The Hallowed South
Seat of the Faithful, where the land runs warm and golden toward the Wellspring and the Everflame is kept. The last place the promise still feels true.
Before the Fall there was one world, whole and tended. The war broke it. What remains is a great central continent flanked by two mountain ranges, a far Elven Isle, the lonely Isle of the Half-Elves, and, between them all, the Broken Deep, a storm-wracked sea studded with the drowned ruins of paradise. Two poles anchor the whole: the Wound in the north, where the Void seeps in, and the Wellspring in the south, the last great light.
Geography here is theology. A land is warm and living in proportion to how near its gods once stood, and cold and blighted in proportion to how far the light has withdrawn. To travel from the south to the north is to travel down the dying of the age.
The two poles
Everything in the world is oriented between two points. The Wellspring, at the south pole, is the last and greatest light, the deepest pool of the gods' remnant, and the reason the Hallowed South still runs golden. The Wound, at the north pole, is where the Void leaks through the broken shell of the world, and the source of the cold that is slowly climbing south. As the Wellspring dims and the Wound widens, the age deepens. The whole story lives on that axis.
The Realms
From the blighted north to the golden south, each fragment of the Sundered World carries the mark of the fading light.
The Failing Marches
The ruined, blighted north, all but bled of the light, where the dark rises first and the Rangers hold a line that is losing.
The Deepwood
The vast primeval forest, oldest of the living places, home of the tree-shepherds and the half-woken Natural Order.
The Elven Isle
The elven refuge across the water, where the faithful firstborn of the wood and sun keep an older, dimming grace.
The Lonely Isle
Home of the deathless half-elves, the isolated middle who cannot die and cannot quite bring themselves to act.
The Broken Deep
The storm-wracked sea between the fragments, studded with the drowned ruins of the paradise that was, and ruled by the fickle Sea-Lord.
The Wound
The north pole, where the Void seeps through the broken shell of the world. The cold begins here, and it is climbing.
The Wellspring
The south pole, the last great light, the deepest remnant of the gods. While it holds, the world holds. It is dimming.
Read on
Why the world is shaped this way is told in The Fall. Who lives in these lands is set down in The Peoples and The Natural Order.