Wildemount

835 PD (Post-Divergence)

Two armies clash on a fog-shrouded battlefield, heralded by the sound of trumpets and drums on one side, and by an eerie, chirping whistle like countless thousands of wailing crickets on the other. A raven, its ebon feathers spattered with blood, alights on one of the fallen corpses and gently raps its beak on the soldier’s helmet. The raven looks up, curious, and flies into the sky. A land embroiled in war expands beneath it, and yet, within the shroud of conflict, the raven sees twinkling pockets of light. The raven sees souls that shine bright with courage, kindness, and determination. It sees souls lustrous with greed, fear, and anger. And most of all, it sees souls radiating with a desire to discover their place in the world. The raven sees Wildemount.   The raven soars over a massive city, sprawling outward from a somber, monolithic palace. Soldiers and war machines pour from the city, stretching across the land like innumerable grasping arms, greedily encircling the continent. The Dwendalian Empire is a young, ambitious state borne from decades of strife in Western Wynandir — the heartland of Wildemount. Its austere lands are dotted with tiny villages, ruins of ancient civilizations, and pockets of uncharted wilderness. The raven notes this hungry behemoth and alters course.   Westward flies the herald of the Raven Queen. It bursts through the clouds above the western mountains and emerges into a land blessed by sun. A sea of lush jungle stretches out beneath the raven, until eventually green gives way to golden sand, and then to a boundless, sapphire sea. Ships swarm on that sea like a cloud of gnats, engulfed by flames and the sound of cannon fire. They fight for freedom. The Clovis Concord is a republic of city-states lining the Menagerie Coast, the westernmost shore of Wildemount. This tropical region is rich with history and known for a lively, free-spirited culture that contrasts sharply with Wildemount’s other, politically narrow-minded nations.   The raven, battered by ice and snow, sees petty warlords lead bands of slavers across the snowfields and understands that no law but power rules the north. It sees smugglers and thieves flee beyond the grasp of civilization and into the unknown. It sees the vast, roiling wilderness act with a fell will of its own, claiming the lives of those who dare attempt to grasp power beyond their ken. They fight for survival, glory, and greed. The Tribes of Shadycreek Run are a fragmented coalition of thieves, slavers, and scoundrels who managed to amass power in the frigid backwater of Shadycreek Run. While they struggle to enrich themselves through crime, however, they fail to realize that malign, primordial powers are creeping into the north underneath their noses.   Finally, the raven flies east. It sees beings that would be slain on sight in the other civilized nations of Wildemount, walking side-by-side with humans and gray-skinned elves. The raven sees that these people have a light within them — and it sees that, far to the east, there is a mighty fortress that contains a light unseen since the dawning of the world. The Kryn Dynasty is an empire made up of dark elves (drow) and other humanoids typically considered to be monsters by the other nations of Wildemount, such as minotaurs, goblinkin, and gnolls. The Kryn Dynasty rules over the wastes of Xhorhas, a land once blighted by the rule of the Betrayer Gods when immortals still walked the land. Here, they fight for the revelation of the end of the world.