Beastlands

Littfeld
Roll with the Punches

Allemance


The caravan has rolled through pleasant weather for days. Judging by the blue sky and the soft breeze rolling across the hills ahead? Today will be just the same. You can hear distant laughter shouted by a gaggle of wolf pups playing in the field. The noonday sun warms your face, and the smell of pine and clean soil fills your nostrils. Welcome to Allemance.

The Lupine Kingdom of Allemance (ALLaymahnse or ALLehmanse) is the Beastlands’s green heart. Its plains are framed by mountains: the northern Mantle and the southern Bêtemère. These peaks have blessed the homeland with verdant pastures in a wide river basin. In the northeast, birches and elms cast gentle shade on the region of Glasrún for hundreds of miles.

Beasts know Allemance for its open vastness. Its domain covers a third of the Beastlands, around 360,000 square miles. Arneria’s Beylik and Bat’yan rival it in size, but the reason for the kingdom’s reputation is obvious when one stands at the Louvain Peninsula’s edge and takes in the pastoral expanse of farmland on the horizon.

The Allemagnian (or “Alley”) north has mild summers and long autumns, while the wineries in the south enjoy warm days well into October. Most towns see snow at least once a season, and occasional squalls drop on Alley northerners.

Almost 7 and a quarter million people reside in Allemance. Equines favor its open space and find peaceful work on angus farmlands. Bovine farmers live on fields and ranches passed down through countless generations. Canines, and principally wolves, are Allemance’s most common species. A wolf queen sits on its throne in the capital city of Louvain and they also make up most of its nobility.

Louvain
The road to Louvain climbs the stark cliff of a peninsula overlooking Allemance. The city stands at the cliff’s edge, and at the world’s center. People of every species live and work on its crowded streets, plying their craft in stylish boutiques and open-air bazaars. At the precipice, Louvain Palace is a towering symbol of the monarchy’s enduring legacy.

Patrie
Neat rows of terrace coffee farms surround the road into the valley. The stones in the road are new, especially compared to the well-loved trade routes they branch from. The city ahead is like a great wheel, with each of its spokes leading to the heart of the teeming urban center. A divine blueprint transformed this Broken World ruin into a home for the brethren.

Oria
The icy wind bites at you through four layers of wool. An expanse of gray mountains and white snow frame the aurora’s colorful ripples in the night sky. The lodge house ahead offers the promise of comfort and good company, safe from the mournful wind’s howling. Welcome to Oria. The Mantle’s frigid peaks stretch across the northern horizon of Allemance, a natural border spanning hundreds of miles. The houses of the alpine Beast World lie beyond these imposing cliffs. Harsh winters make for a hard life in the homeland of elk and bears. Comfort requires ingenuity and cooperation, but delvers who brave the snow will see a batko’s silhouette inviting them into the lodge.

Three and a half million beasts and brethren call themselves Orians. It’s a tough place with tougher inhabitants. 240,000 square miles lie north of the Mantle, but much of the terrain is impassable mountains. Only the Oric people have conquered these peaks, even digging a sixty-mile tunnel through the central Grensa mountains.

Jegervalt
Unless a crew fancies three weeks of inching along narrow, icy ledges in the Grensa mountains, the best way through Oria is the tunnel. At its west entrance, a colossal lodge house towers overhead. This is the House of Houses, the Gatehouse of Jegervalt.

Jegervalt is the largest Oric lodge house, both in size and population. Two towers flank the entrance to the tunnel, with a massive structure suspended over the arch between them. The three sections frame the tunnel’s mouth against the sheer face of Mount Roet. The stacked chambers of the two towers and skyway are spacious enough to house its twenty thousand Orians.

Vinyot
"A drum roll of fat raindrops patters against the roof ofthe wagon. The wheels jerk to a halt. You’ve arrived. You open the door to take a deep breath of salty air. Trade ships line the harbor on the horizon, with the glittering sea beyond. A dense mass of old stone buildings surrounds the dock, with a bethel’s spire pointing skyward in the west. The booming port city awaits, filled with busy foxes who talk fast and move faster. After all, there’s so much to do. Welcome to Vinyot."

The homeland of Vinyot sails fleets of trade ships to bring modern life and foreign goods throughout the world. It runs along the western and southern edges of the Beast World’s mainland, with cities at its river estuaries. Its eastern border follows the Allemagnian Bêtemère Mountains, with hilly and difficult terrain in its inland regions. Vinyot is smaller than Allemance, but its 8,000 miles of coastline has blessed it with a flourishing economy and unique identity. The climate is balmy most of the year. Sea winds carry humid weather and frequent summer rains.

5.5 million people live in Vinyot. The tradewind vulpine and human species make up most of its population. The majority of otter and ferret laetines, as well as the raccoon and possum tenebrines also call Vinyot their homeland.

Maritime Legacy
Vinyot is characterized by the numerous commercial port cities along its freshwater shores and saltwater coasts. The prevailing winds allow sea travel to and from Vinyot faster than anywhere else in the world. Its Trade League has dominated maritime trade throughout history.

From the smallest river village to the mercantile metropolis of Arloris, southern homes feature elaborate, ornate architecture erected to stand steadfast for centuries. A building’s legacy is a powerful idea in Vinyotian culture, and family heads live in the same houses their founding ancestors built. Over time, the homes merged with their families’ businesses to become the homeland’s great trade company headquarters.

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Connecting the Dots
The people of the Trade League see the value of things. Whenever an item changes hands, a Vinyotian considers its worth to both sides. Their minds live for arbitrage; they examine everything they see in terms of who might get the most use from it. This attitude makes the foxes of the Vinyotian trading companies a fortune. It drives urban laetines to innovate, and motivates efficient generosity from everyone in the homeland.

Debating the Details
Vinyotians pay unusual attention to subtlety and nuance. When they differ in perspective, they revel in the opportunity to make their case and debate the minutiae of each viewpoint. These debates could be about future business opportunities, philosophical matters, or even which wine to order with dinner. Cooler heads usually prevail, but when the conversation becomes circular, a southerner’s temper is legendary to behold.

Refined taste is also characteristic of southerners. Someone taught to appreciate value is better-equipped to recognize the best things that life offers. Vinyotians rarely complain about cheap food and entertainment, but their first recommendation is sure to be the best option possible.}}

Invention & Innovation
If one carries an unusual object through a port city, those watching it pass by will come up with a half-dozen ways it might be useful. Vinyotians love to figure out where things fit, whether they’re trade goods or loose gears. None are more attuned to this way of thinking than ferrets and otters.

Smart city planners carefully cordon off the laetine districts of Vinyotian cities. Their public laboratories tend to spill out into the street as projects become more complex. Southern ferrets immersed in the passion of a blueprint diagram often cast aside nuisances like “owned property” and “the need for horses to get by on the street.” Vinyot is uniquely tolerant of this general disregard for ownership and space. The marvels that spring forth from the chaos of laetine districts are well-worth a few traffic difficulties.

Invest & Wager
People from the southern coasts learn the value of financial patience from a young age. Vinyotians consider investing in the future to be financially wise, but also part of raising a thoughtful and discerning adult. By focusing on what something might become, one resists the allure of quick wealth and the moral failure that follows it. A cheeky saying goes, “Where you see one coin, a Vinyotian sees one-point-two in three months.”

And yet, the world’s flashiest luxury gambling houses are exclusive to Vinyot’s shores. Wagers and games of chance are immensely popular here, with dockworkers and company owners alike congregating to celebrate a happy return. The venerated Oric academic Sergey Volkov writes about the subject in his seminal work, The Homelander. “The Vinyotian psyche is soothed by the concrete and knowable stakes of a game of cards. To a southern fox or raccoon, a die’s six faces are a conquerable world.”

The Vinyotian rigger Angela Rossi once offered a rebuttal. “Cards are fun. Orians need to get out of the house more.”

Indiidualism & Ambition
The Vinyotian work ethic is centered on individual ambition and achievement. When mastering one’s career, craft, or hobby, southerners take special pride in climbing the ranks of their peers. Life is built on the questions “Where am I?”, “Where could I be?”, and “Where should I be?”

Some bristle at this self-centered aspiration, pointing toward Vinyotians driven by it to undermine and sabotage. An obsession with reaching some imagined peak consumes some Vinyotians, pushing them to cruelty. They lord their victories over fellow beasts and brethen, then forget about them once their challenge loses its bite.

However, most would argue that someone using cutthroat business tactics has abandoned a core part of the southern identity. A popular lesson is held sacred in most fox families: “generosity is an investment with good returns.” Personal ambition is a luxury one indulges only after ensuring everyone has what they need. An affluent Vinyotian’s surroundings are considered a reflection of their own worth, so if they’re rich while others are too poor to compete, then any victory is a lie.

Family Enterprise
Love and support come from the Vinyotian family, as well as a career. Successful elders take on children and nephews as apprentices, lifting them up by passing on their skills. Unlike in many Allemagnian farming households, workers in the family are paid the same as hired laborers. Businesses hire from within their relatives, and only seek outside help when no close relations are suitable.

Households also offer financial support in a young adult’s life. When a southerner comes of age and finishes their education, they purchase an ownership share in their first ship or start some other business venture. A substantial gift from their older relatives is an expected gesture to establish them on the path of adulthood.

These financial investments keep families close, but come with an expectation of respect and deference. The word spoken by the eldest is law in the Vinyotian home. Through smart living and achievement in their youth, patriarchs and matriarchs have earned the right to live in the family’s head house. When younger family members visit the elder’s home, proper attire and formal means of address are always observed. Their guidance in any matter is rarely ignored without consequences.

The Marriage Contract
Vinyotians seek romance while learning the family business. Lovers connect emotionally with one another, but also try to demonstrate they could provide for a family. To stay competitive, it’s crucial to pick a spouse with sharp wits. It’s popular for young Vinyotians to plan romantic engagements around work days. This way, they can gain insight into a partner’s wherewithal in love and trade all at once.

Engaged couples must earn the explicit approval of both their parents. This is more than tradition; marriage is only legally recognized if all the parents and the betrothed sign the contract. It contains language determining which side of the family they plan to work with. The side losing a member usually pays a dowry for partnership considerations with the newlyweds’ business. (At some point, they make time for a tremendous wedding party, too. It’s not all legalism.)

Fours and Twelves
Vinyotian music is beautifully elaborate. Twenty or more musicians perform together for family gatherings or public events. The compositions are magnificent hour-long masterpieces, which take years to compose. Even a smaller show for an intimate audience is a direct demonstration of a musician’s finest skills. A casual or halfhearted performance is unheard of.

Arithmetic is central to every aspect of a Vinyotian’s life, and music is how one learns it. Southerners count in fours and twelves, taking each group as a measure in one of many mnemonic songs learned in childhood. Ledgers and other written numbers are recorded in base 12, a duodecimal system.

Cross-homeland finances tend to involve a fox angrily singing a children’s song at a frustrated business partner, who is just trying to read records with two completely alien digits.

Pirhoua the Patron
When a Vinyotian devotes their life to art, they often enter the goddess Pirhoua’s service as well. In the south, the Beast Mother’s church educates bards, and their work centers more on religious faith. Thanks to the Pirhouan bards, southern bethels are the most elaborate and ornate of all, a showcase of painting, architecture, and other disciplines.

Among these breathtaking works of grandeur, one humbles all others: the Bethel of the Heartleaf. Perched on a quiet island hilltop, master artisans all contribute to this physical tribute to Pirhoua’s love for beasts and brethren.

Death
When a Vinyotian dies, their local bethel collects money from friends and relatives to fund a funeral trip. Working just after a family member’s death is immensely disrespectful, seen as a rush to move the world beyond their memory. If called to a funeral, they depart for at least two weeks.

Grieving is a personal and solitary affair for a Vinyotian. Immediate family and two or three close friends of the deceased travel to mourn in their favorite place. While at this remote destination, the mourners spend daytime looking back on memories with their loved one in seclusion. Every night, they gather to share these memories and stories. This helps them find closure, but also builds a new bond between friends of the departed and their family. Having their former friends in their lives helps the departed’s family keep a part of them.

Comedy of the Guild
For the last century, the south has developed a cast of familiar character archetypes, which are consistent across every artistic medium. These masked character tropes are based on different professions in Vinyotian society, each with their own larger-than-life personality. Art featuring characters from this Comedy of the Guild is popular across social classes. The types are used by any artists who want their work to reach a broad audience.

Guild stories are most commonly stageplays performed in the public square by traveling theater companies. While these plays are frequently scripted from start to finish, more improvisational ones are also common, scripting major events and scene changes while relying on performers with experience portraying a character to fill in the dialogue and action. The Comedy of the Guild has influenced modern entertainment all over the Beast World, such as in Arneria’s Storied Histories League.

Comedy Continuity
Guild stories don’t have direct continuity between them, but the characters have evolved over time. Popular tales have certain elements referenced by future ones, until they become part of the archetypes themselves. For example, the scar on The Blacksmith’s mask originally comes from fighting for his wife’s dignity in the play The Blush of the Baker. The Comedy of the Guild has a kind of “soft canon.”

Leaving a mark on the ongoing Comedy requires a light touch. If a writer tells a story about several characters meeting their doom, future works are unlikely to “remember” that they’re gone if it inconveniences the story in question. That’s not to say it’s impossible; one of last year’s most popular plays featured the death of The Stargazer. Fans and writers both agree that it was the most fitting end for that character’s story.

This interplay has created a unique status symbol among Guild storytellers. Modern writers and musicians are measured in Vinyotian popular culture by the influence they’ve had on the Comedy. It’s a great honor when a song or play features two characters marrying, and then a future poem respects that truth in its own story’s canon. Comedy of the Guild superfans hold meetings in their homes and bethel basements, where they chatter about their favorite plays and share their own stories featuring the characters.

The Day of The First Beasts
The third Friday of August is The Day of the First Beasts, a Vinyotian Pirhouan children’s holiday. Horses (both beast and animal) dress up (or are dressed up) in oversized costumes with bright colors. Others wear complex stilts that let them walk on all fours, then stand without breaking their stride. They stroll through city streets on parade, giving out copper pieces to children as they pass by. The trade lord and their family walk last in line, and give out silver instead.

Later that evening, families gather in the bethel to sing songs and thank Pirhoua for the gift of will. The bethelkeeper gives a lively accounting of all the good and merciful deeds done that year by members of the bethel. This allows modest people to enjoy their peers’ appreciation without embarrassment.

Once the speech ends, the kids are let loose. Children rummage through an enormous pile of packages looking for the one with their name on it. When they find it, they open a collection of clothes, toys, and other gifts inside. If a family can’t afford to give their children the customary amount, the bethel helps make up the difference with earlier anonymous donations by those with more than they needed.

The Evening of the Veil
When the Comedy of the Guild first became popular, Arloris threw the first Evening of the Veil. The tradition quickly spread all over Vinyot, and has been enjoyed by the homeland for nearly a century. The festivities begin the day after the Day of the First Beasts, and last until the following Tuesday morning.

During the Evening of the Veil, Vinyotians dress in colorful formalwear and businesses keep their doors open late. People move from one building to the next; cities blend together into one giant house party. The stifling propriety of Vinyotian society lets loose for this one long weekend a year. Sumptuary laws governing alcohol consumption and other vices are relaxed during the celebration. Vinyotians make the most of it; the party’s energy rivals Oria’s Oenin.

Masked Mingling
The festival’s name comes from the masks worn by the revelers. Originally, the Evening of the Veil was a chance to dress as one’s favorite character from the Comedy. Over time, however, the festival’s masks took on their own identity. They’re made by local craftsmen who follow commissioners’ designs to create interesting variations of a standard half-face shape. Maskmakers in most cities work year round to make enough to supply partiers with a new disguise every year.

