The Seven Realms

"The Maker made five and The Maker made me / raised seven kingdoms out of the sea / snow and sand and elf and man / and dwarf and halfing and goblin-land."    --Children’s proverb, to remember the five races and the seven realms

  This world has been called Tara, Eridan, and Arka, but is best known as The Seven Realms, or simply “The Realms:” the arid South, the frozen Northeast, the Realm of Elf to the West, the Realms of Man and Halfling to the East, the Realm of Dwarf to true north, and the desolate northwestern Realm of Orkush—a catch-all term for the Orcs and their sinister cousins.   While the more inhospitable Realms have kept their borders, others have codified into nations due to war, taxation, marriage, or trade—the Realm of Dwarf is now three distinct kingdoms, for instance, and both the Realm of Elf and the Realm of Man have similarly split. As it stands today, there are twelve nations that make up The Realms, in a (mostly) harmonious and (usually) peaceful balance of power.   What lies beyond the Realms, to the Far West, or further north or south, where temperatures plummet and soar, or across the endless ocean known as The Deep? Unmapped wilderness and abyssal lands devoid of life—except for the microscopic or the immeasurable. The size and scope of the planet is unknown, but sentient life, it seems, can only inhabit 30 million square miles. From above, this zone—the Seven Realms—appears as a colossal ocean inlet with lakes, hills, and fields on a shoreline longer than our Great Wall of China. There are mountain ranges further inland, and a million miles of dense, dangerous jungle to the south. Even from so far above the danger is evident—tundras, deserts, wildlands, treacherous peaks, to say nothing of the inhabiting creatures—but the heroics and challenges of the citizenry as well as their grand cities are but miniscule dots on a map.    Still, only the exceptional and the foolhardy inhabitants of this land will ever travel more than a hundred miles from their home.