User:Aenigmatrices/My Sandbox

=Warhammer World=


 * “This was once a world of purity and splendour. An ice-clad jewel in the heavens, slowly nurtured into a paradise by beings older than Time.


 * To look upon this world was to witness the hopes of that unknowable race made real. Lush vistas of dense jungle swathed the lands, winged lizards swooped lazily through the multicoloured mists. White-crested mountains soared through gossamer clouds to graze the heavens, their uncharted depths shot through with thick veins of precious metal. Oceans blue as sapphires caressed the lands under endless turquoise skies. Temple-cities thrived across the globe, their reptilian denizens as ordered as cogs in a divinely fashioned machine. For a while, the world knew harmony.


 * Then came Chaos.




 * The Great Cataclysm shook the firmament with such force its echoes still pervade, and always will. All semblance of tranquility was blasted away in an instant. A screaming gale of raw magic enveloped the lands and the beasts that dwelt within. It remade them into forms disturbing and unclean, shaping them like clay in the hands of a demented artist.


 * Where once was the beauty there is now a vision of insanity. The crumbling faces of ancient kings, hewn from granite cliffs in aeons past, speak backwards untruths devised purely to riddle a man to madness. Endless forests of gnarled and sentient trees grab and strangle those that stray too close, their eaves hung with throttled corpses. Towering citadels of bone and sinew burst upwards from the ground at the command of cackling mages. The parched lands crack and split to reveal mass graves, moaning faces, hissing lava. Monstrous terrors prowl the wilderness in search for fresh meat. Nowhere is safe.


 * Upon this precarious foundation are built the sprawling nations of the world. The kingdoms of Mankind are triumphs of hope over constant adversity, their bustling fortress-cities breathtaking in size and accomplishment. And yet there can be no peace. The corrupting taint of Chaos yields discord as a field yields crops, and there are always warlords willing to reap its bloody harvest.


 * Ever onwards come the barbaric and murderous tribes of the wilds, flowing together into an immense horde that blackens the lands. The electric promise of conquest crackles in the air. Hell-spawned fiends boil out from the night, desperate to enslave and destroy. Roaring behemoths lumber out of their lairs, evil warlocks summon searing conflagrations of raw magic that turn entire battalions to ash.


 * Marching to meet them are armies beyond counting, their enchanted banners streaming in the wind. The rising sun turns red a hundred thousand spear points. Its ray burnish the armour of commanders hungry for conflict. And yet Man does not stand alone in his war against the darkness. The proud warhosts of the elder races stride out from their ancient realms, resplendent and majestic. Each warrior is the equal of a dozen lesser mortals, and yet none expect to see the dawn.


 * Under storm-wracked skies these surging legions clash. Battlelines slam into each other with the force of tidal waves. The muted roar of warfare resounds from the uncaring peaks.


 * The gods of strife shall feast upon this day, and every day hence, until the end of time.”
 * —War Unending.



The Empire
The Empire is a land dominated by deep, dark forests strewn with spider webs and the moss-covered remains of the fallen. Its heartlands are infested with all kinds of evil, from the savage Beastmen to marauding greenskins. These forests are punctuated by the spires of wizard's towers and the ruins of once-elegant Elf cities destroyed during the War of the Beard, many of which are now the lair of fierce beasts, bandits, or mutants.

The southern and western lands of the Empire are more civilised, with numerous fortified cities built along the magnificent River Reik. The Reikland is the heart of the Empire, and houses the current capital city of the Old World, Altdorf. The briar-choked wilderness that rises into the World's Edge Mountains is far more dangerous. Its wild and untamed places breed hardy fighters who form the backbone of many of the Empire's armies.

Bretonnia
Bretonnia lies to the south and west of the Empire, between the Grey Mountains and the endless reaches of the Middle Sea. Each of Bretonnia's provinces are ruled over by the dukes whose weather-stained castles rise into the air in imitation of the abandoned Elf towers along her northern coast. Like much of the country, they are under constant repair and reconstruction.

Compared to the wealthy cities of the Empire, the settlements of Bretonnia are parochial, rundown and impoverished. The land boasts no seats of learning and its castles are decorated with mouldering tapestries of past glories. The pox-stricken peasantry live in shanty towns and hovels gathered about the castle walls, as the greater part of the country's wealth is spent on the splendour of its knights, for whom a fine appearance is just as important as the keen edge of sword and lance.