The masks and their festival serve an unstated but important purpose in Vinyotian society. During the Evening of the Veil, a mask wearer’s identity is obscured, thus so is their class. The festive disguises allow the city to become one people, without regard for social politics or being seen with the “proper sort.” In fact, some lower-class beasts use this anonymity to their advantage, proposing business deals to richer beasts that they come back to after the party ends. The true benefit, though, is the simple opportunity to use a mask to let one’s guard down for a while.

The Trade League
A board of merchants and company heads make decisions affecting the welfare of Vinyot and the land it claims. The Trade League is also a diplomatic body that represents Vinyot as a state.

It meets at a summit to collect dues, spend the common fund, debate the passage of new mandates, and handlediplomacy. The regular summit is every two years. If sitting members raise an urgent issue, the League can hold a special off-time summit as well. The location of the Trade League summit is one of the most well-kept secrets. The League dislikes when Varasta, the god of chaos, finds out where it’s being held. There’s nothing the flippant deity loves more than to crash an expensive party.

Key to the City
In Vinyot, rulership is represented by a deed. The deed’s owner is the head of government in a town or city, and owns the land and any public assets. Deeds are held most often by the city’s most prosperous business, and its head is the trade lord. Like any asset, the deed can be sold to another company if the trade lord considers it a smart move to divest. If a trade lord’s business fails, the deed is auctioned to pay its debts.

Trade lords try to keep their deeds, as the benefits of owning a city can’t be overstated. Their companies enjoy right of first refusal on work contracts, they can collect permit fees to do business, and the lord is otherwise socially influential in their city. As long as a trade lord doesn’t run afoul of the League’s mandates, they enjoy autonomy to run things any way they choose.

Of course, the trade lord must maintain their property and take care of their tenants. Their companies are responsible for roads, law enforcement, criminal justice, and every other public line item. If a city can’t indulge in the luxury of drinkable water, the economy tends to suffer. The driving force of urban development is making the land more attractive to future contractors.

Mandates & Dues
Laws affecting everyone in the homeland are called mandates. Voting to pass mandates is one of the primary functions of League membership and also one of its most lucrative benefits. Cities that can’t afford League dues are subject to the legislative whims of ones that can.

The Trade League rarely passes mandates. The lords know that angering lesser municipalities comes at an escalating price. They prefer to keep out of their affairs. Some basic mandates have stood for centuries, however: "After humans’ arrival, the first single Vinyotian cities grew beyond this maximum. They were split into two deeds, now governed by multiple trade lords. This is a troublesome ongoing transition for these cities and their jealous new bicameral lordships."
 * The Trade Empire Mandate. A single company cannot own deeds governing more than a maximum total population.
 * The Bread and Water Mandate. A municipality must provide basic needs to all its citizens: food, water, and shelter.
 * The Justicar’s Mandate. A municipality must maintain a formal law authority and abide by laws set by the Dramphinian church. Paladins have absolute jurisdiction in Vinyot.
 * The Ship Breaker Mandate. Trade lords must contribute a percentage of their profits to maintain the Vinyotian pirate-hunting fleet.

The Trade League comprises companies that can afford the dues to sit at the table. These are added to a common fund during the summit. Only a few treasurers know the exact amount of gold in the common fund, but the number would likely send most dragons into cardiac arrest.

Mandates are passed by the League to spend gold on philanthropy and social projects. For example, the Trade League emptied the coffers entirely to build vital infrastructure after the human Pilgrimage. The common fund paid for homes, cultivated farmland, and put brethren into League-sponsored apprenticeships to learn skills relevant to life in the Beast World.

Class of Wealth
Company heads are afraid that their offspring might be seen as “buying achievements at the altar,” Conversely, they’re also wary of social climbers “investing into” the family’s business through a beloved son or daughter. They want their children to marry business heirs with comparable renown and influence. To prevent these problems, family heads encourage their younger generation to associate with peers in a similar economic position.

Vinyot has a resulting social hierarchy defined by three classes. At the bottom of the pyramid is the largest class: company workers and owners of small local businesses. With a combination of out-sized hard work and a lot of luck, businesses with a single storefront can grow in size and influence. This raises up the owning family, elevating their class. However, most never accomplish this feat.

The middle class of Vinyot is made up of businesses nearly large enough to buy a deed in the homeland’s territory, but haven’t had a good opportunity. Most medium shipping companies and their families are members of this class. The public sees them as the hardest fighters and strongest sellers, as each is one good decision away from generational wealth and security.

At the top are the trade lords. These are the families with the power to make decisions that affect all of Vinyot. Trade lords rarely fall from grace, especially since the influx of new workers from the Pilgrimage. When humans came to Vinyot, trade lords who could go above and beyond investing in their homes earned loyalty and the unique knowledge of the brethren. Their sudden arrival was expensive, but solidified the power of many trade lords for generations to come.

Sellswords
The Trade League trains a private infantry and keeps them on retainer as mercenaries. These soldiers of fortune are known as the Sellswords. Their presence is an insurance policy against the sort of “bold crown maneuvering” that caused the Mantle War. The Sellswords are a full-time force patrolling the homeland, on the road and in coastal boarding skiffs.

Sellswords aren’t always under the direct command of the Trade League. The majority of Sellsword contracts are sold to Vinyotian cities, to be used as their guard. Vinyotian company workers don’t like Sellswords. They have a reputation for brutal tactics and a cavalier attitude about collateral damage. Sellswords are outsiders who work for the trade lord, not the city.

Debt to Society
Vinyotian criminal justice is based on restitution not rehabilitation, rather than punishing the guilty. Every crime has an agreed-upon price, and the convicted become indebted to their victims. If an injured party isn’t willing to employ the perpetrator, they are forced into a trade lord’s service. They perform labor to pay off their criminal debts.

If criminal debt falls into delinquency, due to the perpetrator’s flight or expiration, the injured party can seek restitution from their family. While this is often considered immoral, the mechanism of generational debt allows criminal families to be dragged to justice one-by-one. It has also prepared fertile ground for the nascent, heinous industry of family criminal restitution insurance.

Love a Lawyer
The Vinyotian’s deep love for debate and legal procedure makes them the perfect lawyers. The coastal homeland’s universities are overflowing with talented attorneys. A strong system of legal representation is crucial; wrongfully convicted criminals are often a shame borne by multiple generations.

Southern attorneys are hired for all the same functions as anywhere else, but a Vinyotian lawyer can also make a comfortable living without ever setting foot in a courtroom. If two Vinyotians are engaged in a heated argument for long enough, their spouses will split the expense of hiring a lawyer to arbitrate. This is useful in matters of finance, but it’s also a great way to determine who was rude at a party several years ago, or who is allowed to wear a specific dress to a gala. Vinyotians consider attorneys to be an important part of social life, and a lawyer’s final decision is held sacrosanct.

The Ceiling of the Night Sky
Tenebrines are misunderstood, especially in Vinyot. For centuries, possums and raccoons have been caught in a riptide pushing them into the margins. Living at night separates them from their neighbors, despite sharing the same streets. Foxes and other beasts are wary of them for it, assuming them more likely to be con artists and criminals. Because others think twice about hiring or working with them, raccoons and possums are often forced to do unsavory things just to make their way, thus reinforcing their untrustworthy reputation.

Of course, tenebrines are no more likely to be criminals than anyone else. However, even if the vast majority of them are friendly folks just doing their best, poverty and the world of night they live in makes them invisible. Meanwhile, every possum caught stealing reinforces the idea that their kind is naturally predisposed to misbehavior. This spiral has turned the Trade League into a table without seats for tenebrines.

Most Vinyotians regret the disadvantages tenebrines endure. Their belief that poverty doesn’t come from immorality is genuine, but they haven’t faced the challenge of reconciling that belief with their distrust of the tenebrines. This hypocrisy is rarely intentional, but ugly ideas can hide in good people, and old prejudices are stubborn in the heart.

In many ways, recent events have forced tenebrines even farther away from the trade lords. However, shifts in the status quo are also working in their favor. The brethren are just as much a part of Vinyot as any other species, but they haven’t been steeped in the same unconscious prejudices, and this blank slate has made room for new social mobility. Brethren enterprising and lucky enough to gain wealth don’t hesitate to work with tenebrines, which gives them new opportunities to elevate themselves. Those who do are proving that other species have been losing out from their unwillingness to confront their attitudes. Delvers will have the chance to help bolster the nightbeasts’ reputation in the coming years, if they’re brave enough to question misbegotten lessons.

Pirhouanism in Vinyot
A brick building sits in the central square of a small fishing village. It’s the tallest building in town, decorated with stained-glass windows and a well-tended front flower garden. Warm light from the silver candelabras shines out of the open doors onto its wide steps, as does the excited chatter of beasts and brethren gathered for the night’s performance. The Vinyotian bethel has stood this way for almost two centuries.

Vinyotian Pirhouanism is the most formal of the religion’s five sects, as well as the most politically involved. The people of Vinyot build bethels as a reflection of their reverence to the Beast Mother. They are as expensive as their congregation can afford to make them, and their keepers dress in a manner worthy of one speaking with the goddess’ voice. Beasts and brethren of the south shores take their religion seriously, and let it guide them to a happy life. In Vinyot, Pirhoua is the goddess of beauty, prosperity, and giving. Her bethels serve as artist enclaves and theaters, as artists’ careers usually exclude them from the support of working for their family businesses.

The Delve in Vinyot
Excitement lurks around every rocky seaside cliff. A caravan roaming the south has all sorts of potential spots to hunt for leads, on the sea or the land. Caravans who stay in Vinyot are fitted to be fully amphibious. Seaworthiness allows them to respond quickly to sunken Dungeon entrances. Trade fleets often put out leads after being set upon by dangers lurking in the salty depths.

The glamor of full-time heroism is just as alluring on the coast as anywhere else, and delving crews have won the hearts of its public. There’s chatter in Vinyotian family meetings about the profession of pulling entire crates of gold out of holes in the ground. The heirs of trade lords see the Delve as a way out from under the expectations of family without disappointing them. Many lower-class Vinyotians joining crews see it as a way to what they feel the world sorely lacks: social mobility.

Until now, taxing delvers and their scouts has fallen to individual cities. However, many cities with higher taxes have seen their delver population simply renounce citizenship and become fully nomadic. The League isn’t thrilled with losingtheir share of the riches pulled out of the holes in their land, monsters be damned. They have struggled to adapt to so many of their people taking up a mobile life outside any specific municipality.

Ailuro
The Golden Isle of Ailuro is a small island west of Tresoli. Its shore is surrounded by tall, jagged coral visible above the surface during low tide.

These reefs are deadly to approaching ships, and the bioluminescent sponges living within them shoot hull-dissolving acid when threatened. This makes Ailuro a challenging vacation destination. Beyond the shoals, however, is an untouched natural paradise. The white and yellow grasses of Ailuro shimmer in sunlight, and the inner groves bear fruit that induces a state of euphoria for a full day after eating it.

Ailuro has become especially dangerous in recent years. Passing ships have heard a seductive song sung by a choir beyond the coral. The lyrics and haunting melody entice sailors to crash against the reef and capsize. Crews jump overboard to find the singers, never to be seen again.

Amicia Bay
People of the fishing villages and pearl farms that wrap around Amicia Bay lead quiet lives made comfortable by selling to the capital city. However, recently the bay has become such a hotbed of Dungeon activity that it has earned the nickname Sahuagin Bay. Southern delvers getting their start should keep an eye out for strange stories from the fishing company’s beach towns.

Bella Madre
The Whirling Jewel of the South is a city at the confluence of the Lion and Gazelle Run rivers. The merging rivers divide it into three districts, with a roaring whirlpool at the center. The waters divert into an intermediate ring around this mighty cyclone of water, allowing trade along the circular harbor.

Bella Madre is best known for the Whirlpool Proscenium, a grandiose theater in the city center. It hosts an annual performance by its artists-in-residence, the Vinyot Century Jubilee. These world-famous musicians, poets, and dancers combine their talents to delight audiences from distant lands. Most bards aspire to become part of the Vinyot Century, but only a select few are chosen by its maestro.

Calorwood
The dense, humid forest of southeastern Vinyot stretches for miles, thanks to heavy rain that falls on the land it covers. The Calorwood’s hazy air carries a constant cloud of seed pods, fungi, and other miniscule life. There’s no evidence of danger posed by the dust of the Calorwood, but at its densest a traveler can’t see farther than ten feet. Many prefer the safety of the Glimmering Rivers running through the woods. Rumors persist of lost travelers who wander into the Seelie Court, never to return. Vinyotians love to take chances, but only when they understand the stakes.

Dragontail Bay
The caverns within this large cove are also the lairs of chromatic dragons. Invited guests are allowed to cross the threshold to sail within the inner waters of the bay, while intruders without powerful and redundant defenses find their ships... elsewhere.

Duck Creek Island
The namesake of this western island is a meandering stream winding through its gentle hills. The creek splits to empty into several lakes. Combined with orchards growing easy food and a lack of local natural predators, the island is overrun with wild ducks. In some places, the waterfowl are so abundant that they flow like the water they swim in. Explorers must wade through the quacking horde to pass. Bread crumbs are welcome.

Dungeon Town
The Dungeon doesn’t appear in any discernible pattern, even after rigorous study by the brightest minds. There’s a single place in the world where it’s ever-present: underneath Dungeon Town. One is advised to watch their step on the approach—an errant stride could send one falling into it headfirst.

Miles of dungeons twist underneath Dungeon Town’s mishmash of improvised scaffolding, tents, and wagons. The site is a quagmire of dozens of entrances. Architecture, monsters, and otherworldly magic tangle around and back over themselves.One might be navigating an animated hedge maze, then take a right turn to see a log flume floating on a lazyriver of boiling oil. Chaos is always underfoot within the limits of Dungeon Town.

Dungeon Town is a nickname more than the formal title of a jurisdiction. This semi-permanent expedition consists of archaeologists, Dungeoneers, arcanists, and whatever delver caravans happen to stop there on their way elsewhere. Most are sure to do so; the site has attracted a thriving marketplace of merchant stands and tourist attractions. The town is a mix of carnival and trade show and ultimate challenge for visiting delvers. Crews splitting up have taken to using “see you in Dungeon Town” as a farewell, which often turns out to be true.

Of course, not everyone treats the place like an amusement or business opportunity. The Dungeoneers, whose field of study (and nigh-religious fascination) is always a few steps or shovel thrusts away here. Among other researchers, they attempt to glean knowledge from its depths while doing their best not to rouse the ire of the threats that lie within its infinite maze.

Flying Otter Falls
Chasing River is nearly a mile wide when it takes the 3,000-foot plunge that empties 200,000 cubic feet of water into the Roaring Basin every second of every day. This breathtaking power can be seen from a staggering distance on a clear day. The waterfall is named for its effect on the peculiar minds of laetines, especially otters.

Seeing the falls for the first time flips some mental switch in a dozen otters a year or so. They become obsessed with traveling over the precipice and begin studying protective contraptions built by those who came before. Every “Otter Barrel,” as they are called, is slightly different, as laetine researchers attempt to push the survival rate of the plunge a little higher. Currently, about half the otters who paddle their gadgets to the upper river’s center survive the trip to the bottom.

Advancements in Otter Barrel technology have been applied to delver wagons to make them safer, provided their users live to share the schematics.

Fortunata Hills
North-central Vinyot is the rolling Fortunata Hills. They sit in the shadow of the Bêtemère Mountains, which block rains and give the region its winds and cool climate. Those who live in the hills face the challenge of rocky soil and dry air, which leads to sparse harvests and Vinyot’s coldest winters. Despite the difficulty, several cities exist in the region, and the world’s most expensive wine is produced in their unique climate. Ligonine miners in the hills also unearth gemstones and precious metals that are the envy of all the west.

