Where Power Flows Through Divine Blood and Mortal Ambition
Explore the complex political landscape of Arcadia, where supernatural threats have shaped every form of governance. From mighty kingdoms built on divine tragedy to underground resistance movements—and, in an age still to be written, an empire from across the sea—discover how mortals organize themselves in a world where the sea itself answers to the moods of gods and cosmic conflicts determine the fate of nations.
The great realms where crowned heads rule over territories shaped by divine intervention and cosmic consequence
A human kingdom of rolling, fertile plains inland from the Azure Expanse, north of Rivenglade, whose modern cities gleam above the cliffs of old Quenos, the seaside village where gods once walked beside mortals; its very name, "carried from the sea," recalls a great wave that destroyed the old town generations ago. Long the "breadbasket kingdom" of golden wheat and barley, ruled by a pragmatic royal lineage from its bustling coastal capital of Freeport, Atheria served as neutral ground for the diplomacy of the realms. The Silence left its cities standing but its heartland blighted by Beastborn and void-corruption, so that a resilient, industrious people now lean on their fishing fleets while they struggle to reclaim their fields—and Zenith's Chosen slowly encroaches.
Once the Golden City, jewel of the south, rising from the fertile plains where the Sun God Solarius—mythical founder of the kingdom—was believed to have fallen in the ancient celestial war. Solara flourished under a sun that never seemed to set, ruled by an elite of Bloodmarked nobles wielding controlled divine fire; its monarch wore the Crown of Aetheris, said to hold the last whispers of the Sun God's consciousness, and its arenas and sacred academies trained warriors in combat and strategy. When the second prince, Dain Solarius, overthrew his brother and gave himself to the Silent God, the city was consumed by fire and silence. Its survivors fled as refugees to Rivenglade and Atheria. Before the Divine War, this land was the Kingdom of Moradim.
A secluded tropical island paradise in the Azure Expanse, southeast of Atheria, where the Sommer Isle Elves keep strict social hierarchies, a deep-seated sense of spiritual superiority, and near-exclusive devotion to Zenith—a structured, intellectual worship they believe preserved untainted by the Wild God pantheon. Their pristine white marble and gold cities and their disdain for the "low elves" of the Verdant Veil mask the dangerous seduction of a flawed utopian vision that prioritizes order over growth. Lucien Altheris was raised here. Before the Divine War, these were the eastern islands of Fayespire.
The Verdant Veil's reclusive elven civilization—stewards of the wild who preserve the delicate balance between nature and magic and hear the whispers of the Wild Gods in leaf and stream. A royal house carries Dawnseeker diplomacy to the human kingdoms, as Princess Elowen Faerwyn did on the eve of the Silence.
In the Age of Gods, a war-torn region known as the Reclamation Zone was held under the military authority of Governor Verin—a sharp-eyed woman whose rise was built on unflinching pragmatism and ruthless discipline—who demanded documented identity and passage papers of strangers, dispatched agents to observe them, and convened a religious council of recognized consistories quick to name an undocumented healer a heresiarch. She saw herself as a bulwark against hidden contagions—ideologies, creeds, mythologies—that might unravel her hard-won post-war order, and the Zone is remembered chiefly for what it did to the wandering god who healed its people.
Before the Divine War, the land that is now Solara was the Kingdom of Moradim—a wealthy mainland kingdom of trade routes and mainland connections, whose alliances were secured by diplomatic marriage. Its royal heir, Princess Jade, was betrothed to a prince of the eastern islands of Fayespire (the Vaelari islands that would one day be called Sommer Isle), whose people needed Moradim's wealth and mainland connections. Moradim's wealth would prove able to purchase truth itself; how murder became mythology on its High Pass road is told in The Song of Blood and Stone. What the Divine War did over Moradim, and why the kingdom that rose from it bears the Sun God's name, is a matter for The Divine War.
Across the sea from Arcadia lies the Imperial Republic of Hevetica—a nation of towering, long-lived Bohdkin whose gods never left them, whose weapons are blessed, and whose seers are infused with divine magic through ritual. Militant, patriotic, and strictly ordered, they believe their order is superior. They believe Arcadia—a land that has nearly ended the world more than once—cannot be trusted to govern itself. So, in the Age of Occupation after The Song of the Dragon, they come to govern it. Senach is their word for an Arcadian: godless savage. Hevetica belongs to The Senach, a series in development; everything here is premise, and subject to change.
Where faith becomes the foundation of power and divine mandate shapes governmental authority
A monotheistic movement that rose in Rivenglade five years after the Silence under Lucien Altheris, the self-proclaimed "Son of Zenith," seeking to replace Wild God worship with absolute submission to Zenith's Light. Its hierarchy of Devout Overseers, Faithful Elders, and baptized Chosen combines spiritual authority with political control through mandatory sermons, systematic conversion, family surveillance, and the Forsaking of dissidents—and its missionaries now reach into Atheria and toward the Godscarred Wastes.
Study the MovementUnderground communities of those cast out and branded by Zenith's Chosen, sheltering in a ruined temple of the Wild Gods under pragmatic, survival-focused leadership. Their hidden sanctuary and their resistance operations—including the blast that tore open Rivenglade's Zenithian Hall—challenge absolute religious authority through solidarity and strategic action.
Join the ResistanceSocieties organized around strength, survival, and adaptation to the harshest environments
Nomadic berserker tribes of the Crimson Tundra—an alliance of Ursine, Lupine, Avian, and Feline Beastmen, each species keeping its own tribe under Bloodfang law—ruled by strength and savagery and bound by devotion to the War God. Their culture represents survival through embracing rather than avoiding the world's harsh realities, following the migrations of tundra beasts in a cycle of hunting, raiding, and blood-soaked ritual, including the sacrifice of Bloodmarked children beneath the Blood Moon.
Join the HuntNomadic scavenger tribes of the Godscarred Wastes who worship the remnants of the fallen gods and hunt for fragments of divine relics on the ancient battlefields, trading them like coin. Their pragmatic society adapted to supernatural threats through fragmented tribal structures, relic hunting, hard-won knowledge of surviving divinely corrupted territories, and a deep fear of the Bloodmarked, whom their war-songs remember as a curse. What the Ashborn were before the Wastes were scarred is a question for The Divine War.
Walk the WastesUnique institutions of knowledge that arose in response to supernatural challenges
Scholars and mystics of the Hollow Spire, dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the gods and, in the days of High Inquisitor Mordain Ashcroft, to combating the lingering stain of divine influence through systematic documentation and increasingly militant approaches to magical phenomena.
Study the Order