Nefyran

The homelands of humanity, ever-changing and brimming with magic in all its forms.

These lands are nothing like they used to be. The sun shone brighter, the ground was softer, and the cliffs which decorate the horizon didn't reside there just a few decades ago...

— Wistful mutters of an elder woman

Nefyran is the name given to one of the major landmasses of Malkora, often hailed as the world's western lands.

Shifting Landscapes

The lands of Nefyran are known to change with the emergence of leylines, in varying intensities. This phenomenon results in many extreme or unnatural geographies and climates scattered throughout the world, the properties of which are dictated by the whim of magical influence, rather than true natural formation.
The ever-evolving lands of Nefyran boast a breadth of diverse regions, people, and histories, the latter of which range from ancient to newly emerging. Many of the regions within Nefyran undergo regular cycles of transformation, some being more sudden than others, resulting in drastically altered landscapes, shifting populations, and ever-evolving populations of people surviving in the world.
Conversely, some regions of Nefyran, or even small pockets of these regions, have remained as they have been for millennia or longer. The reasons for this are varied, many wholly unknown, and several speculated.

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Toggle different marker groups to see subregions and settlements scattered throughout the primary regions of Nefyran!

Ink-Stained Map of Malkora

Open full size

This map may be a ruined cartography project, but you find that it is still quite useful in getting to know at least one corner of the world — the continent of Nefyran.
Luckily for you, the poor cartographer whose work has been ruined is not too distraught to tell you at least a little bit about some of the regions and some of the places within. Just don't be too pushy.

The map above offers a glimpse into the regions within Nefyran, though spilled ink has rather ruined the entire rest of the map for any prospective viewer. Sad as that may be for you, do consider the effect this destruction has had on your young cartographer friend, who has watched their hard-earned coin now soaking the parchment of what may have once been their favorite new project.
Always remember to thank your cartographers!
You never really know just how much they are struggling to bring you such beautiful works of art, or how many have been absolutely ruined mid-process by their beloved fluffy companions.

The lands of Malkora are great and varied, and often do not stay the same for very long...

by Strixxline via Midjourney

Regions (Northeastern)

- Kingdom of Arsavela
- Nimavi
- Uris Braena
- Uris Halnaa
- Ba'Logor

Regions (Central)

- Caldera
- Vynarsa
- Leechsea
- Undmar

Regions (Southern)

- Everbright
- Bolkan
- Earthen Kingdoms
- Yulrorim

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A Storied History

Nefyran, in all of its parts, was once known to be the Empire of Aether. Occupied by the ancient people of Malkora known as the Antecedents, this great empire brought both the golden age of magic, and the world's darkest age: the nameless era.
Understanding the causes of both events has been the toil of many a historian in the world, and adventurers brave the dangers of the world's most volatile places to find even a scrap of surviving history from before the nameless era.

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Shifting Landscapes

The lands of Nefyran boast a breadth of diverse regions, people, and histories, the latter of which range from ancient to newly emerging. Many of the regions within Nefyran undergo regular cycles of transformation, some being more sudden than others, resulting in drastically altered landscapes, shifting populations, and ever-evolving populations of people surviving in the world.

Northeastern Nefyran

Northeastern Nefyran features regions such as the Kingdom of Arsavela, Nimavi, and Uris Braena, and is not known for widespread magical influence. The exception to this is found within pockets of the Hearthwood of Nimavi, in which magic runs rampant. These lands, however, are largely inaccessible to the average denizen of the surrounding regions, who remain in many cases ignorant of the true nature of leyline magic within the world at large.
The lands of Northeastern Nefyran are lands dominated primarily by the magics of faith, and not of the leylines or the primals. Divines shape the lives of the people who reside here; many who live in lands beyond these borders often theorize that these Divines have played a hand in the very nature of the lands over which they preside, causing the relative stability of the leylines that they never overturn the lands by emerging within. This, of course, is mere speculation.
The stability of the landscape within Northeastern Nefyran is what has afforded kingdoms such as Arsavela to thrive and develop uninterrupted since the dawn of the new era. Such long-standing kingdoms are exceptionally rare in other parts of Malkora, through they are not unheard of.

Central Nefyran

Though many consider Northeastern Nefyran to shift to Central Nefyran at the towering Rhonsoril mountain range, Uris Braena claims its sister region on the western side of the mountain to be the second half to one united Kingdom. Likewise, this sister region of Uris Halnaa claims Ba'Logor to the north to be an extension of its own forests. These regions would draw their borders with Central Nefyran claiming only the lands including the great Caldera and what lies south of it, including even Leechsea, which most would argue should be seen as a territory connected to Hearthwood and not one separate from it.
All maps of Central Nefyran do, however, include the regions from Vynarsa, which borders Southern Nefyran, to the Caldera in the north, as well as including the island region of Undmar. Undmar's proximity to Leechsea does often pull this large swampland into common maps of Central Nefyran as well, despite the aforementioned common claims that it ought to be categorized as a Northeastern territory.

Southern Nefyran

Southern Nefyran is marked by harsher landscapes, featuring the nightless deserts of Everbright, the forever-burning Bolkan, and the treacherous lurching cliffs of the Earthen Kingdoms. Leylines periodically emerge within these lands, churning and transforming them piece by piece, from the geography to the creatures within. The people who reside within the lands of Southern Nefyran are among the world's most resilient; these are hardy folk who survive in environments which seldom provide a safe place to stay for very long.
The primals found purchase in these tumultuous lands, feeling at home in the more rugged, underdeveloped and less-explored places found within them. Likewise, many of those who reside within these lands may trace their ancestry to primal bloodlines, which only serve to aid them in their quest for survival. Those settlements which do exist in the harshest of these lands are often brimming with worldspirit folk, those naturally adapted to living every day exposed to the elements which would bring other humans great harm.

Western Nefyran

Western Nefyran is known to most as being an inhospitable zone, more chaotic in its transformations than even Southern Nefyran. Whereas regions in the latter shift almost as if in cycles, through long periods of transition, with stages of stability throughout, the regions of Western Nefyran appear to turn and shift sporadically and without warning. Lands explored a mere several days prior could be wholly unrecognizable, even as other pockets of various regions within rest unchanged for millennia. This unpredictable nature has prevented the development of any expansive population zones, cities, capitals, kingdoms, and the like, but there are still those who manage to find a life within these unstable lands. Some exceptions do include large cities and surviving populations, but reaching them safely is often the greatest obstacle in the quest to find them. Only the sharpest and most adaptable of beings can expect to survive in the farthest reaches of Western Nefyran.
The leylines appear to lose their stability the farther west one travels in Nefyran, the nature of these ever-changing regions being a testament to this phenomenon. Their lessened stability, however, does mean that the raw energies of the leylines are more easily exposed and, in turn, utilized by those with an affinity for magic. Though extremely dangerous, many who seek to understand the mysteries of leyline magic ultimately set out on journeys into the unstable lands of Western Nefyran in order to test their ability and to make new discoveries. Likewise, magical reagents are exceedingly common in these lands, although with the environments shifting as often as they do, it is often impossible to track any specific targets. What was once found upon the grassy cliffs of a region in the west may very well disappear in the following days, replaced with anything from frigid waterfalls to barren flatlands.

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