Vinyotians consider Fortunata Hills to be a proud symbol of their ideology: hard work and cooperation begets the rarest fineries.

Gonlaro
The largest attempt to settle Kelvonostro was Gonlaro. Built between the Cristalmonte river and miles of swampland, the town was settled to harvest insects from the surrounding area and ship them downstream to be used as fertilizer and animal feed. Shifting soil and floodwaters soon took over the settlement, while a black fog of insect swarms descended on what remained above the surface.

Gonlaro’s complete collapse was such a surprise that most residents abandoned their belongings when they evacuated. The mines below were flooded with murky swamp water, closing off a long section of the Loamlink. The armadillo foreman of the project left his personal fortune inside his home, which is now coated in a thick layer of algae and haunted by ghosts of the townsfolk who could not escape.

Haven of the High Bethel
The Haven is a picturesque paradise, covered in ancient trees untouched by willful creatures for all of history. The Bethel of the Heartleaf sits on the hilltop, Pirhoua’s most sacred place.

The round, open-air building is encircled by crystal glass windows that depict each known species of beast, just as they realized themselves and stood on two feet. The bethel is constructed around the last heartleaf tree. For a single season at the birth of the world, this tree and others like it bore the fruit that granted the first beasts their willful nature.

More than a nursery, the Bethel of the Heartleaf is a learning institution for respected Pirhouan clerics. The leaders of the church gather here to discuss the state of the Beast World and decide how they might render aid to embody Pirhoua’s ideals.

Hidden Waters
This inlet of the Tiger Sea cuts through tall cliffs and fjords, which flank it on both sides. The seawater zig-zags at sharp angles and ends at slender white-sand beaches. These beaches are concealed by rock outcroppings eroded by the slim streams of water. Caches of treasure are hidden in the snaking waterways by pirates fleeing the Arloris Navy, for anyone whose ship can squeeze through a space narrow enough for a cat to leap over.

Isle of the Twilit Tryst
A stone’s throw southwest of Wrightbarrow is what some consider the natural byproduct of its existence: the Isle of the Twilit Tryst. This westernmost point in Vinyot is one of the world’s largest communes of Aubadians. This ungovernable gathering of volatile hedonists live to celebrate the meeting of their Sun Bull and the Moon Wolf. At dusk, both are visible from the island at once.

The island is a conclave of artists, scientists, and anyone else brought beyond the breaking point by the regimented life of a Wrightbarrow work contract. Their embrace of anarchy is an ongoing attempt to prove that Aubadism isn’t a dangerous cult, as some insist. However, there’s no other monastery of peace so viciously well-armed. They claim that any rumors of murderous piracy in the waters surrounding the island are fabricated by Wrightbarrow to disparage their movement and keep workers from leaving.

Whether these accusations are true is unknown.

Kelvonostro Wetlands
The Cristalmonte and the Ficklefox rivers part ways and envelop a long marsh. Kelvonostro is a region that several enterprising Vinyotian patriarchs have attempted to settle to claim its unique ecology for their own use. The horizon of the wetlands is dotted with lopsided, sunken buildings that stand (or lean lopsided) as proof of their failure. They are a warning to anyone who would attempt to lay a stone foundation over a teeming land of grasses and swamps. A longstanding, unconfirmed rumor holds that a circle of druids are responsible for destroying these abandoned cities.

Luck’s End
An arid, unforgiving climate typifies the region south of Fortunata Hills. The road leading from Arloris to the nearest Allemagnian city of Verglas travels through a wasteland of stunted trees that struggle to pull enough nutrients from the dust. Travelers and caravans headed east on the road often attract the attention of monsters, especially the sort that warps and corrupts its sparse foliage.

Landbridge
Landbridge is a bustling freshwater port between the rivers Cristalmonte and Ficklefox. This city is flanked by twin locks managing the steep elevation change between the waters’ source and their journey downstream toward the Long Sea. The Landbridge Canal Concern manages the locks,coordinates the farms, and regulates the guard. They own most of the city’s housing, as well.

Workers struggle constantly to keep their heads above water. Their pay is being gradually transitioned to a scrip that Landbridge Canal owners hope will overtake the prevailing Vinyotian currency. Most Vinyotians know about the city’s recent trouble and it’s only a matter of time until it boils over.

Million Souls Overlook
The northern tip of the Lioncrest Prairie is Million Souls Overlook. Legend has it that if one turns their head standing at the cliff’s edge, they can see the homes of a million beasts at once. The Ald Ruin lies at the bottom of the cliff, a wizard’s tower collapsed onto the rocky shoal below. An imposing pair of sphinxes made of white stone guard the ruin, all contained in an arcane sphere frozen permanently in time.

Motherfire Island
The island of Motherfire is one of the world’s most volatile, active volcanoes. Its surface is covered in unique flora that can survive the scorching inland heat. Black trees coat themselves in iron, soaked up through roots and laced into their bark. The dense grass is coated in trace metals, sharp enough to cut through boot leather.

Vinyotians who don’t mind the warmth have built towns along Motherfire’s shore. They brave the difficult flora (and the dangers of fauna able to survive in such a place) to catch and study the unique fish of the surrounding waters.

Porta Strega
Travelers and traders from Louvain tour the entire southern half of the Beast World from riverboats on the Quest River until reaching their destination at the far end of Vinyot. This wide, gentle estuary is surrounded by a forest of maple trees and the Witch City of Porta Strega.

Porta Strega earns its name from the peculiarities of its surrounding woodland. Whatever aspect of nature keeping the real world separate from the Netherworld is thinner here, making the forest an intersection of natural and ghostly forces. The emotions of a willful creature are normally necessary for the creation of a ghost. In the woods around Porta Strega, a quiet-minded animal’s violent death or some other shock can leave an imprint on the Netherworld.

These feral ghosts are unusually powerful within the treeline of the Strega Woods. They manifest as they like, appearing as herds of pale lights at night, flying through the leaves and darting across the treeline.

Thankfully, the mysterious cause of their presence also allows them to calm from the wild outburst of their creation. Porta Stregans are nevertheless known for preferring a salad over a steak. Fate is best left untempted.

Porta Ventura
The city of Porta Ventura is Vinyot’s maritime gateway to Arneria. Fine white sand stretches along the coast of the small city. Its roads are built to follow these glittering beaches. Porta Ventura is famous for a law requiring that each building have at least one window facing the sea. This beautiful, secluded city is a haven for the rich; Vinyotian company royalty negotiate trade deals and oversee their shipments on their journey north into Allemance.

Procone Woods
The dense canopy of this forest almost completely blocks sunlight from reaching the ground. Within the shadowy thicket is the Tenebrous League, an association of towns with a primarily tenebrine population. This haven for night-dwelling beasts welcomes all who visit its peculiar people. They live in a tiny subculture that has sworn off currency and ownership. Procone natives often have difficulty adjusting to the mercantile society of greater Vinyot, often accidentally confirming the preconception of tenebrines as thieves.

Quetra Tenna Islands
Four islands make up the Quetra Tenna archipelago in west Giant’s Foot Bay. The shallows here are saturated with salt and other seafloor mineral deposits. Settlements work in its underwater quarries and laetine researchers conduct alchemical experiments on the odd compounds unearthed.

Ruby Bay
The mainland port at the Ficklefox River estuary is named Ruby Bay, after the color of its gentle waters. Iron in the bay stains the water a distinct red color renowned for its bizarre beauty. Fishing hamlets surround the bay, built a few years ago when the Pilgrimage brought thousands to the city searching for work and a home.

Ruby Bay is governed by a board of companies whose wealth exploded after the arrival of humanity. Homebuilders, craftsmen, and settlement suppliers able to let go of lingering anger from the Invader occupation saw unprecedented growth from charity-funded contracts to help brethren get on their feet.

The test is to treat their new neighbors as charitably now that the gold rush is over.

Southwinds
The hot, humid shoreline connecting Vinyot to the Long Sea is dotted with fishing towns and ports where trade fleets can rest on their way to Arneria. Southwinds is the largest of these cities, built on fertile ground between the Honeymoon and Auric Rivers.

Southwinds wears the largest scars of the Invader War. The Invader Army’s initial appearance was several miles east of the city. The human army overran it in less than a week and made it their base of operations. At the behest of their shadowy masters, the high commanders ordered every symbol of beast religion removed, and every statue in their image torn down. The bethels were razed, and the city’s identity was erased. Southwinds was the first city occupied and the last surrendered.

After the war, Southwinds was one of the few cities to outright refuse entry to humans. This prohibition stunted the city’s reconstruction; the goodwill and hard work of grateful civilian brethren caused an economic boom all around them. In a cruel irony, this slowed the healing of hearts even more in postwar Southwinds.

No major caravan forbids brethren, so the city watched them pass by for years. Eventually, their curiosity about delvers became a higher priority than the pain lingering from the war. Brethren are allowed on its streets now, but any humans are watched with unflagging scrutiny. Southwinds has taken its first step on another path, but its destination is yet uncertain.

Springbok’s Flight
The city of Springbok’s Flight is known for twin roads leading up the surrounding cliffs east and west to two towers. These lighthouses are important to all devout Vinyotians. The west is a symbol of the Beast Mother’s gift of will into the minds of her menagerie. The east represents Dramphine’s steadfast fairness toward all beasts and brethren. Springbok’s Flight is a crucial stop for all religious pilgrimages across Vinyot.

For a major city, Springbok’s Flight has an unusually chaste vibe. Religious tourists visit under the expectation of good behavior in all public areas. The Pleasure Island of Pristana is a wilder destination that’s only one day of sailing away, after all.

The Foxmeet
The two vulpine subspecies first encountered at the Foxmeet. Beylik desert fox voyagers crossed the Azur Gulf centuries ago to map the lands beyond, and encountered early Vinyotian tradewind foxes deep in the mountains past the shore. Those fennecs returned after bringing back knowledge of the western continent. Their descendents still live in the region.

Throne of the Easterlies
The largest unsettled island in the Beast World is the Throne of the Easterlies. Speculation and superstition surround this mysterious landmass and the steep cliffs making up almost every inch of its shoreline. The Throne was named for being the point of convergence between the trade winds and easterlies. They swirl in a hectic circle across its waters.

Daring explorers have climbed the cliff face to the sharp, rocky terrain above. However, none have found the source of the winds that gust outward from its center. Arcane anomalies rebuff any attempt to approach Astrally with teleportation and the hurricane gales repel those using feet or flight. Not even the mighty wing beats of old dragons have navigated the perpetual storm. (With a haughty huff, most insist they weren’t interested anyway.)

Tresoli Islands
The Dungeon’s punishing early appearances chased away the seafaring population of the three Tresoli islands, as well as Tresoli City. Its port is abandoned and Dungeon monsters have appropriated its docks to launch vessels that menace trade routes all throughout Vinyot.

Wrightbarrow
Wrightbarrow is several related things: a large southwestern island of Vinyot, the harbor on its north shore, and the associated towns around its edge and blanketing its surface. The Wrightbarrow Shipping Concern is a vulpine company that makes the sea vessel Vinyot is most known for. Their flagship design is the Gull, a dependable, affordable ship that fills the general needs of a modern Beast World mariner.

Wrightbarrow dominates the shipwright market in part because every step of the build process takes place on the island. Timber is sourced from the inland hills and iron ore is mined from underneath it. The labor force lives within its borders, and their children are given free education in company-funded schools.

The family heads who run the Concern don’t see the Dungeon with other Vinyotians’ eyes of romance and wonder. They regard its appearance as a frustrating and unpredictable factor in their affairs—risk to be mitigated. They pay lucrative contracts to experienced delvers willing to live on Wrightbarrow Island patrolling its lands.

Pristana
"“Heaven for the living.”" The motto isn’t for nothing; Pristana’s canals are a glittering wonderland. It sits on a small peninsula just south of Vinyot, overlooking the most picturesque stretch of the Long Sea. Many sailors who have docked in Pristana Harbor dream of retiring to a life of leisure and pleasure in some canalside apartment, between someone rich and someone famous.

City of Canals
Thirteen canals connect either side of Pristana’s peninsula, with a web of over two hundred narrower inlets throughout the city. Docks, overhead bridges, and other means of traversing the stonewalled inlets cover their criss-crossing pattern. Streets are only one way to get around—passenger taxi-boats and privately owned craft fill the waters below. These are mostly small rowboats, but the main canals also see larger ships dock within inner harbors to supply businesses directly from short voyages to the mainland.

Architecture in Pristana
Four-story rowhouses face both sides of the water in most districts. These stacked apartments have exits out to canalside lanes, with wrought iron rails along the water’s edge. Many also have lower-level doors onto docks where a resident can use the waterways as transit without walking to a larger public dock.

Buildings on the inner streets can be even taller; six-story complexes are not uncommon. Pristana’s popularity and confined space have driven up the average height of a building, and the uneven silhouette of the city has become one of its signatures. It’s common for one’s bedroom window to look out over a roof next door.

Where the Money Is
The district on either side of the 7th Canal has the tallest, most grandiose buildings in the city. Out-of-town shipping magnates and trade lords meet with foreign dignitaries, draconic contacts, and others demanding the very best wherever they go. 7th Canal is open to the public, but unsavory sorts—and the underdressed—soon find themselves escorted back to more suitable stomping grounds.

Tall gates surround the docks of the 7th Canal. Their sentient locks keep apprised of visitors allowed to pass, and can sense when a boat is allowed to pass through. Some are centuries old and know more dirty secrets than anyone. Spies looking to glean knowledge about the trade lords’ movements sometimes lurk in the shadows of the canal after dark.

Sinful Sides
The 1st and 13th Canals are Pristana’s farthest east and west districts. The edges are where Pristana’s thrill-seeking guests roam, and is where the city earns its reputation as a “pleasure island.” Where the outer harbors lie, it’s nothing but long beaches of fine sand and fine people. The tropical sun brings out the city’s beautiful people to swim with gorgeous leisure craft sailing further out.

When the sun hides, all those people flock to the casinos, brothels, and high-end liquor lounges in the edge canals. These two districts alone have more gambling dens than any other Vinyotian city. Flashy magical lamps whose flame is colored by alchemical powders decorate the canals themselves. On every street corner, barkers for each den of sin spit fire and perform magic for anyone passing by.

The Fifth Market
The longest rowhouse is a half-mile stretch along the 5th Canal. Their uppermost floor is one long attic, known as the Fifth Market. This stuffy tunnel of low rowhouse ceilings is a fence’s dream come true. Counterfeits, forgeries, and contraband flow freely across blankets laid on the floor. One can also find the services of assassins, smugglers, and other dastards of the Beast World.

The presence of the Fifth Market irritates Pristana’s authorities and the Dramphinians. Unfortunately for them, the market has an efficient way to disappear and cover its tracks. Visitors can only enter from the top of a staircase at either end. If the spies surrounding the rowhouse get wind of a paladin coming to make trouble, they send word to the Market’s bouncers. Market sellers scoop their wares up into the blanket they’re sitting on and disappear down trapdoors leading into the lower hallways. These one-way hatches let sellers slip into one of a dozen or more apartments in each building. The Fifth Market remains as a concession by the Dramphinians, who are grateful that the ugly side of the city is at least concentrated in one place.

Winner’s Square
To reach Winner’s Square, make an eastward turn onto a wide water lane about halfway up the 1st Canal. Climb the semi-circle of marble stairs to find the most fun way to lose a fortune in the Beast World.

