Appendix — Gazetteer & Atlas of Merretia
The maps of the world, delivered in words. Until the plates are drawn, this appendix is the atlas: a table of every province, a schematic of the continent, a reckoning of travel times, and a full survey of Sulamir, the three-layer city. Everything here is drawn from established canon — no province, capital, or feature has been invented. Where a distance or a rough bearing is not fixed in the record, a sensible and internally-consistent figure has been supplied for play; those are marked as approximate and never overrule the source.
Two facts frame the whole atlas. First, Merretia is one continent tiled by eighteen provinces, from the western Ocean to the eastern Waste Lands, from the northern coast to the southern river-country. Second, the city of Sulamir mirrors that continent at a second scale: it holds eighteen culturally-coded districts, one per province, each the city-home of that province’s diaspora, houses, and guild. “The eighteen provinces of Sulamir” and “the eighteen provinces of Merretia” name the same eighteen things at two sizes. Roughly forty-six million people live under this arrangement — about thirty-five million packed under Sulamir’s single dome, and only about eleven million across the whole of the provincial homelands. The continent is a megacity orbited by sparse ancestral hinterlands.
The world reads red: the soil across central Merretia is rust-red and iron-shot, stone weathers ruddy, and two moons cross the night — small fast Vashkil and large slow Alshera.
1. The Continent at a Glance
Section titled “1. The Continent at a Glance”Each province is the hereditary territory of one Council guild and keeps two seats: a capital in its homeland and a guild seat-house in Sulamir. The city of Sulamir is the capital of Ahlgenadin, which is why its guild, the Sulamir League, hosts the whole Council.
| Province (ruling guild) | Capital | Character, in a line | Position & bloc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Julin — Torrus Ectos (Red Octopus) | Olmenfjord | Cold fjord coast; fishing fleets, shipyards, dockside brawler markets | Northwest corner, on the Ocean. Rival of Frewna Nurrelle; allied to The Hand for southbound fish |
| Yisk — Emphemere | Vasilek | Courtly grain-and-dairy plain; theatres, the gloom festival | North-central interior. Votes with the cultural-patronage bloc; distant from the frontier |
| Entoyo — Temple of the One | Hokuden | Temple heartland; terraced foothills, teaching-houses, quiet | North-central-east. The contemplative belt (with Pogus and Illibill) |
| Nolekkelon — Abyssal Fires | Vissett | Alpine mines and cliff-cut Library Vaults; the continent’s archive | Far northeast, on the Waste-Land frontier. Eastern watchtower alliance |
| Frewna Nurrelle — The White Legion | Frewna Nurrelle | Pleasure-coast of opera, wine, and the best sunsets on the continent | West coast, north of Sulamir. Coastal sister-alliance with Antodinera; rival of Julin |
| Pogus — The Core | Burumqi | Mountain-valley academy; philosophy, marble quarries, clear-sky observatories | Center-north interior. Alliance-neutral; the contemplative belt |
| Sahthan — Multani | Shuzozheng | Caravan crossroads; merchant-princes and intelligence networks | Center-east interior. The financial axis with Lupan |
| Hakkar — The Masons | Joran | Fortified quarry-uplands; stone, ramparts, war-memorials, tall people | East, on the Waste-Land frontier. Eastern watchtower alliance |
| Lupan — The Iron Coin | Lupan | Banking strongholds; the mint and the coinage the whole continent uses | West-central interior. The financial axis with Multani (Sahthan) |
| Ockallaka — Prodigus Group | Kazun | Volcanic highlands; hardy clans, engineering, quake-braced building | Center-west interior. Alliance-resistant, self-reliant, underestimated |
| Ahlgenadin — The Sulamir League | Sulamir (the city itself) | The seaboard heart; the capital province that contains the capital city | West-central, coastal. The Sulamir League — host to all eighteen guilds |
| Creko — The Red Dragons | Rikut | Drill-city of the martial order; officers exported continent-wide | East-central, part-frontier. Structural friction with the Red Octopus (Julin) |
| Tonja — Alum-sidek Alliance | Landavilks | Frontier farmland and the magnerail terminus; House Corveliss’s home | Far east, on the Waste-Land frontier. Eastern watchtower alliance; rail-bound to Sulamir |
| Merjaya — Bavit-vita | Pekkalipia | Monsoon river-mouth; Heart-discipline healing, tropical color | Far southwest coast, southern river-mouth. Principled, alliance-fluid |
| Antodinera — Order of the Blue Cross | Antodinera | Hospice coast; dying-care, mortuary ceremony, herb-and-drug trade | Southwest-central coast. Coastal sister-alliance with Frewna Nurrelle |
| Bolanbi — The Hand | Muhan | River-country wealth; drum-towers, gold, the largest market outside Sulamir | South-central river-country. Sulamir Forest custody bloc; trades with Julin |
| Illibill — Alyu’amare | Nanderland | Mountain-river harmony; the marriage-and-alliance brokerage of the Council | Southeast river-country. Forest-custody bloc; the contemplative belt |
| Udlimill — Order of the Spider | Ylothiahoketh | Thin-peopled grassland and forest-edge; the eyes of the continent | Far southeast, on the Sulamir Forest border. Forest-custody bloc. Borders the Waste Lands’ southern reach but is NOT in the watchtower alliance |
The blocs, at a glance.
