Once one of the greatest human empires in Avistan, Cheliax has declined significantly in power and influence over the past century. When the god Aroden died, Cheliax collapsed into social upheaval and, shortly thereafter, civil war. Seeing an opportunity to seize power from chaos, House Thrune, which had long practiced the dark arts of diabolism in secret, entered into an open pact with the powers of Hell. Backed by legions of devils, the house’s own fearsome armies, and the support of shadowcallers from the neighboring land of Nidal, House Thrune stamped out its enemies and claimed the Chelish throne. Following its victory, House Thrune ushered in sweeping changes, reshaping Cheliax into an infernal empire. Today in Cheliax, the official histories are little more than state-sanctioned propaganda, the government runs a merciless and labyrinthine bureaucracy devoted to elevating the ruthless and crushing the weak, and the once-white roses of Egorian now blossom in fields of luxurious, velvety black blossoms.
Yet, for all its insistence on discipline and authority, House Thrune’s rule has not gone unchallenged. The city of Westcrown, in particular, has long been home to subdued dissent and underworld corruption, which came to a head when the Council of Thieves was unmasked and broken roughly a decade ago. Even more recently, two major rebellions—one successful, the other not—dramatically reshaped the balance of power and weakened House Thrune’s grip on the region. Nevertheless, infernal Cheliax remains an immensely wealthy, influential, and well-armed nation, and House Thrune’s rule continues to guide not only its own land, but also the fates of nations beyond its borders. Isger, Nidal, and newly independent Ravounel all bear particularly tight and intricate ties with the devils’ empire.
Devastated by years of bitter warfare following centuries of exploitative, near-colonial rule, Isger remains a subordinate thrall to Cheliax. Its government is kept on a short leash and granted little agency to chart its own course. Out in the hinterlands, however, far from House Thrune’s watchful eye, some Isgeri towns are developing their own unlikely alliances to survive.
The shadowy nation of Nidal also counts itself an ally to Cheliax, but its position is nearly opposite Isger’s. Steeped in millennia of sinister magic and the cruel religion of Zon-Kuthon, Nidal does not consider itself a vassal, but rather a close and valued advisor to a like-minded friend who could, perhaps, benefit from a little coaxing to become even crueler.
Ravounel, by contrast, broke away from Cheliax several years ago and declared itself an independent nation. Yet even after being formally recognized as a free state, Ravounel has found that it cannot fully escape its former ruler’s influence. Cheliax holds Ravounel pinned against the sea, and the old empire’s economic and diplomatic domination of the region is so complete that despite having supernatural protection against direct military incursion, Ravounel must remain in Cheliax’s good graces to survive. For now, House Thrune seems inclined to accept its former archduchy’s independence as an unfortunate but unchallenged fact, and it has dealt fairly with Ravounel. Yet as many on both sides are well aware, a devil’s mercy is fickle, and its memory long. Should a few delicate circumstances change, Ravounel’s sudden independence might just as suddenly be reversed.
Cheliax
For over half a millennium, Imperial Cheliax was the dominant power across Avistan. When King Aspex the Even-Tongued broke Cheliax away from Taldor, annexed Andoran, and conquered Isger and Galt, he began a centuries-long era of glory that saw Chelish influence—political, cultural, and military—spread across the continent. Bolstered by the favor of Aroden, patron god of humanity, the empire ascended to become a jewel of human civilization, an honor it held unchallenged for centuries.
Cheliax’s golden age ended with Aroden’s death. In the turmoil that followed, the diabolist House Thrune made an infernal pact with the powers of Hell, the terms of which remain shrouded in deep secrecy. The result of that grand bargain, however, still reverberates across the world. Allied with Asmodeus’s legions of fiends, Queen Abrogail I seized power, beginning a dynasty that has held the Chelish throne for nearly a century.