In the casinos of Winner’s Square, delvers with new wealth slam their hard-won coins onto the table, hoping to turn “retirement” money into “empire” money. Virtually all of them leave disappointed, but the blow is softened by cheap drinks, flashy shows, and water elementals paid to dance in the fountains. Be sure to feed the fish in The Astral Diamond’s front pool the next morning! (If you can afford it, that is.)

The Pillar of Golden Luck
Varasta, the fox god of chaos, often visits Pristana to gamble and carouse. About a century ago, he was stumbling through a run-down section of the 11th Canal when a young woman stopped him to ask his name. She laughed in his face when he told her. “The real Varasta is much more handsome,” she replied. Eager to prove himself and certainly not compensating for anything, he responded by pulling a twenty-foot pillar of solid gold from the ground in the middle of an intersection. Whether this impressed the woman depends on who’s telling the story, but the pillar is still there today.

Looters are disappointed to learn that the pillar is unbreakable, but it has a useful quirk. When someone kisses the Pillar of Golden Luck, Varasta curses or blesses them according to his whim. Naturally, street merchants swarm the entire block around the pillar, each selling their own pamphlet of insight into how to ensure good luck. To see what happens, Varasta occasionally makes it so that a pamphlet’s advice is true for a few days, blessing every person who follows its instructions.

Then again, sometimes he does the opposite.

Center Street Bank
Center Street on the 7th Canal is the richest part of the richest part of the richest city in the world. Every beast and brethren here is the kind of rich that stops thinking of money in numerical terms altogether. They walk the pristine street in black clothing and gray cloaks, on their way from one earth-shaking lunch meeting to the next.

The gilded marble building standing at the apex of all this is the Center Street Bank. The trade lords meet in its gilded offices to transact Vinyot’s big business. The lower levels house the common fund of the Trade League, as well as the excess gold held by the Pirhouan church. However, both of these fortunes are dwarfed by the hoard of the bank’s governor, the gold dragon Minoda. The mild-mannered wyrm has overseen its operations since 739.

Draconic Holographs
The Center Street Bank makes money through the sale of draconic holographs, documents written out in a gold dragon’s handwriting. Customers pay the bank to secure their money, and can present the holograph at any branch to exchange it back. The customer pays 1% of the principal as a fee. In return, the dragon banker gives them a non-transferable note in the draconic language. The holograph bears their personal mark, the buyer’s name, and the amount paid. In case of their death, customers can designate a single beneficiary for holographs whose value exceeds 100 gp. They must appear in person at the time of purchase so that the writer can record their name. The subtleties of the draconic language capture an essential description of both people, allowing another dragon to verify their identity.

Center Street Bank branches exist in these locations:

No one trying to defraud the Center Street Bank has ever been successful. Attempting to hire a forger to fake a draconic holograph is a great way to brighten their day with some laughter at your expense. Minoda and the other dragons perform this service to keep people safer while traveling, but most believe it’s also at least partially to have an excuse to move around immense sums of gold.

Church of Varasta
Someone dead-set on taking a big risk is often called “one of Varasta’s faithful.” In Pristana, the term takes on a more literal meaning. His church is a huge presence in the city, congregating in water well gardens.

A Varastan water well garden is a vacant lot anywhere in Pristana, transformed by dedication and druidic magic into a pocket of serene nature filled with flowers and foliage. A statue of Varasta sits in the middle of each, usually wearing an expression daring one to move closer. Water pours from the statue’s outstretched hands into a deep stone well.While most druids would never set foot in any city, this circle makes a special exception for Pristana. They know of Varasta’s love of nature, calling themselves the Circle of the Wild Card.

These sanctuaries are tributes to the wandering god. They occasionally sit in the garden to coax him closer, seeking some spiritual fulfillment in watching him. While they wait, they read visitors’ fortunes and teach the lessons of nature and its chaotic ways.

The Order of Weights and Measures
Dramphinian paladins see Vinyot’s love for gambling as inevitable. As long as Varasta takes his reckless stroll through the Beast World, fools will dedicate themselves to rolling his dice. The Moon Wolf’s faithful have set themselves to making sure that the games are fair, at least.

A small contingent of this Order of Weights and Measures operates in Pristana. They walk the streets of the city, ensuring the law is followed and the wheels are balanced. Ironically (and much to their own annoyance), their duties require these paladins to have the nimblest hands of all Dramphinians. Some criminal organizations spend piles of platinum trying to woo a Weights and Measures pal into doing some under-the-table work. What a waste. They would make such good pickpockets…

Treasurers of Sanguine Fiat
Every so often, spotty and unreliable evidence of the Treasurers’ existence surfaces. It’s usually an unexplained murder leaving behind a corpse drained of blood. Whenever it happens, the rumors start a new cycle around card tables and the yellower rat newsletters. If anyone were seriously chasing after the Treasurers of Sanguine Fiat, they’d surely be starving for a shred of proof.

The urban legend changes with every telling, but it usually involves a coterie of vampires whose lair is one of the 7th Canal’s towers. At night, they use demon magic to disguise themselves and roam the streets of Pristana, spinning their dark charms around those they fancy a drink from. They usually lure the victims back to their homes, but sometimes that proves too risky, or if the vampire feels like living a demonic life on the edge. These baseless rumors have circled for a long, long time.

Spada Company
The Spada Company is the Trade League’s largest Sellsword contract, a private army whose sole mission is to keep Pristana at peace. Their forces are also responsible for clearing the surrounding waters of pirates and monsters. A foreign lord’s death would be a supreme embarrassment for the Trade League, who promise that Pristana is the safest destination in Vinyot.

Crime is virtually nonexistent in the Spada Company’s main jurisdiction, the 7th Canal district. Every individual walking the streets is identified and accounted for, and the mercenaries even sweep the streets clear of debris every night. As for the rest of the canals? Spada Company is under orders to keep the city attractive to its clientele. The work of keeping the waters clear and the 7th pristine is enough for them. They take plenty of shortcuts elsewhere, often at the expense of the commoners.

Chapel of the Faithful
blazing storm of color flashes and dances on thecorner of the 12th Canal’s glitziest lane. A persistent illusion depicting the Dice Fox Varasta alternates between two frames: one is of him flashing a winning hand to the viewer with a wink, and the other is of him tossing three dice toward them. The name of the place blazes underneath: Chapel of the Faithful. At the bottom of the red-carpeted steps, a pair of saucy laetine table girls usher you in.

The casino floor awaits past a double door covered in plush purple fabric. Live music blasts an energetic tune from a quartet of horns while scandalously dressed beer-boys raise their trays overhead to dart between tables. Each is dedicated to a distinct combination of game and maximum bet, overseen by dealers and croupiers in costumes resembling burlesque Vinyotian bethelkeepers.

The Machine
A 300-pound curio sits on a pedestal of cinderblocks roped off in the corner. An attendant introduces the game as “Exploding Jackpot.” A player jams a platinum piece into the machine’s friendly slot and pulls the lever on the side. The whirling mechanism inside asks Varasta’s whim. Platinum rains into the tray below if the three symbols displayed by the wheels match when they stop.

Roll a d10. Every time a 10 is rolled, roll another d10. Consult the table for winnings, which are cumulative until you stop rolling. The lowest symbol is the match.

Investigation reveals that the Shamans resent the casino’s ownership of this priceless artifact. They fear that the curio will be irreparably damaged by a frustrated loser, and have fought unsuccessfully for its legal custody for the past eighteen months.

Who's Here

Varasta’s Knucklebones
Roza runs Varasta’s Knucklebones. Each player bets between 1 and 10 pp, with Roza matching each individual bet. The winner takes both bets. The game is played with three 6-sided dice rolled together. Roza rolls first. The players roll next, provided Roza hasn’t automatically won or lost. If both Roza and a player set a point, the higher of the two points wins. If they roll the same point, it’s a push and the player keeps the money they bet.

The Crystalfox Hotel
Winner of the Pristana’s Finest Hotel award for the last two years, a night in the Crystalfox is a night in paradise. Your spacious suite will have a double stack of plush cotton mattresses covered in snow-white linens. Why not take a step out to the private balcony overlooking Pristana Beach to watch the sun set over the Long Sea? When you have needs, we have needs. With a ring of a bell, our staff is at your beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Have a drink at the bar on our ground floor. Head over to our restaurant to enjoy Vinyot’s finest cuisine, while our house entertainers put on a show that will leave your belly full and your face smiling.

At the Crystalfox, we are comfort and so much more.

Who's Here

Al'ar
"It’s another hot day under the sun, with nothing to dobut listen to sea birds chatter and waves clap against the ship. At long last, a mountaintop pokes up from beyond the glassy horizon you’ve been watching for weeks. The ship makes its way through a loose gathering of fishing boats with their captains sprawled out on the deck. The blazing colors of dock town banners are just beyond. Welcome to Al’ar." The Feline Isles of Al’ar are a remote archipelago of over three hundred volcanic islands. Al’ari are predominantly feline—most are cats, and the non-cats pick up some of their traits while living there. Deep green jungles and the dark blue sea give the homeland a natural beauty that is the envy of all the Beast World.

Untouched beaches and lively dock towns come to mind when the average person hears this homeland’s name. The temperature is warm year-round; the seasons are a cycle of dry sun and harsh storms. Hurricanes pass through the southern half of the archipelago in the wet season, high winds scattering the seeds of Al’ar’s fruit trees. They scatter any unprepared cats, too.

Al’ar is about 25,000 square miles in total land area (counting islands with at least one dock town). Just over one million people call themselves Al’ari, and they live along 2,600 miles of surrounding coastline. Species other than felines and humans are a tiny minority.

Lively Docks, Unspoiled Land
Al’ari Pirhouans believe the world is a gift from the Beast Mother. They leave nature with as few permanent alterations as possible. People live in cities built on long wooden docks along the isles’ sandy beaches. Tent and hammock dwellings stretch inland, but stone structures are exceedingly rare. When islanders fell trees, they pay careful attention to replanting. They only mine the littoral caves formed naturally in ocean-side cliffs.

To avoid permanent changes to the land, the Al’ari take a unique approach to agriculture. They explore their home islands, encouraging the growth of wild crops and expansive mangroves. With care, wild-sown crops yield plentiful forage in their own time. The neat rows of farmland in Allemance and Arneria are unfamiliar to an islander, but the crop rotation and nitration techniques necessary to cultivate Al’ari forage farms are used to aid conventional farms as well.

Al’ari cuisine certainly doesn’t suffer for this approach. Root vegetables such as sweet potato and cassava are staples of their diet, accompanied by a wide range of jungle-native fruits and tuna. These foods are enhanced by robust spices unique to Al’ar’s tropical climate. Sugarcane grows on Al’ar’s largest islands, and Al’ari rum is a favorite everywhere in the world.

Sailing Home Waters
Houses in a dock city often have sparse furnishings and little storage. An Al’ari home is mainly a shelter from rain and insects. Spending more than a few daylight hours indoors attracts rumors one is hiding an illness (or a mistress). Tools, unfinished fabrics, and anything else vulnerable to the elements are the most common furnishings. The Al’ari sleep on their roofs, under open sky whenever possible. This habit follows them elsewhere, which makes them easy to spot in delver caravans at night.

Al’ari settlements are on docks, but Al’ari life is lived on a boat. The clear waters are decorated with tiny vessels, whose sails fly a rainbow of colors and patterns. A newborn Al’ari can swim before they can crawl, can sail before they can walk, and can build a boat before they can read. The shipwright’s art is a lifelong pursuit. At least once a season, boats are replaced and their old materials are repurposed. The design and decoration of each one expresses its builder’s whims and momentary fascinations.

The Al’ari Sailboat
An Al’ari sailboat is a light wooden sloop built for two people, made to glide through glassy waters and choppy tides. They can be sailed alone and stored away in a few minutes. It is a vehicle, companion, work tool, and art project. The most refreshing nap is one taken on the tide. No fish is as filling as one brought from the sea to the kitchen.

Not every Al’ari boat is a slender personal wave runner. Some families combine their efforts to build transcontinental schooners, whose wide sails and tall masts carry them to Arneria on voyages lasting six months or more. Al’ari families take season-long journeys to trade spices, textiles, and other goods with foreign homelands. The crew is usually one to three families, but sometimes a band of adventurous young friends plan their own voyages to win some new fineries to wear.

Two Homes
Al’ari settlements uproot and relocate twice a year, in a practice known as the Storm Voyage. Docks are pulled up and huge migratory ships are built from their timber. Once finished, the vessels carry everything to the settlement’s second location. The destination is usually a completely different island. The timing of this journey depends on the settlement, but all Storm Voyages follow the beginning and end of the dry season: during May or June, then again in November or December.

The Storm Voyage is borne of necessity. Al’ari foraging is at the mercy of a wild growing season, and a dock town’s migration gives the island time to recover from sustaining a large population. The migration of sea life has adapted to match these sailing patterns, which helps the Al’ari resist the complacency that leads to overfishing.

Of course, the most important reason for the Storm Voyage is in the name. Hurricanes tear across Al’ar during the wet season, which would nullify a city built on docks. The storms are more manageable along the northern islands, so every year a tide of colorful sails washes onto their beaches. The Al’ari circle their waters this way, with sails like a school of colorful fish skimming the surface.

This journey is a centuries-old tradition. Legend has it that the oldest Al’ari homes contain timber from the first Storm Voyages. The name Al’ar itself is derived from al-isar, which translates to “child of the typhoon” in Old Al’ari.

A Boulder Pushed
The semi-annual voyage and dock town reconstruction is two weeks of intense labor. From sunrise to sunset, every healthy citizen helps to build the ships. Traveling Al’ari with necessary skills are often called home for the task, and join their communities in the back-breaking effort of moving an entire city across the sea.

An Al’ari saying about the value of work goes, “a boulder pushed an inch rolls a mile.” When the Storm Voyage is finished, its maelstrom of effort subsides. Al’ar settles down into a leisurely joie de vivre. By narrowing their work to one tough month, the Al’ari earn eleven more months of easy living with the sun and sea. They spend long afternoons in casual study, walking among the mangroves, or perfecting their fishing technique.

The rhythm of the Dungeon delving life comes naturally to beasts and brethren from the Feline Isles. An Arnerian might be frustrated by its short bursts of effort and excitement, followed by months of idle inaction. For the Al’ari, it’s hardly a change in pace at all.

Pondering Time
The typical Al’ari spends hours by themselves every single day. They might spend this time pearl diving, climbing inland trees, or simply observing the rain from underneath a canopy. Grasping this alone time is an important part of understanding the Al’ari perspective on work, religion, and family. Even a flighty, chattering kitten learns the value of quiet moments of contemplation.

This thoughtful rhythm makes Al’ar a homeland of great philosophical minds. They regard metaphysics and the study of self with the same importance as mathematics or arcanist studies. Philosophers who publish insightful work enjoy privileged opportunities in Al’ari society. Long, waterproof scrolls of philosophical poetry, treated with wax and seed oil, are one of the few permanent possessions an Al’ari carries with them from year to year.

Tidal Temperament
An impermanent nature runs throughout all Al’ari culture. People wander from island to island, adopting other villages’ habits and traditions as they go. As their saying goes, “the sea is never truly still.”

Some people think centuries of isolation from other species led to Al’ar developing a culture closer to the tendencies of quiet-minded cats. Others have noticed similarities between Al’ari society and their surrounding ocean waters. Its people are inspired by both.

Feline Isle Families
A bartender asks a group of bachelors why they want toget married. “For love,” says the Arnerian mouse. “For money,” says the Vinyotian fox. “For companionship,” says the Oric elk.“Because six is a nice, round number,” says the Alley wolf.The Al’ari tiger looks around in confusion. “What does ‘married’ mean?” A Beast World barroom joke

Impermanence also helps describe Al’ar’s romantic and family values. Marriages are less common and occur at an older age than in other homelands. Settling down with a spouse before age 45 is virtually unheard of. An eligible young Al’ari drifts between paramours, with romance swelling and receding just as in a platonic friendship.