- The Sulamir League — Ahlgenadin’s guild, the one host-guild that keeps the capital fed and functioning while the other seventeen conduct their cold war through its districts.
- The eastern Waste-Land watchtower alliance — Nolekkelon, Hakkar, and Tonja, the three frontier provinces that share the cost of watching the Waste Lands: watchtower lines, Marshal patrols, and the occasional expedition that does not return. Udlimill borders the Waste Lands’ southern reach but is not a member.
- The Sulamir Forest custody bloc — Bolanbi, Illibill, Udlimill, and southern Ahlgenadin, who share stewardship of the unowned forest and the southern river-trade corridor through one of the Council’s quieter standing committees.
- The coastal sister-alliance — Frewna Nurrelle and Antodinera, twinned in theatre, healing, and aesthetic culture on the western coast.
- The financial axis — Lupan (which banks the money) and Multani/Sahthan (which moves it), a quiet partnership the rest of the Council is never quite sure exists.
- The contemplative belt — Entoyo, Pogus, and Illibill, three doctrines’ worth of students and texts in constant cross-traffic.
Beyond the eighteen sits Azhandia, not a province at all but a foreign eastern-frontier polity out past the Waste Lands, organized around holding a Founding-era wall and its Gate. And offshore in the western sea lies Aldasen, the drowned sibling-city, a ruin now.
2. A Text Map of the Continent
Section titled “2. A Text Map of the Continent”A schematic, not to scale. North is up; the Ocean and West Sea lie to the west (left), the Waste Lands and Azhandia to the east (right). The eastern (fourth) column is the frontier edge.
N O R T H Ocean / West Sea <=============================> Waste Lands ==> AZHANDIA
+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------------+ | JULIN | YISK | ENTOYO | NOLEKKELON [W] | | Olmenfjord | Vasilek | Hokuden | Vissett | | fjord ports | grain/court | Temple heart | archives / mines | +--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------------+ | FREWNA | POGUS | SAHTHAN | HAKKAR [W] | | NURRELLE | Burumqi | Shuzozheng | Joran | | theatre-port | academy | caravans | stone & forts | +--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------------+ |####SULAMIR###| OCKALLAKA | CREKO | TONJA [W] | |## Ahlgenadin#| Kazun | Rikut | Landavilks | |### CAPITAL ##|....... | drill-city | rail terminus; | |# GreatHarbor #| LUPAN | | Landa Mts. beyond | |##############| Lupan (bank) | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------------+ | MERJAYA | ANTODINERA | BOLANBI | ILLIBILL | | Pekkalipia | Antodinera | Muhan | Nanderland | | river-mouth | hospices | river-gold | harmony...... | | | | | UDLIMILL | | | | | Ylothiahoketh | | | | | intel / forest-edge | +--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------------+ S O U T H
[W] = eastern Waste-Land watchtower alliance (Nolekkelon - Hakkar - Tonja) Udlimill (far SE) touches the Waste Lands' southern reach but is NOT a watchtower member.