Today, Cheliax is a proud but diminished empire, renowned for its wine, opera, and glorious architecture, but also for the devils in its streets and the cruelty of its laws. Under Thrune rule, the poor are viciously oppressed, crimes are punished by agonizing public excruciations and executions, and slavery is both commonplace and harshly practiced, with none of the legal protections that existed in Aroden’s day. The church of Asmodeus is the state religion, and other faiths are permitted only by House Thrune’s sufferance.
Yet Cheliax is also a realm of high refinement, stunning and sophisticated art, and undeniable grandeur in both public and private spaces. The polished elegance of Egorian, the bustling naval yards of Ostenso, and the aging magnificence of Westcrown—even with the damage from that city’s recent rebellion only partially repaired—are among the wonders of human civilization. The empire’s opera halls, palaces, and cathedrals are unrivaled in their splendor, even if the Asmodean cathedrals’ resplendence bears a decidedly sinister cast. Cheliax’s citizens tend to be ambitious, educated, and formidably intelligent; they deal with devils as equals or even treat the infernal as their lessers, never approaching the powers of Hell as abject supplicants.
Not all of the empire’s citizens are fond of fiends, though outsiders sometimes assume otherwise. The various orders of Hellknights model themselves after Hell’s ruthless discipline and unyielding law, but they do not venerate devils and, indeed, require recruits (known as armigers) to win knighthood by slaying a devil in single combat. Additionally, Iomedae, the chivalrous goddess of crusaders, was born in Cheliax, and the Inheritor’s righteous faith remains strong there, despite recent events exacerbating the long-standing strain between Iomedae’s church and that of Asmodeus.
Moreover, because Chelish culture values brilliance in nearly any pursuit, and because its nobles are perpetually striving for advancement against one another, it thinks itself more meritocratic than many societies on Golarion. Low-born but talented individuals can always find patrons willing to advance their careers in exchange for profits or reflected glory and can often marry or bribe their way into titles of their own in time. The Hellknights, too, offer ready advancement for those who prove themselves in service. However, Cheliax is also merciless in enforcing the downside of its “meritocracy”: those unlucky enough to lack the qualities it values are treated as completely worthless, undeserving of even basic dignity. Furthermore, this supposed meritocracy applies only to humans. Halflings, hellspawn, and the winged strix are shut out from opportunity altogether. Chelish halflings are almost all either servants or slaves, and they are treated with peremptory
disdain. Hellspawn, who are descendants of humans with fiendish blood, are held in even lower regard, for they are seen as the fruits of an abhorrent lapse in selfcontrol
while dealing with fiends. The seldom-seen strix—enigmatic, black-winged humanoids—are commonly considered brutes, barely even capable of language.
These and other contradictions in its nature make Cheliax one of the most complicated of the world’s nations. Those contradictions have only sharpened over
the past decade, which has not been kind to the infernal empire. Though still mighty,
Cheliax has suffered a number of stinging setbacks. It lost a major armada in the Shackles, a significant blow to Chelish naval power that put an end, at least temporarily,
to Cheliax’s hopes of expanding into the Mwangi Expanse. Next, a violent rebellion calling itself the Glorious Reclamation erupted in Westcrown, causing widespread
social unrest before Queen Abrogail’s forces were able to crush the rebels and restore order. While Iomedae’s faith has not been outlawed in Cheliax following the Glorious Reclamation’s defeat, it is watched much more closely, and its adherents have learned not to criticize the queen in even the mildest of terms. Simultaneously with the
Glorious Reclamation, a second rebellion broke out in the Archduchy of Ravounel, which declared itself an independent nation—a bitter pill that House Thrune was forced to swallow lest it suffer truly unacceptable consequences.
All these blows have pushed Cheliax into a position more precarious than it has occupied since the first days of the Thrune Ascendancy. The empire’s enemies, most notably Andoran, circle eagerly around it, waiting for a chance to pounce. They may find, however, that Cheliax remains a wily and dangerous adversary, and its weakness may be deliberately exaggerated as a ploy to draw in the foolish.
