines, delivering sulphur, cinnabar, coal and other minerals from the depths to manufacture Fireblood; and Fireblood was widely in use. City guards had hand-held Fireblood tubes on a stick, and price for a pouch of Fireblood was lower than price of several luxury foodstuffs. Prawlantese cities and garrisons were menacing with tubes of Fireblood engines; smooth, long-barreled, tower-mounted machines as well as truly enormous bombards that promise swift destruction to those who would dare to upset the State of Prawlant.
While Republic of Calvendocia had a council of officials ruling the country, the Prawlantese have more aristocratic and limited approach to governorship; a single man is elected from amongst many Prawlantese noble families. Besides being leader of Prawlant, he is also supreme commander of Prawlantese army. Elves are often elected to the office, according to what cartographers heard, but for the last thirty-ish years, nobody but humans were elected to the office of the Prawlantese Dictator.
"But that's not all, Lady Empress!" The chief cartographer says. "During our stay in Prawlant, we have charted much of its coastline, but it begun to extend westwards - and upon prompting, the Prawlantese told us of another country in the far west, Kingdom of Ivonia!"
They elaborate; following the Prawlantese coast, they've reached a large mountain chain, and behind it, a peninsular Kingdom in state of fragmentation. Kingdom of Ivonia has prized itself in ancient times on rearing of griffins; winged eagle-lions that nowadays can be seen on numerous heraldic emblems. Nowadays, the Griffins have mostly died out except few eyries in the southeast of the Kingdom that only breed the Black Griphons, the least warlike and most docile of the winged beasts, used mostly as pack animals. The main reason for this near-extinction was some great civil war that took place in the mid-1000s, during which, the locals say, numbers of dead Griffins almost equaled that of slain human soldiers.
Kingdom of Ivonia is large and divided into seven parts; the Kingdom proper, taking most of the central and northern lands. Principality of Pamperra is a small domain at the western coasts, known for its livestock - the Principality is also the domain and responsibility of the Crown Prince of Ivonia (currently Aidro II, son of King Irrere III of Tastapram dynasty). There is also Duchy of Adeidas in southeast, prized for its war horses, and it borders the Duchy of Griffen, by the south mountains, where Griffin eyries are located. The western sea has numerous isles, and they are split into two domains - purely islander Duchy of Irvene, to the north, where fishing industry and salt refineries are located, and the southernly Duchy of Seltena, with some of its parts on Pamperran shores; this one concentrates mostly on shipbuilding and trade with distant southeastern lands - those of Damdamians. The Ivonians were quite interested in tales about Methiant, because they do not conduct land trade beyond Calvendocia, and maintain only minimal contact with Eldricans, too.
Speaking of Ivonian civil war in the past; once upon a time, a long-lived King Eduarro II (ruling in years 982-1050 AD, if your cartographers translated Ivonian calendar right) managed to sire eleven sons. In his genius (or so he thought), he decided to split the country into eleven duchies to give each son a fair opportunity to rule. Unfortunately, it didn't take long after his funeral for a large-scale civil war to tear apart the lands, kill most of the sons and nearly bring extinction to the Griffins. For twenty years, wars and skirmishes were waged amongst the sons, till finally the youngest, Aidro I, won, vassalizing the states run by the offspring and/or wives of his slain brothers. The only other son of the old Eudarro II, Cardon, established himself in the north; his descendants rule over Grand Duchy of Cardeu, a large domain comprising mostly of farmlands and forests producing fine quality timber. While officially a vassal to Kingdom of Ivonia, it has a much larger degree of autonomy compared to the other Duchies, and has been known to oppose Ivonian Kings on at least three occassions in the last hundred years.
The cartographers wished to cross the southern mountains, but they were informed by Ivonians that the mountains are Griffin territory and that they would be eaten alive by the winged beasts. Apparently, there is some land to the west of Ivonian coast; their sailors spoke of a swampy coastline and numerous islands, seemingly uninhabited and offering little in terms of fertile lands, so Ivonians rarely visit the place. From their tales it seems only exiles and hermits migrate there to seek a life away from anybody else.
With all this learned, having reached a natural boundary and having spent quite a lot of time in the west, they decided it is time to head back to Methiant. They did so by going through Prawlant again, then by roads maintaned by Uristhab dwarves to northwestern Eldrican; there, some nomads were paid to fetch them over to border with Tirine, and from there it was but a short trip to Koi, and then to Methiant.
Your courtiers are making a loud mess, discussing all this new information, while you in meanwhile look at the cartographers kneeling in front of you.
"Lady Empress! Thank you for this opportunity to explore the vast and wondrous lands to the west. We will now retreat to help our brothers at the House of Learning to update the maps. We hope that in the future, we will have as many fruitful expeditions as this."
A) "Future? No no no, you're going somewhere else already, and I already know where!"
B) "Hopefully, that will happen sooner or later! You can return to your studies now."
And apparently the cartographers brought the sketches of Ivonian emblems too!
Gules, three eagles argent
quarterly, I and IV gules, a bull's head or II and III maily azure and argent, over all the parts on a bend sinister gules fimbriated argent three eagles of the same
Argent, three eagles gules, a bendlet sable
Sable three palets argent, over all the parts an escutcheon sable, a horse smaller argent
Fretty azure and argent on a bend or three griffins sable
Gules, on a bend potenty or three eagles gules
Or, a fishtailed griffin larger gules armed sable, crowned argent, a chief potenty azure
