WELCOME TO THE DARK REALM
Let’s start on the south coast, where the wind whips the birds into the sky and sends the waves soaring just as high. Where the sharp black rocks make the water rabid, foaming at the shore in a hunger no man could ever experience.
If you were to walk along the sand when the tides retreat towards the horizon, your feet would sink as though in mud, and each gloopy step would pull out a substance similar to the colour of ash. Legend has it that shadows slunk up and through the sands thousands of years ago, hiding in wait in the mountains, eagerly tainting the land with anything but the purity its people wished for. Now its a scarce sight to see someone treading the shore, and if you do manage to spot someone, it’s not without a solemn sadness to their eyes.
The weather accommodates the land here. There’s always a storm cloud brewing, a fierce grey devil hanging over the edges of the country. Sometimes electricity dances in its clouds, angry but bright, accompanied by the distance rumble of thunder and the pour of salty rain. It soaks the land in a glum heaviness, one which travels its way up from the lonely seaside fishing ports to the market kingdom of Freda a day’s ride away.
The market has been described as more impressive than those of the rich southern lands of Damshmire. Not in the extensive array of colours and spices, of which you will find very few in Freda, but in the vastness of it all. The streets loop and twist, all assembled of endless makeshift shops and stalls. Tourists hardly stand a chance, jumping from stall to stall. You never know if you’re going to be greeted humanly or forced into a transaction which ends up robbing you of most of your belongings. The people who live there make sure their pockets are deep and have clasps as, not only are the market goers always scheming, but the crowd is so thick with pick pockets that it’s surprising the gathering is still legal.
Despite the amount of business that goes down in Freda, it is far from wealthy, and it shows. For instance, if you head further north you will find the Kingdom of Vandra which, while small, holds almost the entire wealth of the Isles. Here the architecture is tall and detailed, from gargoyles on most noble homes, to a castle with carved obsidian floors. This wealth is all down to Mount Vandra, the active volcano which lies tucked so close to the north-east coast that the lava leaks into the ocean on two shorefronts. Being one of the only know land volcanoes, one from which obsidian can be somewhat easy mined, means that the volcanic rock sells at a handsome price to surrounding kingdoms and on other shores.
The environment in Vandra is questionable on good days, however now its industry is growing there’s not a day in the year that thick clouds of smog don’t hang over the kingdom. It snakes through the city, suffocating. The sulphur has its residents coughing throughout the day and night, and the insistent mining has most of Vandra’s people living short and hard-working lives, riddled with health complications. I suppose that’s the price one pays for a wealthy kingdom.
Let’s move west, towards the northern-most kingdom of the Isles, Rihne. Here lies a castle placed on high elevation where, for many years prior, its ancestors spent centuries tearing the tops off mountains to makes space for their future kingdom. Now the city’s buildings are carved from the mountains themselves; everything solid rock.
Their agriculture rests at the bottom of a series of rail systems that transports food and other items from the poorer outer towns up to the castle and its surrounding noble city. Moral is high here, and the people are happy in their roles. The memory of their ancestors fuels their passion for life, knowing that their life would not be possible without the resilience of those who came before them.
The mountains taper out as you head south-west, and this is where the small coastal kingdom of Andira sits. Here, the beaches are coated in a mix of clay and sand. Large rocks elevate the mainland of the town, creating magnificent cliffs that have been weathered gradually by the sea. The sea now has long since retreated, but the humidity left behind has invited a new, semi-permanent resident. Moss and vines hang from the rocks, growing from what looks like nothing. It carpets the surface, draping from surrounding trees and creating curtains of nature that seem to be devouring the kingdom. Maybe that’s why the population is slowly thinning out; people migrating in larger numbers than the birds in the winter months, looking for a more prosperous land.
It is here, in Andira, that faith is high and many Elders come to spend the last few years of their life. It’s like nature’s paradise, lush green popping through the architecture at every chance it gets. The king is wise and old and when his time comes so will that of the kingdom’s. It’s at this point it will be claimed by either Rihne or the largest kingdom of the Northern Isles, Elsewood, that just so happens to border the safe haven.
Elsewood spans almost all of the Western border and the land which borders its neighbouring kingdoms are dense with heavy forests. These forests are not like those of the dense jungle in Allanora but are instead thick with oak and spruce trees, flush with national wildlife. If you stand within the woods and listen, you can hear the squeal of birds high in the leaves, and the gentle squeak of badgers. It’s hard to believe that this place also isn’t a safe haven.
Elsewood’s kingdom might be the largest of the Northern Isles, but its land is some of the most divided. The woods are filled with nightcrawlers and bandits, mapped out by invisible lines; territories marked off from gangs and groups the others would prefer not to associate with. This divide remains as the trees thin and disappear almost completely.
The hierarchy within this kingdom is structured like no other in the Realm, a strict society separated by restraints created over centuries by the monarchs. It is believed that a strong divide creates a work ethic and stops people stepping out of line. That would be believable if the kingdom wasn’t also home to seven different prisons, three of which are structured as coal mines. While the mines are used as just that, mines, the labourers aren’t paid and many die within two months of arrival.
The coal mines are a death sentence, from the stale, dense air to the chill that sets into the miner’s bones well before dawn that can’t seem to be shaken. It is here that mass graves are dug, and identities stripped. It is here that you disappear, that everything you once had is so far out of reach you forget what it looked like. Most barely see the sun, their hours starting early and ending late.
Take a few stumbling steps from Elsewood’s easternmost border and you’ll find yourself stood on somewhat richer ground. It is here you will find the last Kingdom of the Northern Isles, Brindham. This kingdom is the supplier of goods imported from Maupo, Damshmire and other surrounding shores. It is the main port kingdom for the Northern isles and has many warehouses spread throughout its land to accommodate the supplies being imported. It is also here that most food is grown and distributed. The other kingdoms in the Northern isles do provide for themselves to an extent, however it is only this far south that the ground doesn’t freeze in the winter months and crops can be grown all year long.
Each port along Brindham’s shore is connected to a long, winding dirt path which runs, endless, throughout the land. Each warehouse, village, and farm are all linked, slinking up towards the castle that sits on one of the northernmost points of the kingdom. It is from the castle that the stone start to stretch and reach. Like one large hug, stone walls envelope the borders of the land, they even stretch along the coastline, a few acres out into the rough waves. This is to ensure that there are set points within the kingdom that other reigning monarchs and their armies can enter, and only at precise times. At seventh chime in the morning, the large cast-iron gates in the wall open, and it is at sixth chime in the evening that they then close. This happens like clockwise. It’s common for shipments to be piled on carts at the gates ready for seventh chime, having been delivered to the ports late at night. If only they had the same technology as Rihne, then shipments could be much easier transported into the city and there would be far less chaos.
Each port along Brindham’s coast reaches out almost half a mile into the ocean, built out of wooden slats and column supports that regularly have to be replaced. Thick pathways reach out towards the deep, creaking safe places for supply ships to harbour for up to a month. Planks lie deserted on the edges of each dock, rope woven around a large reel. These planks are used as gangways, and the ropes secured to ships while they visit.
While there are some warehouses built for temporary storage sat on the wooden piers, all housing is built further inland, on proper dirt and not just sodden wood. It is here that the floors don’t creak, and people can feel the grass beneath their feet.
Travel south from Brindham, and you soar out over the ocean to further lands of the Dark Realm, ones too far to hear news of often. They are more of a mystery than a reality over here. At least that’s the case for now.
Are you ready to meet Damshmire?