Devil’s Perch
This stark reach of vertiginous red rocks and narrow canyons is home to the strix, who have an outsize reputation in Cheliax for savagery and xenophobia.
For centuries, Chelaxians avoided the arid pillars and plateaus of Devil’s Perch, but the recent discovery of silver in the region has sparked new interest—and new hostilities between the native strix and human interlopers, which the Chelish government has only partially contained.
Whisperwood
This vast and ancient forest in the empire’s heartlands has been left largely untouched despite centuries of settlement around it. Desperate outlaws sometimes seek refuge beneath its leaves, only to meet grisly misfortune. Local lore holds that a strange menace grips the Whisperwood, and it is well known that devils hunt its depths. A gate to Hell is rumored to lie in Scar Thicket, near the forest’s heart, but none of those who have ventured in to close this gate have ever returned.
Isger
Since its founding, Isger has been a vassal state. It was formed with Taldor’s conquest of the area and, centuries later, it was annexed by Cheliax in the Even- Tongued Conquest of 4081. Unlike some of Cheliax’s other holdings, Isger did not break free during the Thrune Ascendancy, and it remains in thrall today. However, there are signs that the neglect and exploitation that have long characterized Isger’s relationship with its patron state are beginning to give way to a new era of closer involvement, for better and worse. The Conerica River, which bisects Isger from east to west and connects Cheliax’s sea trade to Druma and Lake Encarthan, is the nation’s lifeblood. The river and its support roads are key to Isger’s regional importance, so most of its military is tasked with protecting the trade routes from bandits, monsters, and other dangers. Because travelers and merchants rely heavily on the Conerica and its trade roads, settlements along the river—including the capital city, Elidir—are not the isolated rural settlements their wooden buildings and quaint architecture might suggest. Although their pierced
balusters, colorful glass-bead hangings, and brightly painted frieze boards give even the finest homes in Isger a rustic air, these towns are relatively cosmopolitan.
Isger’s hinterlands, however, have been less fortunate. Historically, Isger has always been something of an afterthought to its masters. Taldor and later Cheliax have held Isger as a vassal state, extracting its natural resources and talent while offering little in return. As a result, Isger has almost no industry, fortifications, or development outside the Conerica River’s narrow band of prosperity. When the
Goblinblood Wars of 4697 to 4701 erupted, they devastated a region that had no defense save valiant but badly overmatched local militias. The Goblinblood Wars saw hundreds of goblin tribes, led by ferocious and disciplined hobgoblin commanders, boil out of the Chitterwood and flood across Isger, destroying and devouring all in their path. Although the goblin horde was eventually driven back by an unprecedented alliance between the forces of Cheliax, Druma, and Andoran, the toll in lost Isgeri lives and wealth was enormous. Those losses continue to define much of the country. Thousands of Isgeri children were orphaned by the war, and their weak, war-ravaged government could not help them. The Church of Asmodeus stepped in to fill that need, founding a network of orphanages to cultivate its young charges in the Archfiend’s unholy faith. These children begin intensive training at early ages, enabling them to quickly master difficult arts, such as the arcane fighting style practiced by the Sisterhood of the Golden Erinys. The success of the orphanages’ graduates has drawn notice in Cheliax. With the old empire weakened and its enemies gathering, some Chelaxians have begun to look toward Isger both for investment opportunities and as a potential first line of defense against Andoran. The increased Chelish presence is welcomed by some and quietly resented by others, but none can deny that, perhaps for the first time, Cheliax seems to have taken a serious interest in bolstering its vassal state. There are even rumors that Isger’s longserving steward, Hedvend VI, may soon be forced to abdicate his seat. Though Hedvend has always been a loyal right hand, House Thrune has expressed impatience with his incompetence and a desire to see Isger’s throne occupied by someone more capable. This rumor has mostly been met with shrugs in Isger, where Hedvend is widely regarded as a Chelish puppet who has neither the interest nor the ability to help his own people. The overgrown remains of massacred towns and unmarked