=== THE LONG RENT === the older of the two continental scars: a canyon miles deep running EAST from Sulamir's hinterland across the central band (Ockallaka -> Creko -> Tonja latitude) toward the Waste Lands.
~~~ THE RIVER SYSTEM ~~~ rises in Ahlgenadin's uplands, runs SOUTH through Bolanbi and Antodinera and reaches the Ocean at Merjaya (southern arm); a western arm reaches the sea at Sulamir's Great Harbor. Tributaries thread Illibill and Udlimill.
### SULAMIR FOREST ### the unowned wooded belt wrapping the southern & southeastern approaches to the city — across Udlimill, Illibill, Bolanbi, and southern Ahlgenadin.
XXX ALDASEN (ruin) + THE MAW XXX offshore in the West Sea, off the western seaboard: the sunken sibling-city and the drowned, haunted reach where part of the continent fell.3. Travel & Distance
Section titled “3. Travel & Distance”Sulamir is the hub of all long-distance movement, because the inter-provincial magnerail — the electromagnetic suspension rail, held under charter by House Corveliss — is the fast artery of the continent. The trunk line runs from Landavilks in Tonja, at the far eastern frontier, straight across the continent to Sulamir’s Great Harbor on the western coast; branch lines feed the other capitals. Where the rail reaches, travel is measured in hours and single days. Where it does not, travel reverts to road and foot, and the times balloon.
Three modes, three rules of thumb:
- Grid-rail is the default and by far the fastest, but it only runs where the buried-sun grid runs. It links the capitals; it does not cross the frontier line.
- Road / foot is the fallback everywhere, and runs roughly six times the rail time. Beyond the frontier capitals — into the Waste-Land watch line or toward Azhandia — it is the only mode, and it is slow, guarded, and dangerous.
- West-Sea passage links only the coastal capitals (Julin, Frewna Nurrelle, Sulamir, Antodinera, Merjaya). Shipmasters give the Maw, off the drowned Aldasen coast, a wide berth.
Approximate one-way travel from Sulamir to each provincial capital. Figures are gameable estimates, internally consistent (rail-time scales with distance from the capital; road ≈ rail × 6), not canon-locked.
| Destination (capital) | By grid-rail | By road / foot | By West-Sea ship | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frewna Nurrelle (Frewna N.) | ~½ day | ~3 days | ~1 day | Nearest neighbor; the pleasure-coast just up the shore |
| Lupan (Lupan) | ~1 day | ~6 days | — | West-central interior; banking run |
| Bolanbi (Muhan) | ~1½ days | ~9 days | — (river only) | Reachable by the southern river-corridor as well |
| Antodinera (Antodinera) | ~1½ days | ~9 days | ~2 days | Coastal; ship is the scenic choice |
| Pogus (Burumqi) | ~1½ days | ~9 days | — | Inland mountain valley |
| Ockallaka (Kazun) | ~1½ days | ~10 days | — | Highland and isolated; the last stretch is hard road |
| Yisk (Vasilek) | ~2 days | ~12 days | — | North-central plain |
| Sahthan (Shuzozheng) | ~2 days | ~12 days | — | Caravan crossroads; road-country by temperament |
| Illibill (Nanderland) | ~2 days | ~12 days | — | Southeast river-country |
| Merjaya (Pekkalipia) | ~2 days | ~13 days | ~3–4 days | River-mouth; the southern coastal run |
| Julin (Olmenfjord) | ~2 days | ~13 days | ~3 days | Northwest coast; ship is the honest way to arrive |
| Creko (Rikut) | ~2½ days | ~15 days | — | East-central; part-frontier |
| Entoyo (Hokuden) | ~2½ days | ~15 days | — | North-central-east foothills |
| Udlimill (Ylothiahoketh) | ~2½ days | ~14 days | — | Thin rail; tracks give out to trails near the forest |
| Hakkar (Joran) | ~3 days | ~18 days | — | Eastern frontier; the rail runs to the wall of the world |
| Tonja (Landavilks) | ~3 days | ~20 days | — | Trunk-line terminus at the far eastern frontier |
| Nolekkelon (Vissett) | ~3½ days | ~21 days | — | Far northeast; add mountain foot-travel beyond the rail-head |
Beyond the capitals. The three eastern watchtower capitals (Vissett, Joran, Landavilks) are the last stops on the grid. The Waste-Land watch line itself lies another 2–4 days by road or foot past them, with no rail and no comfort. Azhandia, out beyond the Waste Lands, has no rail and no safe road at all; it is reckoned in weeks of guarded overland travel and sits, for most purposes, off the surveyed map.