Kislev
Kislev is the most northern of the lands of the Old World proper and the closest to the Daemon-infested Chaos Wastes. It is a cold land bordered to the east by the World's Edge Mountains, and by the Sea of Claws to the west. In the northlands every town and village is heavily defended because the lands are infested with Chaos warbands and marauding monsters. The plains of the east are sparsely inhabited by nomad horse tribes; expert riders and archers born to the saddle. The western and southern tundra is more densely inhabited with many fortified settlements.

Kislev is ruled by great warrior-mages called Tzars and Tzarinas, who have potent magical powers rooted in their own elemental Ice Magic. The Kislevites are long-standing allies of the Empire. In times of great danger the two realms unite to overcome the perils of Chaos. This relationship has lasted for many centuries with only the occasional dispute that has set the two nations against each other. The warriors of Kislev are amongst the finest cavalry in the Old World, with the resplendent Winged Lancers considered experts with horse and lance, aided by Ungol Horse Archers from the eastern tribes. Those are supported by Kossar infantry drawn from all across the lands of Kislev, trained to fight with bows and axes.

Troll Country
The area north of Kislev is a malign wilderness known as Troll Country. No tribes dwell here, for the predators that stalk its untrammelled wastes are beyond counting. No other realm in the mortal world harbours as many monsters, the most common of which are Trolls of all breeds – from the slime-covered and scaly beasts that wallow in the fish-stink of its polluted rivers to the unblinking, two-headed horrors that lie in wait within its mist-wreathed haunts. The mutating power of Chaos has touched more than Trolls, however.

Packs of ice-wolves hunt down and pounce upon those who stray into their territory, their mournful howls piercing the night. Cockatrices dwell within cavernous lairs and Manticores soar high above mountain ranges in search of fresh prey. Frost-wyrms make their lairs across the frozen tundra, still as death until the footfalls of trespassers trigger a murderous burst of activity. Though the sane men of the Old World abhor Troll Country as a frozen purgatory from which few return, the Champions of Chaos frequently brave its dangers. For where better to seek eternal glory than in a land that harbours more monsters than men?

Norsca
Lying close to the borders of Chaos, the northlands are saturated with malefic forces. It is a frozen wasteland stalked by all manner of gruesome monsters and roving barbarians. No crops survive there, for the ground is as hard as iron and the howling winds cut like daggers of purest cold. A network of fjords and mist-shrouded islands wreath the coastline, and it is here that the Northmen build and tether the longships with which they terrorize the shores of the known world.

In the lands of Norsca, lying between the Sea of Claws and the Sea of Chaos, scattered coastal settlements provide some respite from the cruel elements, yet they are often attacked by bloodkrakens and other horrors. Further inland, the ice gives way to frozen steppes and eventually to open plains, where the tribes of horsemen hunt and stay clear of bone-carpeted Ice Drake lairs. It is a grim and shadowy land where the weak do not live long, and living means a constant fight for survival, supremacy and a chance to appease the gods.

Albion
In absorbing much of the Chaos energy, the soil of Albion itself became tainted and once fertile fields quickly changed into quagmires where a man could sink without a trace. The thick woods and forests became wild places where hawthorn and poisonous plants choked the life from the trees. Many feared to enter this once beautiful glades, and many of those who did were never seen again. Even the creatures of Albion were not able to escape the mutating effects of Chaos and after only a short period of time the tribesfolk told tales of terrible monsters lurking in the darkest reaches, emerging at night to prey upon the unwary.

World's Edge Mountains
East of the Empire rise the snow-capped peaks of the Worlds Edge Mountains. Amidst the heights and valleys, unseen by Men and Elves, the Dwarfs have chiselled vast architectural wonders. These are nothing less than underground cities – nigh-impregnable strongholds built to house the race of Dwarfs at the height of their power and skill. All of these underground mansions contain impressive fortifications, lower mining levels, great forges and workshops, and stone-hewn streets with living quarters. Although far below ground, the great Karaks are not darksome; they are illuminated by shafts cunningly wrought into the mountainside to allow in daylight. This, along with well-placed glowgems and great braziers, ensures that everywhere sparkles brightly with the glint of gold, the gleam of bronze, and the flash of gems.

Sylvania
Never has a land been so forsaken by the gods than Sylvania. Close to uninhabitable, Sylvania's forests are dingy copses of twisted, half-rotted trees that claw what nourishment they can from the thin soil. Lonesome moorlands and craggy hills punctuate the yellow-leafed woods, windswept and shrouded by the gloomy clouds that seep down from the Worlds Edge Mountains.