graves, neglected since the Goblinblood Wars, stand as mute testament to that. The Isgeri are not, however, the only ones to carry scars from the Goblinblood Wars. The goblins themselves paid a terrible price for their short-lived triumph. Not only were they massacred by the thousands in the final battles, but the victorious armies—and later, vengeful Isgeri survivors—burned great swaths of the Chitterwood to destroy the goblins’ homes. From these hardships, a new strain of goblin leadership has emerged. Several goblin chieftains, brighter and longer-sighted than their predecessors, have formed an alliance between their tribes and made diplomatic overtures to nearby Isgeri settlements. Given that the war’s wounds remain raw, the tribes’ progress is slow, but they have established some mutual defense agreements with nearby towns, and they have begun to change how goblins are perceived in the region. Isger’s rural towns and villages, accustomed to making their own decisions without any help from a disinterested central government, have found some of these goblins to be more reliable allies than their own nominal lords. This shift in relations is driven by need. Undead have long bedeviled this land, particularly in remote places such as Finder’s Gulch and the plague-ravaged ruins of Gillamoor, where rotting and ravening zombies stalk through the crumbling houses of the dead. Urgathoan cults proliferate among blood-soaked battlefields and the blackened remains of torched villages, feeding on the fear and pain that still linger in those haunted sites. These malign forces have grown stronger and more numerous since the Goblinblood Wars and, some say, since Tar-Baphon’s rise. Whether or not that rumor is true, it is certain that neither goblins nor humans can afford to ignore the rising tide of undead in Isger’s hinterlands much longer.
Nidal
Time scarcely seems to touch the shadow-chained nation of Nidal. Ten thousand years ago, when Earthfall cast the world into darkness, three ancient horselords of Nidal threw themselves on the mercy of Zon-Kuthon, the Midnight Lord. They pledged that if the god of shadow and pain interceded to protect them, they and all their descendants would be sworn to him eternally. Zon-Kuthon accepted their bargain, gifting the trio with cursed immortality as the Black Triune and sealing Nidal’s fate ever after. All Nidalese since then have been born into Zon-Kuthon’s faith, and from earliest childhood they are taught that pain is sacred, suffering is joy, and their holiest duty is to endlessly refine and sharpen those sensations into sacraments.
The Midnight Lord’s hand lies heavy on his land. Unnatural gloom blankets Nidal, from the shade of the enormous, black-leaved trees over languidly glittering Pangolais to the perpetual storm clouds over the port city of Nisroch. Colors seem to drain away as one moves toward the heartlands of Nidal, leaving the world tinted subtly monochrome. With the presence of Zon-Kuthon so palpable throughout the nation, Nidal has never cared overmuch about either expanding or defending its territory. Its borders are divinely drawn, and they haven’t changed since the days of the Black Triune’s pact.
The sole major interruption in Nidal’s history was its conquest by Cheliax, which ushered in a period of reform and openness unusual for the insular, theocratic nation. After Aroden’s death, however, the relationship between Nidal and Cheliax changed once more, with Nidal immediately throwing its full force behind House Thrune in the Chelish Civil War. Once House Thrune was firmly in power, the alliance between Nidal and the diabolist regime became stronger than ever, with agents of each country frequently serving in the other. Today, Nidalese clerics, shadowcallers, and advisors can be found throughout Cheliax and its holdings, wielding their influence to bolster House Thrune’s power and thus spread holy suffering across the land.
Life within Nidal, meanwhile, continues much as it always has. The Umbral Court, Nidal’s shadow-touched aristocracy, governs on behalf of the Black Triune. Shadowy agents enforce the court’s authority outside the major cities and abroad. The Umbral Court is heavily intertwined with Nidal’s other main sources of authority—Zon-Kuthon’s church, the pale druids of the Uskwood, and the specialist magical academies that train Nidalese shadowcallers and shadowbinders—but these organizations are distinct, albeit overlapping, and their goals sometimes conflict. This is particularly true of the Uskwood druids, who see little value in the Chelish alliance and would prefer to withdraw the government’s full attention back into Nidal altogether.