4. Sulamir, the Three-Layer City
Section titled “4. Sulamir, the Three-Layer City”Sulamir is not a normal city; it is three cities stacked on one ancient upthrust, which the folk of the heights pretend is one. About thirty-five million people live in its vertical extent, and where you stand in the stack is the first fact anyone learns about you.
The surface — the Dome. The city everyone means when they say “Sulamir.” An always-on Founding-era energy dome, glowing faintly cyan, arches over the whole vertical mass; citizens pass through Marshal-staffed gates at its footprint to enter or leave. Beneath the dome the city climbs in suspended squares and tiers, and daylight thins as you descend: the great houses and guild seats keep the upper / sky levels in open air; markets, trades, and magnerail platforms fill the mid levels; and the lower / shade levels hold the working streets, the tenements, the harbor sea-wall, and — down where the light has gone permanently grey, in the eastern rail-yard — the poor quarter called the Warrens. Overhead hangs the Cloud network, a weather-and-magic shield held aloft on the city’s spires, keystoned by the Center Spire at the exact center. This surface layer is where all eighteen culturally-coded districts live.
The deep — the Steam-Worker galleries. Below street level runs the Steam Tunnel network: the electric grid and steam transit, a physical maze maintained by the lifelong community of the Steam System Workers, the one power in Sulamir no guild commands. Their strike could dim the city to candles in hours. Below the working tunnels sit Founding-era strata — relics, dormant machinery, sealed vaults — and, deepest of all in this layer, the buried suns: captured stars in cyan containment, the primal power source everything above ultimately draws upon. This is the world that raised Oen.
The Rhydin level. At the bottom of every shaft that reaches far enough lies Rhydin: pre-Founding human masonry from an ancient settlement the city was built over and through. Layered chambers, collapsed avenues, occasional intact rooms whose purpose no one can name. The Steam Workers call these the Rhydin levels and treat them with superstition even by their own accustomed-to-the-dark standard. Most are sealed; a few open to a handful of workers with inherited keys; some open and close on schedules no one has mapped. No living Steam Worker has reached the very bottom.
The Eighteen Districts
Section titled “The Eighteen Districts”All eighteen are surface-layer districts — they belong to the Dome city — but each occupies a different vertical band of the stack, and the “layer” column below records that band. Beneath them all run the Steam galleries and, deeper still, the Rhydin levels, which belong to no district.
| District | Layer / band | Character | Key site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahlgenadin Quarter (host) | Concentric center; highest approaches most prized | The civic heart; the one quarter that is a shared center, not a diaspora | Center Spire; the Senate Quarter (Hall of Houses & Council Chambers); Sulamir League lodge |
| Tonjani Quarter | Upper / high-status, far-eastern reach | Frontier village turned upward; rail-logistics; Anglo-Saxon kennings | Corvelith Tower (House Corveliss seat); Alum-sidek trade lodge Hall |
| Hakkari Quarter | East of the Spire; fortified vernacular | Stone-blocked, rampart-edged; the plainest demonstration of the mason’s craft | House Stoneheart compound (vigil-stone); Masons’ trade lodge |
| Yiskii Quarter | Upper / open-sky, north-central, near the Spire | Courtly manors and admired theatres; melancholy performed proudly | Lady Summer’s house seat; Emphemere trade lodge (theatres) |
| Multani Quarter (Sahthan-coded) | Mid; clustered at the magnerail arteries | Merchant-prince trade that runs around the clock; the city’s connective tissue | House Mihran compound; Multani trade lodge |
| Merjayan Quarter | Southern reaches | Heart-discipline healing; a destination the whole city passes through | Bavit-vita Mother Hall & Mantra Garden; House Singh compound |
| Entoyo Quarter | Quiet interior levels | The city’s cathedral; stillness kept as daily discipline | Temple of the One’s principal Sulamir cathedral & seminary |
| Bolanbi Quarter | Mid-level bright terraces | Merchant-wealthy and openly so; drums for festival and funeral | The Hand’s great market square; the district drum-tower |
| Crekoan Quarter | Mid; calibrated terraces like stacked parade grounds | Roman-ordered drill-craft; the city’s officers are trained here | Red Dragons’ martial hall; the banner hall (one banner per fighter lost) |