Children on the isles have a strong attachment to their mothers. Al’ari mothers are solely responsible for their children from birth to adulthood; insulting an islander’s mother is a sure way to start a nasty fight. An Al’ari child is also supported and mentored by their mother’s romantic partners.

Al’ari moms are attracted to lovers who they think might be a good influence on their children. Al’ari children are self-sufficient at a young age, and are considered adults at sixteen. A mother teaches independence to her children, so she can keep her own as well.

An Agile Life
The most stark contrast between the maritime Al’ari and Vinyotian cultures is that most Al’ari don’t value what they can’t hold in their hands (or paws). Family homes filled with treasures and symbols of their status are foreign to traditions common in Al’ar. When felines first sailed to the mainland, the sheer hugeness of Vinyotian homes was the subject of decades of Al’ari jokes. They laughed at the “Warehouse-Beasts” who apparently feared running out of air and tried to trap all of it within the walls of their homes.

Ironically, however, the best way to spot an Al’ari in a crowd is by the amount of precious metal they wear. Hoarding treasures is a wasted effort, but the Al’ari love glittering things as much as anyone else—and some would say, even more. Al’ari wear their wealth on their bodies. Their richest traders could be mistaken for wearing platinum chain mail.

Handheld Economy
The spice trade is a huge part of Al’ar’s economy. Even tiny villages collect a bit of excess vanilla or cinnamon to make life more interesting. Vinyotian and Al’ari trade ships sail annual routes that send envoys to several dock towns at a time. They purchase local goods and bring news from around the world. These goods are exported for a profit.

Al’ari money is spent quickly. After preparation for unexpected hardship and community investment, any remaining proceeds are distributed to a dock town’s residents. How this windfall is divided depends on the community, but whatever way they divide it, it’s quickly cycled back into a trader’s coffers. Some traders skip the currency exchange altogether and bring goods from the east to barter with directly. However, most dock towns also use gold circulation to pay residents who perform its less-than-glamorous work.

“There Are No Pirates in Al’ar”
Al’ar has many pirates. Exiled criminals cluster together and build ships, which then gather into independent fleets. Some pirates are savvy traders taking a break from legitimate business to pursue a “shortcut” to wealth. And some are bored islanders whose knack for violence and lust for gold is stronger than their moral fiber.

The Al’ari night-sailing industry smuggles an eye-watering sum of gold and illegal goods between ports in every homeland. Vinyotian trade companies are keen to grease the right paws to keep their ships from being harassed by pirate fleets. This makes for less bloody business than one might expect. Most mariners know that for every pound of gold a pirate wins in battle, they win five more for the promise of “protection” from it. Al’ari pirates engage just in enough raiding to keep the consequences of missing a payment fresh in a trader’s mind.

A Storm Voyage is a target as vulnerable as it is lucrative; a single raid could half-sink a pirate vessel with treasure. However, it would also surely doom a dock town to starvation. Pirates and polite Al’ari society have a cautiously cordial relationship. Among the few universal rules among ship wreckers is that raids on Storm Voyages are absolutely forbidden. Pirates enforce this rule with singular ruthlessness. Any breach is a death sentence that earns the executioner handsome bounty rewards from other pirates.

In exchange for this nonaggression, the Al’ari remain stubbornly neutral in the neverending war between traders and pirates. Al’ari mercantile voyages are armed to protect themselves, but there’s no organized pirate-hunting navy in the homeland. Foreign efforts to stamp out piracy are met with a cold shoulder, if not actively hampered. “There are no pirates in Al’ar” is an adage describing a winking agreement to frustrate pirate hunters.

The phrase is starting to lose its irony. Raiding excursions from the south are becoming less common, as pirates permanently leave the trade to become delvers instead. It’s a safe bet that a delver with an Al’ari accent has engaged in night-sailing at some point.

Art & Music
Pigments made from its diverse flora allow colorful art to flourish in Al’ar. The textiles that decorate dock towns are woven on lazy days. The modern explosion of color in the wardrobe of commoners everywhere in the Beast World is thanks to Al’ar’s dye work.

Painting is also popular, and city boardwalks become a canvas for abstract expressions of emotion and movement. In fact, paintings appear wherever they’re allowed. Each temporary splash of color fades with rainfall, clearing the way for a new one.

Al’ari songs disappear just as quickly, changing with every performance. Cruz the Bard’s A Fistful of Sand was an attempt to capture Al’ari folk songs on paper, but each page looks more like a flow chart than sheet music. One song changes key when performed in the rain, another changes tempo when performed for a listener one lusts after, and several have a second bridge that’s only included when performed before a meal. Recording the lyrics was equally troublesome: (Name of Acquaintance) (Walks or Runs, Depending on their Preference) on (East Beach Acquaintance Enjoys) is a breathtaking composi�tion, but it loses something when transcribed.

Funeral Fleets
Losing a resident is a time of grief for all of a dock town. Gray-sailed ships, sailed by those who were close to the departed, carry their remains out to open sea. This procession sails in silence and arrives at the burial ground at sunset. The destination is a deep burial trench on open water. Each of these trenches is used by multiple dock towns for funerary rites.

When the funeral reaches the trench, its boats gather in a circle. The people of a dock town sing the departed’s favorite songs as the bethelkeeper returns their body to the ocean. The weight of the possessions hung from their neck and body sink the remains to the bottom of the sea. Al’ari who die without enough wealth to sink them are draped in gold necklaces by everyone attending the funeral. In return for feeding them in life, an Al’ari’s body is returned to the sea. The practice also repays precious gold and treasures taken from the earth during life.

After the burial, a family is given a season to grieve. Dock towns deliver food and comforts to the grieving family, who are expected to rest during the work of that Storm Voyage.

The Foxencat
Vinyot and Al’ar have celebrated their friendship for centuries by repainting a mural one hundred feet high on the east side of Mount Amistat every year. The mural depicts a feline and vulpine engaging in a different friendly activity every year. The storm season washes the mural away every summer, and on the first weekend of December, the Al’ari and Vinyotians congregate to repaint it in a festival known as the Foxencat.

During the Foxencat, guests eat, drink, and party together for seven days. When the mood strikes—usually around day four—they start painting the outline of the mural. By the end of the festival, dedicated artists have finished the massive painting that greets visitors to Al’ar for the next year.

A Celebration in Color
All year long before the Foxencat, islanders mix dyes from native flora that are used to create the vibrant textiles Al’ar is famous for. The winter leftovers are mixed into paints during the annual voyage to Amistat.

The festival sees revelers use these paints on everything—and everyone. The island, its inhabitants, and their ships are covered in loud color by the end of the week. Even the surrounding waters are stained with long tendrils of color that mingle and mix.

Unlike the dense symbolism of other Beast World festival customs, there’s no deeper meaning to the paint parties of the Foxencat. Once, many years ago, some accident splashed someone in paint intended for the mural itself. No one forgot the ensuing mess or the big smiles underneath it. Every year afterward, the cats brought a little extra color to leave a handprint on a friend. And on it went.

Stick Fighting
The stick fight is a popular pastime throughout Al’ar, and the Foxencat is the best place for a stick fighter to show off their skills. While technically a combat sport won by drawing first blood, its bright attitude and musical performance are a far cry from a stuffy joust between two overdressed Alley knights.

The “stick” is a sturdy wooden baton about three feet long. Two combatants dance to a drum beat while taking turns attempting to land a blow on the opponent. Each round, the fighters belt out an improvised rhyme about their own prowess, between lunges and dancing overhead swings. When a combatant bleeds, their opponent is declared the victor. Magic and supernatural chicanery are poor sportsmanship, but are also a sign one is probably taking things too seriously; the stick fight is a high-spirited spar meant to be enjoyed by the winner and loser alike.

Optional Rules. A creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Performance) check to make an attack on its turn. Regardless of a creature’s magic items or abilities, it can’t make more than one attack on its turn. If the result is 17 or higher, a creature can also do one of the following: attack A stick fighting creature can take a number of hits equal to 1 + its Constitution modifier before bleeding. A critical hit against the creature counts as two for this purpose.
 * Make a second attack, if it could normally do so
 * Impose disadvantage on the opponent’s next
 * Make the attack roll with advantage

Seakiss Night
The Al’ari Pirhouan festival of Seakiss Night is the most raucous of all the homelands’ religious ceremonies. Shipwrights gather up for two weeks at the end of the dry season, walking through the town to reclaim the lumber from broken sailboats, worn-out docks, and homes in disrepair. They use the salvaged materials to construct colorful barges known as seakiss rafts. The shipwrights build the boats in their most imaginative designs, often with multiple levels and using strange engineering experiments. The finished rafts are tied together to form a long, colorful parade.

On the night of the festival, everyone lines up their boats. The shipwrights’ family and friends dress in elaborate costumes and dance with the spectators. The rafts sail in a parade past each boat on the line.

After the children have gone to sleep, everyone else boards the rafts. The town’s cacique stands on the largest raft and swings an oversized mallet at a peg in the bottom. While the barge fills up with water, everyone parties on the seakiss rafts. The festival continues as long as any rafts remain—when one sinks, everyone dances closer on any rafts still floating. The sunken rafts settle on the ocean floor, where they become a home for sea life.

The challenge of a shipwright is to make Seakiss Night last until sunrise by building unsinkable rafts. The brightest engineers have kept things going until the morning sky is pale orange.

Unique and United
Multiple towns on some larger islands are united in laws and a ruling body. On others, one town might have leadership that governs completely differently than another less than a day’s sail away. Most Al’ari villages have no codified laws at all. Self-determination of one’s community is a source of pride in the Al’ari people. Dock town government is a nimble, ongoing experiment. However, the Feline Isles have some common traits and language of government throughout.

Villages and Dock Towns
Most settlements with fewer than a thousand residents debate at a regular gathering, and matters are settled with a direct vote. The final decision is entrusted to the eldest member of a community or their chosen delegate. This leader is called a cacique.

A dock town only replaces a cacique that acts unwisely and directly against everyone’s wishes. The meaning of “unwisely” is a subject of passionate debate in Al’ari social gatherings. Each community determines how they choose their cacique, as well as the other specifics of government.

Larger Cities
An Al’ari city is divided into localities of about one hundred people. Each of these hundred-person divisions chooses their own representative: a “Centuplicate Voice,” or centup. The centups meet as in smaller villages, debating and voting on a decision. They bring the results before the city’s cacique to make the final call.

While a small Al’ari town usually keeps the same system of government for generations, an urban population shifts and grows, which requires adaptive leadership. Localities change the method of appointing their centup constantly, and the most volatile ones try a new system every year.

Justice on the Islands
Judges on the islands give criminals a unique punishment, sentencing them to guidance. Criminals under guidance are bound to a steward of justice, usually a Dramphinian paladin in training, who remains with them at all times. They’re compelled to perform service to ameliorate the harm caused by their crimes. Al’ari pirates sometimes jokingly refer to this fate as being “tied to a new pal.”

Al’ar holds sacred the lives of all willful creatures. Execution is verboten and murder carries the harshest penalty: exile. An official called a birdkeeper helps enforce this exile. Birdkeepers compare any newcomer’s name against a list of exiled convicts. Names and descriptions of exiled Al’ari circulate among small-town rumormongers and eventually drift into every birdkeeper’s ear. They’re renowned for remembering faces and names, and they’re trusted spymaster informants everywhere in the world.

Pirhouanism in Al’ar
An open-air lounge sits at the edge of a tiny dock village, with the Heartleaf painted on each outer wall. Four sailors and the bethelkeeper chatter and laugh while lounging on cushions around a table. A three-month voyage has just ended. In this typical Al’ari bethel, voyagers plan their routes by consulting weather divinations prepared by divine magic. There’s a culture of fraternity among the devout, as they compare sea charts and seek new horizons to explore.

In Al’ar, Pirhoua is the goddess of curiosity, stewardship of nature, and wandering. Pirhouans from the isles are convicted to stay curious throughout their lives. Al’ari academia and voyaging pursue the unknown. The charge of curiosity also challenges one to be inquisitive about everyday activity.

The Delve in Al’ar
Caravans heading to Al’ar refit their wagons for the sea voyage or charter special ships with wagon-wheel grooves to allow quick deployment onto an island for exploration. Smaller caravans often skip the arduous trip to the isles. Crews with a lead in these caravans split at Arloris and rejoin later. Larger wagon trains make the trip west every year, however, as there are more Al’ari natives in them who are looking to visit home.

Attitudes about the Delve vary depending on whose docks one bumps their ship against. Devout Pirhouans are grateful for delving crews, as monsters can ravage the natural landscape of untouched islands. Delvers bring the outside world closer, but some in Al’ar aren’t sure that’s a good thing. The Delve brings the blessings and plague of tourism to Al’ar.

Many of Al’ar’s islands are uninhabited and unexplored. The Dungeon has infested these tracts of land and their surrounding reefs, opening its mouth for sea monsters to lurk in the deeper waters. Pirates whose ships are endangered by Dungeon attacks around Tonoro put out their own lucrative leads.

What to see in Al'ar
The archipelago of Al’ar has hundreds of islands, many with their own tiny fishing villages. However, about three quarters of the population live on the shores of the five largest islands.

Aurica
The long island in the northwest is renowned for its platinum. Aurica natives dive to explore the caves formed by crashing waves during the hurricane season. The force of the sea digs them deeper every year, leaving chunks of platinum ore behind on the seafloor.

Ships from the mainland sometimes sail north of Al’ar before cutting around Aurica to attempt raids in the south. The fastest pirates zip along the northern coast of Aurica to scout for these vessels. Pirates rarely harass delving crews poking around Aurica, but one should take care not to look too much like the law.

Dakshin
Dakshin and its sister isles look into the vast western unknown beyond Al’ar. The diverse jungle ecosystem of Dakshin is a dream destination for any naturalist. There are dozens of Dakshin druid circles, who revere sea, land, sky and stars alike. The druids’ ideology sometimes clashes with the Al’ari, but they avoid disturbing the dock towns on Dakshin’s coast.

The people of Dakshin docks are proud animal lovers--citizens rarely have fewer than three pets hanging around. Feral cats wander Dakshin dock towns and tropical birds perch on the side of fishing boats for treats tossed by their lazing captains.

Jarik
Dock towns on Jarik use sturdy wooden scaffolds to form towers of structures. These elevated streets allow residents to live closer to one another and protect the lower layers from the harsh summer sun.

Dense housing gives Jarik an urban vibe. Its people are uniquely fast-talking and cosmopolitan. Their clothing follows the current trends of mainland cities, but they twist rabbit-chic into a laid back, “west-isles flavor.” Jarik cats love nothing more than to talk about how different things are on Jarik.

Kandela
Kandela’s name comes from its active volcano. The large land area weakens hurricanes as they pass over it, allowing Kandela dock towns to move inland rather than making a Storm Voyage. They congregate at the volcano’s base to shelter from the storm.

The volcano itself is a gentle slope covered in greenery. Its last eruption was decades ago, but some on the island fear that meddling from the Dungeon could cause devastating trouble for the dock towns. Entrances have appeared on the island, but the quick response of delving crews has kept them away from the snaking channels of magma that run through the mountain.

Sampura
The Drum Island of Sampura is the farthest east of the five. A wall of trees lines the edge of its dense, hilly jungle. The land slopes down toward the west, and its eastern shore is a tall, rocky cliff that wraps around the peak of Mount Amistat.

Every year, hurricanes batter the south shore of Sampura. Many of the island’s dock towns sail around the island for the Storm Voyage, as the northwest half is spared the worst of the rainy season’s destruction. Harsh rains and tidal surges still pummel the island throughout, and those exploring inland risk being swept into the edge of a hurricane during the storm season.