It is well that the land of Sylvania lies in the farthest east province of the Empire, for since the coming of the Vampire Counts, no sane man would want to claim dominion over its reaches. Nominally it is part of Stirland, but the notorious Vampire patriarch Vlad von Carstein left such a legacy of sorrow at the heart of Sylvania that it is considered a realm apart, and those peasant villagers who remain there live in perpetual terror of the night.

Athel Loren
Athel Loren is not as other forests. Its ancient trees long ago found vigour and voice, and they learned to hate the lesser beings who swarmed about the forest's eaves, gnawing at their verdant majesty with axe and flame. Few intruders survive unbidden within Athel Loren's bounds, for its tree-spirits' vigilance is matched only by their intense loathing of interlopers.

That the Wood Elves were not consumed by the vengeful spirits of Athel Loren is one of the peculiar accidents of history. The alliance between Elvenkind and living forest was born out of a shared peril, for at the time the Dwarfs of the Grey Mountains pressed hard upon the forest's borders, felling trees to feed hungry furnaces and slaying Elves as payment for their past grudges. The Elves of that region were few and the Dwarfs many. Only through combining their forces could the Elves and tree-spirits hope to survive for long.

Estalia
The Estalian Kingdoms lie far to the south, where the threat of Chaos seems very remote. Estalia is a collection of petty kingdoms, however, Estalians face no threat such as those from Orcs and Goblins so they mostly fight amongst themselves. Today, the two most powerful kingdoms are the city-states of Bilbali and Magritta. Both are strong because of trade and access to the sea, a fact that causes much jealously amongst the poor kingdoms of the Irrana Mountains. There is little evidence of the influence of Chaos in the Estalian Kingdoms, but it is there – not the brute power of the raging Beastman, but the hidden plotting of secret societies and cults which is eating away at distant Estalia.

Tilea
Tilea is a sunny land southwest of the Empire. Unlike Bretonnia and the Empire, it is not a unified nation but a collection of rival citystates. It is bordered by three mountain ranges – the Apuccini to the east, the Irrana to the north, and the Abasko to the west – and the Tilean Sea. Due to these impressive natural barriers, Tilea never suffered invasions as did the Empire, Kislev, and even Bretonnia. While this has allowed Tilea to develop a quite advanced culture, it also has kept the region divided. With no outside threat to unify the city-states, a nation state has not developed.

The Border Princes
The Borderlands are well-supplied with ruins, many of them dating from just a few years ago. Indeed, the areas ruled by the Border Princes often have more ruins than living settlements. The most common ruins in the Borderlands are the remains of recent attempts to settle the area. These can be destroyed in many ways and often are. Sometimes the neighbours resettle the site, but often it is simply abandoned, as no one has the resources to take over. As a result, these ruins are almost always above ground and almost always badly damaged in some way, even if only by the weather. Most of these ruins were left behind from the Sultan of Araby’s attempts to invade the Old World. As a result, they are not among the oldest, and they are recognisably Human in origin.

The Badlands
The Badlands are harsh, full of boulder-strewn moors and arid steppes. Ancient ruins, barrows and cairns testify that once the land was more fertile, but now they are just a grim tribute to some mysterious long-gone human civilisation. These days the main inhabitants are Orcs and Goblins, with all manner of tribes fighting for space.

The greenskins roam the plains, make ramshackle camps, and establish strongholds in a constant battle over territory. The ever-shifting borders are marked with picket lines of spiked skulls, gory battle trophies or vast tribal symbols carved into the rocky outcroppings. All across the Badlands effigies of Gork and Mork cast long shadows over the plains. Some are sculpted in stone or shaped out of piled bones, but most often the crude idols are fashioned from the heaped dung of countless greenskins.

Marshes of Madness
The Marshes of Madness are generally considered to be the southern border of the Badlands. It is a mist-covered swamp that is trackless and virtually impossible to cross. Despite its treacherous nature, many Goblin tribes live there, building great tilted huts or bidding their shamans to raise islands from the deep mire.

Further south, the quagmire turns into a series of low hills before becoming dry plain and finally desert. This is the northernmost tip of the Land of the Dead and many Savage Orcs can be found in this barren region. A barrier of great stone idols stands at the edge of the shifting sands. These statues were raised there by the primitive greenskins to ward off the foul spirits that plague the cursed realm to the south.

Araby
The land of Araby lies along the north west coast of the Southlands between the Atalan mountains and the Great Ocean. To the east is the Great Desert that separates Araby from the Lands of the Dead. Although the climate is dry and hot the western winds carry moisture laden clouds that give up their water as they are suddenly forced upwards by tall Atalan peaks. The resultant rain falls upon the mountains and gives rise to numerous seasonal streams that, in winter at least, form substantial westward flowing rivers. Although much of the land is dry the rivers bring the water needed by cities, towns and villages, there are also numerous oasis even in the arid regions to the south.