| Lupanese Quarter | High-status near the Spire; vault-keeps sunk in shade below | Banking; wealth in the sky, specie locked in the dark | Iron Coin banking compound & city mint |
| Julin Quarter | Low western harbor-front, heavy shade | Rough dockside; shipwork and fight-pits, proud of being real | Torrus Ectos brawler markets; stave-temple to Bamoph-bam |
| Antodineran Quarter | Dome-edge open sky; terraced walled gardens | Tender funerary care; the dome’s largest Day-of-the-Dead procession | Order of the Blue Cross Great Hospice; mortuary cathedral |
| Pogusian Quarter | High, clear-skied contemplative terraces | Academic to the bone; tutors placed in every great house | The Core’s terraced libraries; Sulamir University beside it; the observatory |
| Udlimillan Quarter | Full-vertical; quiet shaded lanes | Stealth-coded; demountable interiors so no address surfaces twice | Order of the Spider registry-front; the Spider’s Web Garden |
| Nolekkelon Quarter | Deep, heavy-shade; prestige runs downward | Archival intelligence; the coolest lower levels are the finest blocks | Abyssal Fires’ Library Vaults, cut into the living rock |
| Ockallakan Quarter | Full-vertical; braided into the structural spine near rail junctions | Engineering and logistics; quake-braced, quietly load-bearing | Prodigus Group’s city Great Hearth |
| Frewnese Quarter | Upper-level pleasure district; finest blocks at the dome-edge | Entertainment; a manufactured sunset for a sky without a horizon | White Legion theatre district & city Grand Opera |
| Illibill Quarter | Terraced up the levels around garden courts | Marriage-and-alliance brokerage; the ceremonial grammar of the upper order | Alyu’amare’s city Harmony Hall |
Movement between districts is free; the magnerail connects every district to every other and to the Senate Quarter. Distinctness is held by daily register — language, dress, food, festival — not by any physical wall.
5. A Text Map of Sulamir
Section titled “5. A Text Map of Sulamir”Two schematics. First a cross-section through the three layers, and beneath it a plan of the surface city radiating from the Center Spire. Both are schematic and not to scale.
Cross-section — the three layers stacked:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ C L O U D N E T W O R K ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ || || <-- CENTER SPIRE (keystone).----------- D O M E (always-on cyan shield) -----------. / || \ | UPPER / SKY LEVELS great houses, guild seats, open air | |------------------------------------------------------------| | MID LEVELS markets, trades, magnerail platforms | |------------------------------------------------------------| | LOWER / SHADE working streets, tenements, | | LEVELS the WARRENS (eastern rail-yard), | | the harbor sea-wall & quays | ====| STREET LEVEL == dome-footprint GATES (Marshal-staffed) =|==== | * the RED DRAGON tavern sits on the junction below * | +------------------------------------------------------------+ THE | STEAM TUNNELS Steam-Worker galleries; the electric | DEEP | grid and steam transit | | FOUNDING STRATA relics, dormant machinery, sealed vaults| | BURIED SUNS captured stars; pulsing cyan cores | +------------------------------------------------------------+ THE | RHYDIN LEVELS pre-Founding masonry: sealed chambers, | RHYDIN| collapsed avenues, rooms with no name | LEVEL |...the bottom no living Worker has reached +------------------------------------------------------------+ (all of it riding an ancient upthrust -- a mountain only in its bones)Plan — the surface city, concentric around the Spire:
N (north-central) Yiskii. courtly, open-sky prestige | (west harbor) | (far east, high) JULIN ----. |.---- TONJANI low, shaded \ ___________ / (rail comes in) sea-wall \ / CENTER \ / \ / SPIRE \ / W.... Frewnese -- | + Senate | -- Hakkari.... E (dome-edge, | Quarter | (fortress pleasure) / = AHLGENADIN \ masonry, / host quarter \ east of Spire) Lupanese ----' \_______|________ / '---- (frontier (high, near | | | quarters ring on) Spire; vaults Merjayan | Antodineran sunk below) (southern | (dome-edge reaches) | gardens) S (southern reaches)
The Center Spire stands at the exact center of the host Ahlgenadin Quarter; the seventeen diaspora quarters ring it, each linked to it and to every other by the magnerail. Only the bearings the record fixes are placed above; the remaining quarters ring the Spire without locked positions. Prestige rises toward the Spire's high approaches and toward the dome-edge views -- except in the Nolekkelon and Lupanese quarters, whose value runs downward into the cool shade.6. Key Sites
Section titled “6. Key Sites”A gazetteer of named landmarks, city and continent. Only places already fixed in canon appear here.