Kashòtta Caves
Because of the natural caverns within the island, southeastern Jarik has become an uninhabitable hive of Dungeon activity in the last decade. The dock towns formerly settled in the Kashòtta region have been rebuilt elsewhere since it was overrun. Sailing close to the caverns is popular with delvers looking for trouble and trouble’s potential rewards.

Kyry
The Kyrians are peculiar. Rather than migrating north during the hurricane season, this strange town’s Storm Voyage brings it directly into the maelstrom’s path. Kyry is a tight-knit community consisting of the few would go along with this thrill-seeking ritual. Kyrians have refined storm chasing into a (sort of) survivable practice, but the life expectancy of a Kyrian is still ten years shorter than anyone else’s. It would be even shorter if Prophet Bembe, the oldest living Al’ari, wasn’t the town’s cacique. Bembe leads the Storm Voyage every year and is an inspiration to many others without a tight grip on self-preservation.

Mijnbou
The city of Mijnbou (MEENbau) follows the northern shore of Aurica. The Single-Shore City is named for its unique Storm Voyage. Rather than sailing to a second location in the dry season, residents of this city split up for six months out of every year to live as scattered nomads. Some fleets of Mijnbouans sail a trade route, while other ships join up with another dock town. No matter their destination, the city reconvenes in the off-season. They share stories and spoils from their months spent abroad, enriching each other’s lives. This culture of travel and information gathering makes Mijnbou the home of many great Al’ari birdkeepers.

Muraya
The “City of Walls” spreads up the side of a tall cliff on Sampura, a dock city miles and miles long. It’s a major port of trade in the larger Al’ari economy. The porous rock face at the back of the dock casts cool afternoon shade over the city’s residents. Murayans are renowned for their skill climbing the rock face to look over the horizon.

Tata & Mama Islands
These two islands are close enough that each is visible from the other on a clear day. The oldest recorded Al’ari story is about the rivalry between their towns. The legend goes that Tata and Mama had a race to see who could build a ship to reach the other island first. The story of this competition became the Tata-Mama Race, a sailing relay held every year between the islands.

The race is only one of the countless ways Tata Island and Mama Island compete. Every business has a sister on the opposite shore that calls it out by name, offering better service or lower prices. Each constantly tries to one-up the other and delving crews with Tata natives often have a Mama native who insisted on joining to prove themselves even more worthy.

Tempestat
If Al’ar was a unified state, then Tempestat would be its capital. This city of 50,000 is smaller than other metropolises of the Beast World, but its docks stretch along a staggering breadth of the shore. Tempestat makes an inland journey instead of a Storm Voyage, which is a factor in its sprawling size. The bouncing rhythm of life and active music scene on its crowded streets attract a certain sort of life-loving islander.

The city of Tempestat is huge, but the docks aren’t any farther from the shore. This elongated layout makes quick sailing between locations more important. The Tempestat Windstring is a popular magic item, which most natives carry and a visitor can borrow. When tied around the mast of a sailboat, it fills the sail with enough wind to carry it through the city at a fast clip. The Windstring only works within a quarter mile or so of the docks, but it’s an invaluable tool for exploring the staggeringly long city.

Tonoro
Tonoro is the collective name for a circle of otherwise anonymous islands in south Al’ar. The entire region is mysteriously invisible to most natives. Islander eyes can’t seem to get a focus on the crowded ports that pop up every dry season, and the bustling dock towns that surround them make no sound that anyone can hear.

After all, there are no pirates in Al’ar.

Trebe
The Three Babes are a trio of islands with a dock city along their outer coast. Its unique, winding platforms zig-zag much further from the coast than on other islands, taking a drastically different route every year. Their meandering design allows for deep-water fishing and gives the residents a little more space from their neighbors. It also keeps them away from the center of the islands, a region many residents believe to be haunted, cursed, or both.

The mangroves of Trebe are a vast forest of squat trees whose roots tangle through the shallow waters. These roots spring up from the water enough that an explorer can walk the shallows surrounding the islands without getting their toes wet. A hundred stories exist about what lies within this seawater forest. Lately, the stories are getting stranger…

Port Tonoro
The pirate dock town of Port Tonoro is always hidden behind one anonymous southern cliff or another. Sunlight glimmers on the surface of a clear blue sea, and the docks of the pirate city harbor dozens of criminal vessels. The port itself is a wonder of quick construction—sturdy enough to handle the throng of people that walk its dock roads, but nimble enough to toss the entire city onto the deck of a ship and sail away with a half-hour’s notice.

Port Tonoro is the largest persistent settlement in the region, though its identity shifts every time it moves from one island to another. It disappears when storms roll through the region or when the Vinyotian navy gets bold enough to sail through the south. Whenever it gets word of trouble, the docks of Port Tonoro disappear.

Sneaking In, Sneaking Out
Port Tonoro has a different crowd and docks different ships every week. When a pirate’s raid goes well, it’s usually necessary to lie low while any searches peter out. The Quartermaster of Port Tonoro is a well-loved and respected tiger pirate named Skull Charlie. Skull Charlie looks after Port Tonoro, but rejects being called the city’s cacique, calling it a “settled man’s title.”

The Port Tonoro Navy carries the settlement’s immediate needs. These ships can load all the “street-docks” running along whatever island the city has hidden against. Provisions come in from Al’ari dock towns, Vinyotian ports, and anywhere else the fleet can find sympathetic sellers willing to make extra coin at the risk of attracting unwanted Dramphinian attention.

The city charges a docking fee to vessels doing business there. The ongoing existence of Port Tonoro proves that pirate captains know the value of a friendly port that doesn’t ask questions. Al’ar’s most ruthless criminals and famous pirates have walked its docks. Visitors are well-advised to keep their eyes low while feeling out Tonoro. The ships respect the fee and a few other unspoken rules, but anyone mistaking Port Tonoro for having any kind of “cease-fire” or “gentleman’s agreement” is probably doomed.

Fence Markets
The merchants of Port Tonoro are also fences. The city is a well-connected reseller’s dream; no central authority to hide from and a never ending supply of smugglers. Fences manage their contacts from the lower decks of their ships, and on the deck, they run front-facing operations right in public view. Every fence’s hold is a trove of ill-gotten gains; flashing something shiny makes any storeroom a showroom.

The fence markets are for a crew that wants to offload stolen goods, purchase rare equipment at a fence’s price, or is simply looking for quick work. However, they’re just as dangerous as the rest of Tonoro. First-time visitors should seek a guide or risk falling prey to a scam (or worse).

Land of Enchantment
A quirk of Port Tonoro’s lawlessness is the city’s lax attitude about the use of enchantment magic. An unspoken code of conduct allows anyone with enchantments to use them so long as the charmed individual isn’t forced into any permanent decisions. Losing free will to a mage is hardly attractive, but most regulars prefer that disagreements end with a few minutes of hazy recollection, rather than the bloody alternative.

It’s a rite of passage among Al’ari pirates to spend an evening as someone’s mind-magicked best friend, but it’s best to travel in pairs when doing so. One rarely sees a sailor walking alone on the docks. A buddy ensures a charmed night doesn’t end with a stolen ship.

Looking Out For Each Other…
All Al’ari pirates follow a list of rules which is short, but sacrosanct. These rules are enforced by the Tiger Sea’s most feared sailors: the pirate hunters.

Tonoro brands anyone who breaks these rules as traitors. Traitors are fair game anywhere, anytime. The pirate dock towns of Tonoro all contribute gold to the Traitor’s Kitty, a well-guarded treasure used to pay off successful hunters. The most bloodthirsty of all pirates enforce these rules; they keep a Traitor’s Register memorized so they can carry out thieves’ justice when they spot someone in the little black book.

…But Every One For Themself
Money and blood flow on the docks of Port Tonoro. In the corner of every filthy tavern, deals are struck to move tens of thousands of gold in stolen goods. Dangerous beasts and those they’ve betrayed use the city to find work. Fast friends share songs of long voyages, but ugliness and violence are always one misspoken word away.

Delvers use this lawless port to fetch a good price for Dungeon spoils. Pirates and fences are more than welcoming to crews who seem easy marks. The society of the Delve is wising up to the pirates who would rob a naïve crew blind. Even worse, jilted captains walk Tonoro, who would seek a murderous payback for losing once-loyal crew to the promise of delving riches.

The Murmuration
All Al’ari dock towns have birdkeepers to keep a list of exiles who would bring woe to their shores. The city of pirates has its own birdkeepers: The Murmuration. This faction in Port Tonoro collects docking fees, maintains the secrecy of its location, and manages the Traitor’s Register. Their most venerated members have secret identities and answer only to the Quartermaster. The Murmuration are always visible while in Port Tonoro. Perched in crow’s nests, they look out for intruders and other dangers.

Traitor Hunters
The hunters are the Beast World’s most openly violent people. They are the last chance for society’s misanthropes to do their grisly work with any legitimate purpose. There’s no sure way to spot a hunter, except by the nervous glances that spread through a room they enter. Traitor hunters are known for a casual attitude toward murder and destruction. They’re only tolerated by pirates for the grim purpose they serve.

Remoras
The waters surrounding the islands glitter with unclaimed treasure. Often, a battered ship will sail toward the port only to sink before reaching the shore. Others are the victims of failed raids that let their spoils sink to the unreachable depths.

A social club of daring beasts and brethren have made their fortune diving to salvage the shipwrecks of Tonoro. The Remoras are fiercely territorial—they attack outsiders caught skimming the depths of Tonoro’s sea floor on sight and hunt them relentlessly. The divers live on a barge in Port Tonoro. They’re a good contact for information about affairs underneath the waves.

Anton's Shack
A short walk from a cluster of rowdier bars in the port’s center, a round shack stands on the beach. A few stools sit around the shack’s bar-top, in front of a stack of rum bottles and a large fresh-caught tuna hanging from a hook. Behind the counter, a tall grandi tiger flips a knife around his fingertips before knocking it several times against a wooden board. He cuts a block of fresh fish into bites, offering them to a patron. A bouncy chikitu woman whistles a tune while stirring a pot over a small fire.

The shack is off the beaten path, but has attracted a dozen patrons. The bartender knows everyone he speaks to, such as a gnarled tradewind fox on the far side. The atmosphere is relaxed in this little corner of the beach, but sharp eyes note that patrons still watch their belongings. Who's Here

The Surrender Parlor
Fine green silks sway in the breeze, decorating a ship in the harbor with no one aboard. Like other ships doubling as public establishments, the vessel’s platform is extended for patrons to use. The black silhouette of a cat’s head is painted on the deck. The silhouette has a radiating outline, as if a ghost were leaving the cat’s body. A sign above the staircase leading below deck reads, “The Surrender Parlor.”

Downstairs, warm light and the smell of incense fill a large, open room with two closed doors on either side. Clients are lounging on cushions and pillows scattered around the floor. Each group is engaged in their own unusual activity. Two guests stare intensely at each other, unblinking. Three others are having an animated, completely silent discussion.

A tall, posh chikitu in the corner snaps her fingers. As you look around, a hulking bull rushes to sit at her heel. She walks past you toward the stairs and utters one sharp word. “Come.” The bull bounds up to her like a month-old puppy. They both disappear up the stairs.

The parlor’s owner is a well-dressed, androgynous sheep. Their wool is a well-coiffed poof at the front of their head. As they emerge from a side room, you hear a man scream a quick string of unintelligible words. They close the door to silence it, then nod in greeting.

Jaden the Bard
 * Slow, quiet speech with lots of pauses
 * A sad smile lives on their face
 * Adopted by jackals, understands their eccentricities

Jaden is the bard who owns and operates the Surrender Parlor. They are a master of the bardic arts who specializes in the lore around enchantment magic. They have devised several theses, which they keep to themselves for fear that the spells would be used to hurt others if they were widely disseminated. Jaden is a kind-hearted soul whose only wish is to help unchain the minds of clients, and strengthen bonds between loved ones.

The Parlor’s Services
The Surrender Parlor offers a variety of enchantment magic for clients looking to explore their minds, become closer with another, or temporarily give away their consciousness to someone else. Its services are at the bleeding edge of bardic charm magic, but the spells on offer here are controversial in polite society. Many see the Surrender Parlor as a nest of temptation, meant to exploit those seeking to sate lurid and deviant tastes. Tonoro is one of the few places willing to let the Parlor dock and offer its services.

Rules of the Parlor
The Surrender Parlor operates under 5 strict rules. If Jaden detects that a potential client is lying to them, for any reason at all, they will cease all conversation and eject them. These rules are:

Consent. The Parlor’s spells are for willing clients. Some magic is ongoing when clients leave and Jaden encourages taking precautions.

Escape. Jaden casts all of their special spells with a means of escaping their effects. A word or concept decided beforehand will instantly release a client.

Courtesy. Clients are forbidden from interfering with another patron’s experience in the Parlor. If a client makes excessive noise or their public behavior offends another’s sensibilities, they will be asked to move into a private room or leave the parlor.

Weapons. The Parlor does not allow weapons capable of lethal damage. Jaden thoroughly pats down all clients and will ask one carrying weapons to store them elsewhere before returning.

Magic. All ongoing spells must end before the client can begin services. Magic items are allowed, but Jaden must cast identify on them. The fee is 200 gp per item.

Parlor Procedure
An ornate card sitting on a stand by the stairs lists the Parlor’s services. When clients are ready to begin, Jaden escorts them to a preparation room with five cushions and a short table. Jaden sits at the desk, pours tea for the clients, and invites them to sit.

After everyone sits, Jaden begins by explaining that they will cast detect magic, followed by zone of truth. True to their word, they cast detect magicon themself, then zone of truth (Charisma save DC 21) centered on the table. If the clients have any magic items, Jaden offers to identify them. If they have ongoing spells they cannot end voluntarily, the bard offers to cast dispel magic on them.

Jaden then asks a single question: “Do you intend to use my magic to exploit, harm, or distract another?” If a client lies to them, Jaden rolls Insight against the lie with a +14 bonus. If Jaden suspects deception, they ask the clients to leave. If the clients resist, Jaden casts mass suggestion(Wisdom save DC 21). Further resistance causes a fight with Jaden, an 18th-level bard, and two 10th-level fighters who they call from a side room.

Arneria
A humid rainforest a thousand miles wide covers the west, teeming with life found nowhere else. In the east, burning sands are crowned by glittering mountains. The Attamek river bisects the continent, flowing out of the Bey’s Head mountains in the north, all the way to the southern Matansil Sea.

The Bat’yan and the Beylik of Arneria is one homeland with two identities. Its people are split by the geography and climate on either side of the river, but Arneria’s unity is a friendship that has stood for over a thousand years. The Bat’yan’s barangays and the bey’s subjects vowed never to take up arms again after two centuries of bloody war at the dawn of the Beast World.

A diverse blend of six million Arnerians live in the Bat’yan and Beylik. Murine mice are its emblematic species, the most common beast in both halves of Arneria. Ligonine sloths favor the Bat’yan, where they hang from dense foliage on hooked claws. Bison and desert vulpines dwell in the Beylik, where their species have lived and worked to form the caravanserai powering an economy of gem trade. Armadillos and donkeys roam the thousand-mile elevated Causeway that runs between the two sides.

Intense Spirits
The two cultures of Arneria share some defining traits. One is the fiery passion that its people are known for. The stereotypical Arnerian is an all-in sort of person, living their life one hundred percent and never afraid to show it. This passion makes them quick to love and quick to anger, but their bright-burning hearts are beloved almost everywhere.