Nehekhara
Nehekhara is a fiery land of bone-dry sand and the jagged remnants of a once-mighty empire. The rolling dunes are punctuated only by the bones of a dead civilisation, half-submerged cities that are slowly devoured by the sands over the aeons, and listing pillars that proclaim the greatness of dead kings. No oases can exist here, for the punishing sun glares down like the eye of an angry and suspicious god.

At the heart of this realm lies Khemri, the Great Necropolis, many times the size of the largest human city and still awe-inspiring despite the vagaries of the millennia. Truly the majesty of King Settra was such that it can never truly be erased. The God-King has vowed that his realm will be restored to its former glory, even if it takes the blood and sweat of all the nations of the world to accomplish it.

The Southlands
Far to the south of the Old World, beyond the mysterious realm of Araby and the Land of the Dead, lies the continent known as the Southlands. Its northern land mass is a barren wasteland of deserts, studded with dusty and deserted tomb-cities, while further south, it is a land of unspoiled jungle and swamp, isolated from the realms of Man, Elf and Dwarf for uncounted centuries. Many brave or foolish explorers and treasure hunters – though the two are often indistinguishable – have attempted to penetrate the thick jungles that make up the majority of the southern region of this land, but almost all have never been seen or heard of again.

The Dark Lands
The Dark Lands is a stark and cheerless place, where nature has rent the ground and burst the mountains apart. Amongst the peaks volcanoes spew black smoke into the filthy sky. In the plains the stench of tar pits and oil pools hangs heavily in the air. Steaming lava from beneath the earth's crust covers the ash wastes with a blanket of bubbling magma. The Chaos Dwarf Empire is sited at the eastern part of this place as well as the adjoining Mountains of Mourn.

Almost nothing can grow in the Dark Lands. The dim light and choking air combine to ensure that the land remains devoid of vegetation except for a few straggly black thorns. The volcanoes and gaping pits bring up all kinds of minerals and gems from beneath the earth: gold and silver, iron and copper, diamonds and sapphires, as well as sulpher, oil and tar. It is a land rich in the materials Dwarfs especially covet.

The Mountains of Mourn
To the east of the Dark Lands are the Mountains of Mourn. It is here that the Ogres make their home; hunting, eating, and sometimes riding to war upon the cavebeasts that dwell there – shaggy Rhinox and Mammoth being the most common. In the foothills of these mountains live the Gnoblars, a snivelling, big-nosed species of Goblin too weak to protect themselves from the predators of the Dark Lands. They do all the fetching, carrying and dirty work of Ogre society, and in return the Gnoblars receive a measure of safety, hardly ever ending up as a light snack.

Ind
Many are the tales of wonder told by the spice merchants returned from the lands to the east of the Old World, but few such yarns can be as bizarre as the accounts of the creatures said to reside in the verdant rainforests of central Ind. The lands of Ind are rich and fertile, and ruled by aristocratic overlords from their gorgeous palaces. Yet the people are poor and superstitious, and revere a staggering array of gods and spirits, leaving offerings and saying prayers to them ceaselessly as they go about their day.

One such spirit dwells within the rainforests, and is said to be a strange crossbreed of man and giant cat, combining the worst traits of each. These creatures are rarely seen, yet cautionary tales are told up and down the Kingdoms of Ind, and offerings to keep them at bay are made at roadside shrines wherever the path passes through, or near the shadowy forest.

Grand Cathay
The travellers that return from Cathay tell tales of great golden pagodas and the inexhaustible armies of the eastern despots. They bring exotic spices and finest silks, gleaming gold, luxurious porcelain vases, and all manner of strange and wonderful items from the Kingdom of the Dragon, glimpses of the mysterious glory of the distant and rich orient.

They also bring tales of jade cities and high temples where mystics probe the movements of the heavenly bodies and the positions of the stars, of the scholars who inscribe every word ever uttered by their divine Emperor. Many strange creatures are said to live in the land of Cathay, from serpentine dragons to gigantic living stone dogs which guard the temples of the multitudinous gods of Cathay.

Nippon
The inscrutable Eastern empire known as Nippon is ruled by a reclusive semi-divine Emperor, but real power lies in the hands of the many feudal warlords or ‘Samurai’. These warrior nobles govern large domains and command retinues with which they frequently indulge in private wars among themselves.