The Center Spire. The tallest structure in Sulamir, standing at the exact geographic and political center of the city in the host Ahlgenadin Quarter. It is the keystone of the Cloud network — remove it and the whole weather-and-magic shield collapses — and it serves as the ceremonial seat of the Council of Guilds. It is almost certainly original Founding-era construction; its keystone function predates the Council’s use of it, so the Council meets in a structure designed for something else, and no Leader will say what.
The Cloud network. The weather-and-magical-defense shield over the city, visible as a texture on the sky at dawn and dusk, a geodesic field held aloft on Sulamir’s spires. Each province contributes at least one spire; the Center Spire is the keystone. It bars natural weather in its raw form and permits scheduled, managed weather. It also dampens airship attack, which is why piracy is rare beneath it and common outside.
The Dome of Sulamir. The most consequential physical structure on the continent: an always-on Founding-era energy shield, glowing faintly cyan, arching over the city’s entire vertical extent and visible from the edge of the eight corners on a clear day. It stops conventional armies, kaiju, projectiles, and all nine disciplines, but has finite durability under sustained overwhelming assault — and, crucially, it does not stop the Hollow, which passes it untouched because the Hollow is an absence rather than an incoming force. Citizens pass through Marshal-staffed gates at its footprint; its upkeep is the most expensive line in the senate’s budget, paid continent-wide through the Veil Levy.
The Senate Quarter. The political center of the city, within the host Ahlgenadin Quarter, near the dome’s central axis. Here stands the Hall of Houses, where the Senate of Great Houses convenes to issue edicts, levy taxes, and ratify treaties, alongside the Council Chambers and the central political institutions that the magnerail carries every other district in to reach.
The Great Harbor. Sulamir’s western face to the Ocean: miles of harbor-front, sea-wall, and quay running beneath the Dome’s seaward arc where the river system meets the sea. It is the continent’s principal port and the western terminus of the trunk magnerail line; trade and immigration from every land wash in here, which is why the city is the polyglot melting-pot it is.
The Steam Tunnels. The network beneath the city that carries both the electric grid and steam-powered transit — a real physical maze, not a metaphor, policed by the Steam System Workers’ community better than any Militia patrols the streets above. Some sections date to the Founding. The tunnels are the distribution-and-regulation layer wrapped around the buried suns beneath them.
The Buried Suns. Captured stars, each a pulsing cyan core in a Founding-era vault below the Steam Tunnels — the primal power source the whole city draws on, from the grid to the magnerail to the Dome itself. A buried sun is a star straining to escape, held as much by continuous ritual faith-work as by machinery; neglect it and a district browns out, and in the worst remembered cases the containment sheds in a wildfire of lightning. The power of Sulamir is a stack of contained catastrophes.
The Rhydin Levels. The pre-Founding human masonry at the very bottom of the city, below the Founding-era strata: the remains of Rhydin, an ancient settlement the angels and demons built Sulamir over and through. Layered chambers, collapsed avenues, and intact rooms of unknown purpose, mostly sealed, treated with superstition by the Steam Workers who work nearest to them.
The Warrens. The poor quarter of the low, shaded levels — the working under-city, concentrated in the eastern rail-yard where the freight and immigrant trades gather. Not literally the bottom of the city, but the bottom of the part that still counts as the surface. Children are born here who climb up into the working streets to survive, thin and quick and watchful, and the city mostly does not trouble to learn their names.