Some say Arnerians get their neverending enthusiasm from their ligonine species. Unlike Oric moles, ligonine sloths and armadillos aren’t isolated by thousands of tons of rock and stone. Arnerian ligonines burn like the sun, albeit in different shades of light. Sloths are steadfast and unrelenting (some even accuse them of being close talkers), while armadillos who sit still when they’re excited are rare.

Charity and Dignity
Dignity and charity are important values to an Arnerian. The two ideals are closely linked—Arnerians give generously, but always consider the dignity of the needy when doing so. They believe that boastful giving is a surefire way to invite Varasta’s misfortune, and that arrogance eventually leaves you in the same position as the people you embarrass.

A Charity Stone sits in front of most Pirhouan bethels in the Bat’yan and Beylik. The top of these pillars of rock have a cup-shaped indentation. People leave coins in it whenever they can afford to. Those who need money can take from it without risking humiliation. The stone is tall enough that no one can see who is doing what.

Strength Together, Strength Within
Arneria has the largest standing military of any homeland. The mice of the east fostered a culture of collectivist strength through the century-long effort to construct the Causeway. The builders who moved stones across Arneria’s unforgiving terrain were strong in body and magic. They easily made the transition to a formidable infantry, and the tradition of service continues to this day.

Their military collectivism has made Arneria an insular society. Arnerians are happy to welcome an outsider into their home, but they’re deeply suspicious of political meddling by other governments. The borders and ports of Arneria are heavily fortified navigating entry can be an irritating thicket of paperwork and questions.

The Bat'yan
Rays of sunlight sneak through the canopy overhead. Anaroma of sickly sweet fruit fills the lungs with every breath, and the air is heavy, hot, and wet. The road ahead snakes between dense trees, which are barely far enough apart to allow passage. Wildlife rustles in the branches above, and the songs of a dozen colorful birds accompany the rumble of wagon wheels. Welcome to the Bat’yan.

The Barangay
Communities in the Bat’yan are called barangays(bahrenGAIS). The government of west Arneria is almost entirely local, and barangays off the Causeway are tiny, tight-knit villages with no more than a few hundred people. They visit larger neighboring settlements to trade and hear important news from elsewhere, but the Bat’yan life is close and rural.

Every barangay is different. The towns in the deepest parts of the rainforest are steeped in tradition and attuned to the nature of their home region. These are some of the Beast World’s remotest communities; some have never even encountered the species common in other homelands. They’re also the most self-sufficient, having produced their own food, medicine, clothing and shelter since they first formed.

However, most barangays are more connected with the outside world. Roads through the thick rainforest foliage run throughout the Bat’yan. They’re maintained by each individual village, who value networking with Causeway cities and the rest of the Beast World. Each still retains a distinct culture that any who leave to see the world carry with them.

The Datu and the Raja
The leader of a barangay is the datu. They are its singular authority of law and civil management. Every barangay keeps its own laws, its own taxes, and its own justice. The datu is chosen with the same autonomy. A common system in much of the Bat’yan is to choose the datu from families within a privileged social class, or from leaders in the Pirhouan church.

In foreign affairs and dealings with the Beylik, the raja is the voice of all datus in the Bat’yan. The raja is a powerful diviner with the ability to network their mind with all the datus at once. The raja can reach out to them with questions and divine their response to act according to their will. The raja is an important figure, but they serve at the pleasure of their datus. The barangay leaders are always talking--if the raja is found to be acting against their wishes, they soon find themselves in a violently uncomfortable position.

A Day His and Hers
The social lives of men and women are more separated in the Bat’yan than in other homelands. Married couples of opposite gender keep their own distinct circle of friends, unlike the mixed social lives of Allemance and Oria. This segregation begins at a young age; boys and girls play the same games, but tend to stick with their own gender. Life can be tough for kids who aren’t sure which side of this fence they’re on (or are in a different pasture altogether), but most parents encourage their pups to be understanding about the ones figuring themselves out.

Adult men tend to be morning socializers. They congregate in front of coffee shops at dawn, talking with friends and catching up on the news around the barangay. The gatherings are where useful barter between families is arranged, but they’re also a hive of gossip about every little thing. Meanwhile, women do the early ranch work and attend to breakfast with children. (In the Bat’yan, there’s a strong association between women and breakfast for this reason.) Afterward, they maintain the house and look after kids too young to send outside on their own.

At noon, a family pulls together to pass the hottest part of the day with a nap. The early start to their day is to allow these important two hours or so. Life in the rainforest barangays takes a break to prevent heat sickness and get a quick rest in the afternoon.

Then, the roles switch. Men remain at home to do afternoon chores and begin gathering food for the late meal. This is also their time to look after the young ones, which they spend playing games to teach them some lesson or other. The women bring any produce harvested during the morning to shops, where they meet with friends and while away the hours. They compare harvests and snipe a bit in good fun about sadder crop offerings.

Around sunset, families converge once again for the late meal. Partners catch up on the day’s events and older children share what’s been happening with them. This is important bonding time, where parents model a strong relationship for their children. The animals are put away, the last chores are done, and homes quiet down for sleep as nighttime darkness falls.

Independence and Family
Unlike in other homelands, adults normally live with their parents until they’re married. Young adults start a new home in the barangay once they have a spouse to share it with. The average marriage age in the Bat’yan is 25, which gives a young adult time to find their footing in the world and demonstrate their responsibility to a partner.

Weddings in the Bat’yan are a rowdy affair. The barangay gathers to welcome a new family to their community, celebrating with songs everyone knows. Weddings are local festivals that might last two or three days. The datu gives the new couple a substantial gift from their personal fortune. In the following week, everyone in the barangay erects a house for them as a welcoming gesture.

Flexible Style
The schedule and rhythm of a family is rarely so strictly defined, of course. Beasts of the Bat’yan are flexible, adaptable people who take their work with them throughout the day. The walk home from the coffee shop is a good time to carry back a tool borrowed by a friend. It’s good to stop and take a break on the way, and the ongoing bethel wall repair needs a bit of work too. Bat’yan folks lead easygoing lives that go with the world’s flow.

This meandering schedule differs from an Allemagnian’s polychronism in that folks in the Bat’yan are always making progress toward several goals at once. The flex and flow of their lives is incredibly productive from a big-picture perspective. Oric culture builds great things because every person is a part with a specific purpose, but Bat’yan culture builds great things because every person can quickly adapt to the needs of the moment.

Art in the Bat’yan
In west Arneria, there’s only a fuzzy line between artists and conventional workers. Almost everyone in the barangays performs art and music, which they fold seamlessly into other parts of their lives. Becoming a career artist is a transition that takes years; with the aid of their community paying for their performances, a barangay bard starts their career later in life, but more well-equipped.

The Blackwild
The Bat’yan is scarred by a curse of unknown origin. In the middle of the rainforest stands a forbidden place where light cannot escape, and the whispers of demons entice anyone to move closer. Miles of the rainforest have been totally swallowed by this darkness, which the Arnerians call the Blackwild. It’s one of the few places in the Beast World where demons can touch the material world. Willful creatures who enter it are invaded by passengers with the desire and power to destroy anything that exists.

A barrier erected by the paladins of Dramphine prevents the Blackwild from advancing to devour any more of the Beast World. However, its mile-deep rim is warped by dark magic that claws out of the black. This border region is known as the Ring of False Blessings. Fruits grow enormous and juicy in the Ring, and birds of unreal colors fly between turquoise trees, singing an enticing song in a young woman’s voice. The Ring of False Blessings is beautiful, but in a bizarre, unsettling way. Nothing inside it can leave, but it can try to convince someone to enter.

The Dramphinian paladins hold this law absolute and at the expense of every other: entering the Blackwild is forbidden. Willfully venturing into the Blackwild or Ring of False Blessings is punishable by death. Memories of the terror wrought by demons who rode along on beasts who wandered in compel them not to take chances. Even discussing entering the Blackwild is punished with detainment and weeks of questioning by the order. It is the duty they hold higher than any other.

Castaway Point
A lane of treacherous currents and a dense wall of colorful coral make Castaway Point an isolated port. Trade vessels that sail the Azur Gulf are occasionally thrown off course and into these precarious waters, usually attributed to the Throne of the Easterlies. Vibrant reefs can destroy even the sturdiest hulls, dooming crews to the deep. Nature sometimes shows a chaotic kind of mercy, though; the same currents that shred a boat will safely carry sailors to Castaway Point’s quiet beach.

This little city holds a unique secret: a population of murine rats who never left Arneria. The people of Castaway Pointrefuse to be completely isolated, and have a stubborn rescue tradition. Navigation out to sea is difficult, but not impossible. Skilled, brave sailors weave between the reefs on nimble craft inspired by Al’ari designs. These “Sea Rats” carry rescued sailors back home, and sometimes wander west to become pirates or delvers.

Duyan Vale
The large Causeway town of Duyan Vale is a community of apprentice cooks, their masters, and their experimental eateries. Training in this corner of the world is a huge step forward for anyone looking to become a famous datu’s chef or high-end restauranteur. Herb foraging in the nearby Matatrono supplies the professionals with the fresh ingredients they need. It’s a lucrative profession that has become more perilous with regular Dungeon appearances; Duyan herb and mushroom hunters are always looking for delver escorts.

Caravan routes often stop in Duyan; even the roughest gruel-eating delver admits the food is worth it.

Fort Tawiran
After making the six-mile journey across the Strait of Glass, foreigners looking to enter Arneria must first pass the gates of Fort Tawiran. The twenty-foot doors remain open during the day, but regular patrols of the bey’s infantry keep out undesirables. To enter Arneria, a traveler must provide proof of their business in the homeland.

Tawiran is a rare hiccup in Arnerian architectural planning, as the gate fort was never intended to be a city. As a result, buildings have grown on and out from the wall, down under the rainforest canopy. The ancient stone walls of the fort stand in contrast to the chaotic, improvised look of the adjacent city. It’s an accurate look at Causeway life and most newcomers’ first impression of the eastern homeland. The locals are a mix of people from across the continent who seek to spread welcoming goodwill (and to show foreigners the first Arnerian goods of their visit).

Kala’bil
At the northmost corner of a hexagon-shaped loop in the Causeway (also known as the “Shield Ring”), Kala’bil is on the front line of the ongoing Dramphinian fight against the Blackwild. From the ramparts of the Causeway ring, paladins stand guard with ferocious commitment. Kala’bil is the closest point on the Causeway to the unnatural scar in the world itself that lurks in the depths of the forest.

Kala’bil is the headquarters of Arnerian Dramphinians. The upper floor of its bethels are paladin outposts, from which the church of the Moon Wolf conducts ongoing research to close the Blackwild forever. Training grounds dot the earth within the Causeway ring, where young Arnerian paladins are brought into the fight against demons and undead.

The larger city contains numerous arcane and history libraries, sheltered within solid stone with reinforced doors. Copies of every historical account of the Bat’yan and Beylik are stored here. The Dramphinian libraries are open to the public, but curious readers must consent to screening against Unnature’s influence. The Blackwild, distant but so close, claws at the psyche of every paladin.

Kal’oro Grove
An enclave of natural grandeur lies deep in the Bat’yan rainforest, guarded by a border of thick, towering trees. Intruders into Kal’oro Grove are punished with harsh, permanent transformations by the circle of old servants of nature that dwell within: the Kapre Druids. Their power over the basic nature of the world has gifted these beasts, who are almost all sloths, with everlasting life. They walk the Bat’yan as something otherworldly, more akin to the nature spirits of the Seelie than their original forms.

When a willful creature acts to protect nature in the Bat’yan, they may earn the notice and approval of the Kapre Druids. However, if one takes from nature too greedily or commits wanton acts of destruction against old trees, one risks their wrath. Those with a relationship to nature one way or the other will sometimes look through their window at night to see one of their broad silhouettes, and smell the faint aroma of the cigars they smoke.

When one earns enough of their attention, they are scooped up into the Kapre Druids’ enormous clawed hands and carried into the night. In the middle of Kal’oro Grove, good people are said to be gifted with a wreath made from precious golden leaves that only grow within it. Evil people are transformed into twisted, squawking crosses of three different beasts, and let loose to totter through the rainforest until nature reclaims them as a meal.

Linang
One of the largest Causeway rings in the Bat’yan is in the region of Linang. The road splits at its entrance, until eventually joining to continue south toward the mountains. Unlike in most places, Linang’s road is at the top of a solid wall to prevent animals from ruining the precious land in its center.

The Ring-Towns of Linang have a small-town atmosphere that never ends. Sporadic buildings and friendly people dwell all the way around both sides of the ring. They take elevators down to the farms below every morning and ride out to the protected fields within. The only wildlife that can get in are colorful rainforest birds, which have become a symbol for the Ring-Towns.

Parts of the Linang farms have been devastated by the Dungeon’s repeated incursions. A stretch of several miles on the Causeway is nothing but abandoned buildings, a dead zone of the former homes of relocated families. Linang hopes to find a way to prevent its intrusion into a localized area, so that the lands claimed by monsters might be returned.

Malduta Estuary
The largest river in the Beast World meets the ocean at the very tip of southern Arneria. The lush estuary spans fifty miles, as wide as it is long. The Attamek fragments into criss-crossing streams, depositing nutrients into the fertile land and transforming the region into a stretch of coast that is beautiful, but waterlogged. Only tiny personal vessels can travel through the meandering shallows, making it an ideal place to evade unwanted attention. Smugglers, thieves, and other castoffs from polite society use the cover of the Malduta to duck the law among the ducks.

Mitalu Swamp
The rainforest is filled with a hundred distinct cultures and peoples. There are followers of long-forgotten sects of Pirhouanism, worshippers of the god of knowledge Yttrus, and people of every other sort. You don’t need to go to Mitalu.

A few villages among the multitude of barangays reject outsiders altogether. They marry among their own and keep a close-knit, little society they understand well. These barangays don’t have any stake in larger Arneria. They prefer to be left to their own affairs, just as they have for centuries. Treat Mitalu as one of them. Ignore any invitation.

Some of the wetlands of the Bat’yan are a hiding place. A little conclave of tenebrines swim in their murky waters. They sometimes emerge from a dark place, with hangers-on far worse than any leech. Some of the beasts out there have good reasons to stay away from paladins and anyone else who can sniff out the perversion of a fiend. They want nothing more than to attract an audience. A few Bat’yan possums play their fiddles from the Songbook, but you don’t want to hear the tune. Don’t go to Mitalu.

The Tugatore
The Matatrono Range is a cluster of stark cliffs and jagged peaks that tower over the southern Bat’yan. A barangay legend says that Pirhoua perched on the highest mountain’s summit, scooping out the Attamek with her finger before carving out the rest of the world. According to those who have stood on this spot, one cannot know the Beast World until they’ve seen it from the top of the Matatrono.

An ancient stone spire named the Tugatore (toogahTOHRay) sits on this apex. Its original builder is unknown, as is its original purpose. Its architecture is unlike that of any surrounding culture; even its masonry is created by an unknown method. Academics travel to the Tugatore to study the engravings that cover its hollow interior, hoping to decipher some part of its history. If asked, a typical mouse might shrug and say “they built it “cause they could.”

The Beylik
"Blinding sunlight and a sea of golden dunes ripple inthe shimmering heat of the east. The stifling humidity of the Bat’yan is oppressive, but dry heat is still scorching. A cluster of rooftops surround an inn with a magnificent courtyard over the last dune. The caravanserai’s crystal waters await, along with its city’s glittering treasures. Welcome to the Beylik."

Measure Twice, Dig Once
The ordeal of cultivating sandy Beylik soil requires ingenuity and hard work. The desert is filled with grand projects designed to move precious water to their farms. Bison pull nourishing minerals out of the northern mountains to transform dust into healthy farmland. Stalwart refusal to die in the desert is the bedrock of Beylik society.