Nippon is an island realm and a notable sea power and it sometimes happens that a Samurai war fleet is dispersed by a typhoon, scattering the ships far and wide. Should an isolated war junk fetch up on a foreign shore the Samurai commander will gather his men and march straight for the nearest representative of authority to offer his service in return for food and shelter. Sometimes Samurai lords deliberately embark their followers into war junks and set sail towards the rising sun in search of adventure, especially if the other feudal clans back home in Nippon are cramping his style.

Khuresh
There are many night-haunted legends emanating from the fetid jungles and deadly wastes of the far Hinterlands of Khuresh. Stories abound of the dread Snake Men and the foul and nightmarish Blood Naga queens who rule there – the frightful serpent-Naga of dim Khuresh whose lives are said to be counted as the ages of the world, and their appetite for blood shames even the ancient queens of thrice-cursed Lahmia – and it is a realm where men are no more than hunted prey, and blood and souls are the only coin in trade.

Ulthuan
The island continent of Ulthuan is situated in the Great Western Ocean, between the Old and New Worlds. It is divided into a number of independent High Elf kingdoms, and is ruled over by the Phoenix King and his consort, the Everqueen. Ulthuan is a land of white-crested mountains and deadly magical beasts, against whom the High Elves sharpen their martial excellence.

The drifting energies of magic that permeate the world are eventually drawn to Ulthuan like water in a whirlpool. There they form an invisible vortex shaped by the network of standing stones raised by Caledor Dragontamer, a network which culminates upon the Isle of the Dead, where it is drained from the world. In this way Ulthuan draws baleful energies out of the world, preventing the tide of magic spewing from the shattered gateways at the world's poles from overpowering the material plane and plunging the world into a seething Realm of Chaos.

Lustria
Lustria is all but covered in thick, dense jungle that is practically impenetrable to the rest of the world. The Slann required a safe haven in which to practice their meditations, and instead of erecting a fortress or castle in the manner of the lesser races, they altered the ecology of an entire continent until everything from the giant predators of the forest to the tiniest maggot could prove fatal to an intruder from another land.

For an enemy even to look upon the works of the Lizardmen, he must labour through a green hell infested with piranha-lizards, bloodwasps and roving packs of voracious Cold Ones. Nonetheless, rumours of the legendary wealth of the Lizardmen bring armies of treasure hunters to Lustria year after year. Very few of them make it back, but those who do are usually rich beyond measure.

Naggaroth
The Dark Elves rule over the realm of Naggaroth to the north of the continent of Lustria. Naggaroth means the Land of Chill, and it is a kingdom as harsh as the souls of the Dark Elves themselves. Mighty fortresses of city-spires and jagged, menacing watchtowers sprout from the wind-scoured landscape alongside skull-carved outcrops of rock and sparse, black-pined forests infested with poisonous vermin.

Dividing Naggaroth are the Blackspine Mountains. Beneath these majestic obsidian peaks are vast caverns and underground seas within which ghastly beasts and tentacled monsters dwell. In the chasm and caves under the mountains the saurian Cold Ones make their lairs, foul-smelling and scaly predators harnessed by the elite cavalrymen of the Druchii the better to rend and their their prey.

The Under-Empire
The Under-Empire stretches across the globe, from the city of Skavenblight in the marshes of Tilea to the plague-ridden warrens of Lustria. This subterranean civilisation is host to many hundreds of clans, some relatively small, some so large that they count numerous lesser clans amongst their number. The vast majority of these are known as the Warlord Clans, each ruled over by a tyrannical and merciless warrior lord who constantly plots and schemes to retain his position and worsen that of his rivals. Because Skaven rulers rarely survive for long, these Warlords are paranoid to a fault.

The Chaos Wastes
No matter where a traveller started his journey, if he were to head due north he would eventually find himself in the Chaos Wastes. It is a harsh landscape that blights the world, becoming ever more inhospitable and bizarre the further north the trespasser treads.

As the traveller passes further into the Wastes, he would find himself labouring beneath a storm-shaken sky, where he would witness the rebellion of nature, for even the elements are said to be torn between the mortal and immortal worlds. Gargantuan pillars of black and broken stone stretch in every direction, surrounding the angry void of Chaos like gigantic teeth ranged about the gaping maw of an impossibly titanic entity. About the blurred edges of the Realm of Chaos rages the Eternal Battle, the bone-strewn landscape crunching and snapping under the armoured feet of those who duel and slay for unending glory in the eyes of the Chaos gods.