The Cold Lamp. A small, half-forgotten, tolerated heretical shrine on the shabby edge of the eastern rail-yard district, where the working streets fray down toward the mouth of the Warrens. Its votive light had burned since before anyone in the district was born — until, on one cold dawn, it went out. (The shrine and its dark Lamp anchor the worked-example one-shot; a light that cannot truly be extinguished, only relocated.)
The Red Dragon. A tavern at the junction where street-level Sulamir, the old Founding-era infrastructure, and the upper Rhydin levels all meet — the oldest continuously inhabited building on the upthrust, operating on the same ground since before the Founding. It is famously neutral ground: guild Leaders, outlaw orders, steamworkers, Azhandian emissaries, and passing travelers all drink there under an ancient house-kept peace no Council has challenged. The Red Dragons guild took its name from the tavern, not the other way around.
The Sulamir Forest. The broad, old wooded belt wrapping the southern and southeastern approaches to the city, across the borders of Udlimill, Illibill, Bolanbi, and southern Ahlgenadin. It is unowned seam-ground — no province or house holds title — and those who keep estates, lodges, and hunting grounds there do so by custom and by force. The forest is older than the city it borders and is suspected of predating human arrival on the continent.
The Long Rent. The older of the continent’s two great scars: a colossal canyon system miles deep and wide, running east from Sulamir’s hinterland across the central provinces toward the Waste Lands, its far wall visible only on the clearest days. Its walls expose rock older than any guild’s memory, and its metal and mineral deposits sustain several great houses and the extraction trades. Every Sulamiri child is taught the city’s stone was cut from the Rent — the match is real; the how has never been reconciled. Something enormous is said to sleep at its floor.
The Maw & the West Sea. The West Sea is the primary body of water on the continent, the broader Ocean into which part of Merretia sank during the Fall of Aldasen; sailors report toppled mountain-tops rising and submerging with the tides. The Maw is the specific stretch off the Aldasen coast where the continent went down — deep, dangerous, and haunted, rumored to hold Aldasenian treasure and far worse, drawing adventurers who almost never return. A twenty-two-year celestial event now approaching is prophesied to “cease” the Maw briefly, opening a window onto the sunken city.
Aldasen (ruin). Once the second great city of Merretia — “the city under the mountain,” seat of preservation and older lore, allied sibling of Sulamir — destroyed by the lich-king Zar Valareth. What remains is uninhabitable ruin, its former citizens transformed into ghouls that may still shuffle the rubble; the surrounding geography is unstable, mountains toppled into the sea and the coast sank. It lies offshore on the western seaboard, beyond the Maw.
The Landa Mountains. A high range whose passes were decisive in the Great War, in the far eastern uplands near Tonja’s capital, Landavilks. “We stood at Landa” is a formal oath-keeping phrase used by the guild and house lines whose ancestors fought there.
The Waste Lands. The eastern boundary of the continent: uninhabited, dangerous, and explicitly outside the Council’s territory. The three frontier provinces — Nolekkelon, Hakkar, and Tonja — hold the watchtower line against it. What the Waste Lands truly are, no one in Sulamir agrees: unhealed Founding-era damage, a dead zone the Cloud network never reached, the hunting-ground of kaiju-class creatures, or all three at once.
Azhandia & the Azhandian Gate. Not one of the eighteen provinces but a distinct foreign polity of the far eastern frontier, out past the Waste Lands where the Hollow presses hardest. Where Sulamir answered the founding-age dangers with a dome, Azhandia answered them with a wall — a Founding-era barrier whose heart is the Azhandian Gate, kept sealed and maintained by ritual servitude across the long centuries. Its diminished, scattered people carry two voices to Sulamir — House Jukaggle, who hold the wall was terrible and necessary both, and Master Enwith, a freed slave who holds it never justified the chains.
Cross-references: the continent, the districts, the Forest, the Maw and Aldasen —. Per-province detail —. The Center Spire, Cloud network, Steam Tunnels, and buried suns —. The Dome, gates, and Veil Levy — The Warrens and the Cold Lamp — the worked-example one-shot in CAMPAIGN/MODULES/.