Farmers, fisherfolk, and artisans pay lip service to Zon-Kuthon while trying to raise their small, close-knit families in his shadow. Though many might prefer to live differently, they have been under the Midnight Lord’s yoke for so long that they can imagine no other existence—and hope is dangerous in this land, especially when a grim but assured peace is the alternative. The nation’s long stability has allowed many families to spend generations perfecting their skills, so Nidalese glass, intricately cut jewelry, and ornamental metalwork are unsurpassed in Avistan. Additionally, because Nidal is the only civilization in the Inner Sea to have survived the destruction of Earthfall intact, it is a repository for lore that exists nowhere else in the world. To this day, scholars of history and religion make pilgrimages to the dark cities of Nidal, braving the Midnight Lord’s regime in exchange for the chance to study archives unlike any other in the Inner Sea region.
Far outside the cities, on the gray-grassed Atteran plains, live a hardy, proud people who are descended from the original Nidalese horselords and still observe many of their traditions. These clans are famed for the swiftness and courage of their horses, which are prized across the Inner Sea. Their heritage and cultural links to ancient Nidal grant the modern horselords a degree of freedom that no others in their shadowbound land enjoy, but even they dare not defy the Umbral Court directly. Nevertheless, the Atteran Ranches harbor many of the devotees of Desna who call themselves Dreamers. These idealists share the secret, guarded hope that, someday, it may be possible to break Zon-Kuthon’s grip on their land.
Nidal is also home to sizable populations of caligni, kayal (also known as fetchlings), velstracs (sinister fiends from the Shadow Plane), and light-averse undead such as vampires. Caligni are children of Old Calignos, an Azlanti settlement. They have developed their own unique traditions, pieced together from accounts of ancient Azlant, within the broader auspices of Nidalese culture. Kayal, descendants of humans who were long ago stranded on the Shadow Plane and altered by its magic, prefer to blend into human society as much as possible. Velstracs and vampires in Nidal, meanwhile, flaunt their natures openly and tend to hold privileged positions, in keeping with their power and the terror they inspire in others.
The Mindspin Mountains
This steep, forbidding range serves as a natural barrier between Belkzen, Nidal, Molthune, Nirmathas, and Varisia. The dwarven cities of Janderhoff and Kraggodan are in the Mindspins, as are the nation Oprak and Citadel Vraid, home to the Hellknight Order of the Nail. Otherwise, the mountains hold few notable settlements outside the handful of strategically important passes linking one nation to the next.
The wilder regions of the Mindspins are home to dragons and giant tribes, as well as harpies, manticores, drakes, and other strange, fierce monsters. Ancient ruins, some dating to before Earthfall, lie hidden among the peaks and valleys, including several wonders from long-lost Thassilon.
Ravounel
The latest and most drastic shift in the Old Cheliax region is the independence of Ravounel, which seceded from Cheliax and declared itself as a free nation a few years ago. Under the leadership of Domina Jilia Bainilus, the former Lord-Mayor of Kintargo, Ravounel has threaded the delicate line between shoring up its own position as a regional power and maintaining cordial, if strained, relationships with its neighbors. Domina Bainilus must also preserve harmony between the various powers within Ravounel through diplomatic means, since she does not have the military strength to force compliance from her subjects and cannot afford to alienate any allies in the fragile new state. Although she has performed admirably so far, the difficulty of her position has increased as tensions mount between Cheliax and Andoran.
