Valael, a Continent in the World of Arys

The current state of Arteros is one of balancing on a knife's edge. A strange withering of crops has coincided with kidnappings of children in the northern regions of the country, setting everyone therein on edge. While the outward facing branches of government keep a brave and confident face towards the public, the Head Council in Amontesh is in shambles, overwhelmed with rebuilding from a recent war, embedded in bureaucratic legality and desperately trying to solve a string of murders of the council members and rumors of an old evil returning to their shores. And on the eastern border tensions rise as border disputes become skirmishes and war with their eastern neighbor seems to be growing closer and closer...   Eleriath seeks to overcome many troubles of their own as well. The highly affluent and magically capable populace feels war with their western cousin Arteros is becoming ever more pressing, built on fundamental disagreements on borders and ways of governing. The combined effort of the head families in the capital of Marin to construct magical means of crossing the inhospitable Everplain has been met with strange and disturbing roadblocks. And, in the once peaceful southern region of the Zuma Jungle, tensions rise between the townsfolk and the protective tribe of the Zuma Kai, who blame each other for the unexplainable ravagings of nature and civiliazation alike...   On the sourthern half of the continent, the empire of Cerulea seeks to maintain its control. The theocratic rule of the country seems to be extending its iron fist in a gesture of friendship, whether it be feigned or not, to the elven forest nation of Vepar in light of stories of xenophobic violence that are popping up all over the empire. Indeed, Cerulea has never been the most hospitable place for anyone beyond the five Highborn Races, and the growing uneasiness surrounding the magical forest has made things just as dangerous for one of their own. As for what is actually happening behind the wooded curtain of Vepar, it is a mystery to all; no one has been able to directly communicate with them in hundreds of years...