Ravounel gained its independence by unusual and dramatic means. A rebel group, the Silver Ravens, uncovered a long-forgotten infernal document, the Kintargo Contract, and determined that its terms held a loophole that could be used to legally break House Thrune’s grip on the Archduchy of Ravounel. The Silver Ravens deposed Paracount Barzillai Thrune, who had used his temporary seat in Kintargo to plot treason against his own house, installed Lord-Mayor Bainilus as the leader of this new nation, and worked to unite various factions within Ravounel behind her. Upon attaining office, Lord-Mayor Bainilus chose the title “Domina,” an old-fashioned honorific that had fallen into disuse after the Chelish Civil War. The choice of title was meant to signal both that Ravounel now stood outside House Thrune’s hierarchy and that she intended to govern in keeping with old Chelish values—which might be interpreted either as a subtle rebuke to House Thrune’s perversion of those values, or an indication that she did not intend to repudiate Ravounel’s Chelish heritage and connections. This ambiguity is deliberate, and characteristic of Ravounel’s positions.
Several disparate groups hold influence within Ravounel. First and foremost are the wealthy families of Kintargo, who control the shipping concerns, established industries, and domestic trade networks within the new country. Sea trade is particularly important, because the collapse of the Menador Gap has cut off land trade until Ravounel can clear the gap; this is an expensive and ongoing project, and it has spurred a certain amount of resentment toward the Silver Ravens, who won the nation’s independence in part by deliberately destroying the pass to prevent Cheliax from attempting a military takeover. Now that invasion is no longer an immediate risk, many are second-guessing the costs that Ravounel incurred to prevent it.
Other influential groups in the new realm include the aquatic elves of the Dismal Nitch, the strix of the Ravounel Forest, and the self-styled Kings and Queens of Vyre, the City of Masks. These last have kept Ravounel’s government at a flirtatious distance, offering it sporadic and unreliable support without pledging any formal allegiance. Each of these groups offers valuable trade goods, military defenses, and regional intelligence, but none are accustomed to coordinating their interests or activities with the others. The new government of Ravounel is forever coaxing them to cooperate, and they have sometimes chafed at its demands. Meetings of the Council of Peers, as the factions’ representatives are called, can be fractious.
The Bellflower Network, a secretive, halfling-centric organization that smuggles escaped slaves out of Cheliax to freedom, has also developed a strong presence in Ravounel, which has outlawed slavery under the new regime. However, Ravounel’s emerging status as a haven for escaped slaves has caused it quite a few headaches, as slave-hunters such as the Hellknight Order of the Chain demand the government’s cooperation in apprehending fleeing slaves. An additional complication is that some Kintargan nobles, whose sympathies and business connections remain with Cheliax, have taken to kidnapping slaves and selling them back to the infernal empire. While Domina Bainilus would dearly love to put an end to this practice, she does not yet have the political or economic strength to confront these nobles, who collectively could threaten the stability of her regime.
Despite this, the mood in the young country is overwhelmingly optimistic. Cheliax’s most ardent loyalists have returned to their mother country, and the citizens who remain are determined to build Ravounel into a fairer and kinder society. Most of its people never believed they would live to see a day in which, after a largely bloodless revolution, they could declare their independence from the empire of devils and force House Thrune to respect that independence. If that means Ravounel must be slightly poorer and less grandiose than it was as an archduchy of Cheliax, this is little loss, for at least now its wealth and prestige can be shared more equitably among its citizens.
Vyre
The independent city-state of Vyre, known as the City of Masks, predates Cheliax and has long been famous for its riotous entertainments. Gambling halls, fighting pits, brothels, and hawkers of every imaginable vice crowd the city, catering to wealthy Chelaxians seeking a respite from their regimented lives. Since Ravounel declared independence, Vyre’s status has become even more ambiguous. The masked Kings and Queens who rule the city declared their support for Ravounel while simultaneously encouraging their Chelish visitors to continue carousing as if nothing had changed—and, indeed, little seems to have changed in Vyre today. The same cruel entertainments that were available under Queen Abrogail II’s rule are still performed under Domina Bainilus’s flag, and the same promise of anonymity is offered to its guests. Beneath the surface, however, much is in flux. Vyre is a center of Norgorber’s worship, and Vyre’s current position as a playground between Cheliax and Ravounel has created a perfect opportunity for Norgorber’s faithful to harvest secrets, sow betrayals, and sabotage both sides of the divide.
Comments