The beasts of the Beylik value dependability and rigor. In a harsh climate where building materials are hard to come by, construction plans must be viable. The Oric approach of practical, “let’s see what works” experimentation is seen a wasteful ethos here. Desert beasts imagine a mountain of failures trailing behind every minor Oric success. If the world would just do the mathematics, the Beylik knows the world could leap forward.

Looking Past the Edge
Beylik culture values backbreaking effort for the good of the homeland, but it views intellectual labor as even more vital. No amount of digging would have discovered soil nitration or designed the aqueducts of the Causeway. Every Allemagnian does some creative writing, every Bat’yan beast picks up a musical instrument, but trigonometry is the discipline of the east.

Broadgate University is the first arcane college ever established. Thesis spells published from Broadgate are in every beginner’s spellbook—magic missile emerged from the mind of a Beylik student. Its enduring influence is thanks to its embrace of nonmagical studies as well. Broadgate is the center of mathematics and science in the Beylik. The study of the Arcana’s unexplainable quirks aids research in more comprehensible things. For instance, affordable, crystal-clear glass is only common because of Beylik research into glassblowing using superheated arcane fire.

Broadgate is an academic institution with campuses across the Beast World. The main college resembles a walled city in the desert. Rising from its center is the Heaven’s Eye, an immense observatory that studies the night sky. It also looks out at the distant eastern horizon at the edge of the known world.

Gem Trade
Arnerian optics are so advanced because they have such beautiful things to look at. The northern Beylik is where the Bey’s Head mountains and the source of the Attamek river lie. Water is necessary for survival everywhere, but most would tell you that gems are the most precious gift from the Bey’s Head. Every variety of precious stone is rich within the mountains, and the Beylik gem trade is the keystone of eastern mercantilism.

Gems are common enough in the Beylik that most working people own some precious jewelry. Glittering fineries adorn everyone in the east, which their ruler boasts of as a sign of his homeland’s prosperity. What makes the rubies of the Beylik expensive is their arduous journey to other homelands. The Causeway wasn’t built all the way to the Bey’s Head partially because making the journey too easy would have ruined the Beylik economy.

Caravanserai Cities
The gems mined from the Bey’s Head are transported south along a route known as the Küzmek. Centuries ago, enterprising desert vulpines used their preternatural sense for detecting underground water to scout out construction sites along the Küzmek. They built the caravanserai, roadside inns that became crucial centers of commerce for gem caravans venturing to southern ports. Settlers expanded the caravanserai, until entire cities surrounded their accommodations. Today, most of the Beylik lives along the Küzmek.

Caravanserai cities come in every size. Still small and quaint, most along the Küzmek’s sideroads haven’t expanded much past the walls of their central business. The farmland that surrounds these inn towns is a generational treasure that the towns’ residents maintain with immense pride.

Fast Friends
Friendship is fast-earned and held tight in the Beylik. A mutual friend is assumed to be trustworthy and welcomed with the same warmth. Arnerians are known for bright attitudes and generosity, and on the Bey’s side of the river people give of themselves with immediacy and intensity.

Folks from the Beylik have big laughs, loud voices, and ask a lot of personal questions. The latter is perhaps a side effect of their good-natured trust in strangers. It’s not unusual for the first conversation with an acquaintance to go something like, “What’s your name? Are you married? Are you looking for a wife? You should meet my daughter! A husband? I have a son, too!”

Home and Family
Hospitality is the ethos of the east. People in the Beylik are eager to open their homes and get out the good dinnerware for a new friend. Even homes without much money always keep desserts and fine coffee around the house for entertaining guests. They have them often enough that these treats rarely spoil; to show another person comfort and luxury makes life better for everyone.

The head of a Beylik household works for their family’s reputation and to give them a life of ease. Parents work themselves ragged so their sons and daughters can be comfortable. The passion to provide for one’s children never diminishes--a family’s adult offspring are always welcome in their parents’ home if the need arises. Children are precious, and a fine life for them is the greatest pride of a Beylik parent.

Bey Vartan
The Beylik is ruled by the bey, who sits on the Throne of Sapphires in Far’soro. The loose local government in the Bat’yan shares little in common with the bey’s rule. He commands the lands east of the river absolutely, sharing power over the larger homeland with the Bat’yan’s raja. Other positions in Beylik government are titles directly appointed by the bey. An agha oversees regional affairs, but all authority is subordinate to the bey.

Rulership of the beylik is hereditary. The bey keeps a harem of wives within the Sapphire Palace as a symbol of his allure and virility. The princes and princesses of Arneria wield political power and have the bey’s ear, but they’re also under his direct control.

Now in his early fifties, the bison Bey Vartan has sat on the throne since before the Invader War. He is a more moderate ruler than many of his predecessors, but few would describe him as gentle, on the throne or in personal affairs. His rule is respected throughout the Beylik for repealing his hated father’s harsh laws and seeing the homeland through the war.

The Three Viziers
The bey’s direct advisors are three viziers, each chosen for genius in their field. The title is the most coveted in all Arneria, granting one the power to affect change throughout the Beylik. Even in the Bat’yan, the viziers are figures of immense esteem.

The Eye of the Bey is the vizier responsible for military tactics, intelligence, and espionage. Only the most gifted spies and commanders in Arneria are considered for the position. Preparation for their single, simple duty consumes every moment of their time: they must be able to answer any question the bey asks on command. The current Eye of the Bey is the eccentric ligonine armadillo Mehmed.

The Star of the Bey is his court magician and keeper of knowledge. They are masters of wizardry and experienced with at least one other magical discipline. Moreover, they must be familiar with the cosmology and supernatural events of the Beast World. The former Star was executed in front of the court by Vartan for bringing him humiliation by not foreseeing the Invaders’ arrival. The position is currently held by the brethren Katherine, who is also a high-ranking member of the Shamans.

The Hand of the Bey is the vizier who oversees the civic affairs of government. They are shrewd and discerning financial minds, but must also be in touch with the people’s needs. Vartan’s Hand is the desert vulpine Raziye. She is the most beloved person in Arneria for her wisdom, beauty, and mercy.

The Harem
Bey Vartan has seventeen wives in his harem. It grows with each new bride, taken for love or political gain. The harem’s single formal responsibility is also crucial to the function of the state: when the bey dies, his widows vote on whichone of his children replaces him. When this happens, they gather in private within their shared quarters in the Sapphire Palace, and don’t emerge until they’ve named the next ruler of the Beylik.

Bey Menli, the previous leader of the homeland, was a ruthless and hard-headed ruler. To prevent Arneria from falling into disarray and famine, his harem often traveled the desert in secret to spend his money. The practice was observed by then-prince Vartan and he saw its popularity with the commoners. When he took the throne, he allowed it to continue, and now the harem enjoys diplomatic and economic power in Arneria.

Every bey has been male. It’s a tradition assumed to be universally understood and unbreakable. Bey Vartan has 53 children, 39 of whom are sons. However, the tradition of the Throne of Sapphires being a man’s seat has never been enshrined into law. There’s whispering in the halls of the Sapphire Palace about this Unwritten Law of Men.

After all, everyone knows it. By a wide margin, Vartan’s most popular child is Princess Kosem.

Boughport
Two marble statues are all that decorate the modest dock of Boughport. They depict a mighty elk crouching to shake hands with a mouse. This monument commemorates the site of the first meeting between the people of Oria and the Beylik. The town is named after their initial writings about “great beasts whose heads have sprouted trees.” Its dock was later visited by the Orians again, to carry the rats who left their homeland for the north.

Boughport maintains a humble existence tucked away behind the Bey’s Head Mountains. The town’s strong connection to Oric culture is clear to any northerner who sees the shape of its buildings. Strannik lodge houses sail south in the summer to trade for vast quantities of the wild herbs unique to the island. These traders are received with an annual festival, treated as the direct descendents of the native rats who left more than a thousand years ago. This fragile little amalgam of a culture would be imperiled by a disruption to the traders’ journey, as they are a vital part of its food supply.

Glimmerpool
The ligonine capital of the Beast World is high in the northern Beylik. There’s no sign whatsoever that anything lies beneath this part of the Bey’s Head; the city of Glimmerpool is only accessible via the Loamlink. In the peculiar history of the ligonine species, Glimmerpool is cited as the place where the three disparate cousins met for the very first time. Despite its geography making this astoundingly unlikely, this is held as true by every ligonine.

Glimmerpool shares its name with the underground lake the city surrounds. This body of water is fed by a waterfall from the Bey’s Head mountains, continues under the cavern, and empties outside to become one of the main sources of the Attamek. The waters of the Glimmerpool are a sacred place to the ligonines, all of whom make an effort to visit the city at least once in their lives.

The stereotype of ligonines as good-natured weirdos marching to the beat of their own drum is absolutely fulfilled by this city. The architecture is a wild mishmash of every homeland’s and the armadillo-friendly streets dip and curve seemingly at random. The influence of moles’ love for tinkering and clockwork is everywhere. Most of the city is also accessible by hooks and hanging bars, to facilitate easy traversal by sloths.

Like the rest of the Loamlink, Glimmerpool is devoid of natural light. Ligonines nonetheless encourage outsiders to accompany them to the city, so long as they are prepared with a lamp and patient with the eccentricities of its people.

Harik
The god of knowledge Yttrus has few adherents among the Beast World’s mortals. The deity, whose avatar is a genderless mouse, is doomed to eternal melancholy by their perfect foreknowledge of the future. When there are no more surprises, existence itself becomes rote. Yttrus would be unknown to the beasts and brethren, were it not for their single place of worship: the Omniscient Temple in Harik.

At the birth of the Beast World, Harik was a desolate wasteland ignored by every bey. Scholars would travel to its seclusion to perform research that was unpopular with other academics. One group of these scholars used mathematics and deduction to prove that Yttrus must exist. They even calculated their most likely portfolio.

Yttrus spoke, giving them a reward for finding this spark of truth without the guidance of previous discoveries. The god gave them a relic they called the Vessel of Yttrus: a ceramic bowl inscribed in plain language with knowledge about important future events. Some believe this to be the birthplace of the Common tongue, but the Omniscient Temple keeps the purpose of the Vessel—and its location—a grave secret.

They used some of its knowledge to transform Harik into a natural paradise. They redirected mountain streams in the Bey’s Head to form the mighty Gizli river, flooding thousands of square miles with fertile soil. This was a compromise with the people of the Beast World, for keeping the Vessel of Yttrus closely among themselves.

Isla Adalar Islands
The tale is a warning to some, and a siren’s song to others.

Each year, a few Arnerian ships sail east, with the bodies of ships and sailors painted in vibrant colors. Audadian revelers voyage to the far-eastern Isla Adalar Islands, to be the first to see each sunrise. They are musicians and dancers, writers and artists, on the islands for the collective pursuit of sunblood.

Isla Adalar is a burning land of passion. Music and creation last from the moment the sun appears until its presence fades from the sky. Masterpieces are written and painted, danced and sung. None of them ever make it to the mainland. The colorful ships burn in the harbor on the day of their arrival. Those who depart for the Isla Adalar Islands stay for life.

Kavrama Mines
What’s an unmined gem worth? The bosses of the Kavrama Mines are learning. This sprawling excavation site has deteriorated from a lively and prosperous operation into a maze of empty tunnels with a skeleton crew. Entire wings are closed to head off unanswered Dungeon activity. Most miners won’t risk their lives confronting the distant, terrible roars that echo out every night.

The Kavrama Mines are operated for the bey by the esteemed Parlakaya family. These stubborn desert foxes have kept them producing precious stones for generations. They’re unwilling to evacuate the tunnels altogether, preferring to replace “disloyal” miners. Mercenaries, Vinyotian Sellswords, and even delving crews are hired as expendable stand-ins. Put simply, it hasn’t worked.

Mining mishaps, ruined tunnels, and outright theft plague Kavrama. Without intervention, the Parlakaya foxes are doomed to lose their claim forever to bandits and monsters.

Kazmak ve Küzmek
The Kazmak gem road is the chain of caravanserai that connects the Beylik half of the Causeway in the south with the mines of the north. Its intersection with the Causeway is the Sandstair, the widest descent to the ground from its heights. The Sandstair is a strategic checkpoint for the Beylik military overseen by an Aubadian mouse general named “Murad the Vast.” Murad is notorious for his fervor in enforcing the law and he has authority to forbid anyone but the bey from traversing the gem road.

Once one makes it past Murad and ventures north, the midpoint of the Kazmak is the Küzmek, an artificial aquifer river. Where these two meet is the largest of all the caravanserai cities: Kazmak ve Küzmek.

If a traveler is looking for Beylik hospitality, Kazmak ve Küzmek is the absolute pinnacle of affordable luxury. The central inn is a massive square courtyard with a hundred and one rooms. Rumor has it that it accommodates guests at a financial loss, subsidized by Bey Vartan’s personal fortune. There’s no other plausible explanation for how a guest can stay in such lush conditions for the pittance they charge.

A metropolis in the desert is only possible because of the endless water supply from the aquifer under Kazmak ve Küzmek. An incredible system of wells and gravity-powered pumps unearths the source of the Küzmek river. It pulls so much water from the earth that the river runs southeast, all the way to the east Matansil Sea.

The inn would be more than enough to justify the city of ten thousand Arnerians surrounding it. Knowledge is the other treasure drawing travelers to the middle of the desert—Broadgate University’s main campus is located in Kazmak ve Küzmek. Its hallowed halls contain the largest and most respected institution of science and magic. Here, scholars, delvers, and gem merchants walk side-by-side through the streets.

Kumluk ve Maden
The north end of the Kazmak sits in the cool shadow of the mountains. It is “The Glittering Inn,” Kumluk ve Maden. While smaller than its central counterpart on the gem road, the riches that flow from the mountains have filled the city with a dense concentration of fineries from everywhere in the world. Everything expensive can be found in Kumluk ve Maden.

At the back of the city, the Kazmak splits into a dozen mountain roads that climb up into the Bey’s Head. These have their own tiny offshoot towns formed by miners too poor to live in the caravanserai proper. They climb up into the tunnels they dig before dawn every morning, and early risers can see them lined up on the cliffside overlooking the inn, munching breakfast before a day’s work.

Land’s End
The end of the Causeway is a shallow ramp down to a quiet cliff overlooking the Matansil Sea. There is no town here, nor any grand monument. The end of the Causeway is a reminder of what the division of the bad old days accomplished for the people of Arneria: nothing.

Ghosts created by the churning and murderous machine of war gather here, and the Netherworld behind Land’s End is a haunted maelstrom. The most frequent visitors are witches, who travel here to have a nightly communion. These witches double as the quiet spot’s guardians from vandalism and desecration.

Sekiz Cliffs
Hundreds of miles of tall cliffs overlook the east side of the Attamek river in the Beylik. The harsh, hot winds of the desert are slowed by the rock face, making for a relatively calm and cool region. Dozens of peaceful villages dot the riverbanks here, populated by the People of the Morning Shadow.

Settlements in Sekiz are filled with mice known for a strange connection to magic. The gift of sorcery is more common in Sekiz than in other regions of the Beylik. This is attributed to some combination of an easy life giving one the opportunity to explore oneself, and the unknowable, fiddlesome Arcana.

Sun Bull Dunes
The hottest place in the Beast World burns in the heart of the Beylik desert. The winds whip dry sand into the face of any doomed wanderer. Sun ignites the fur in daylight and darkness freezes the night. No beast or brethren in their right mind would ever consider wandering so far from any source of water. So naturally, this is an important place in Aubadism.

Bull-headed Aubadians lower their heads and charge into the Sun Bull Dunes, carrying nothing but a warpick and morningstar. They seek a black shaft ramming into the sky, as obstinate as they are.

A pillar of black sapphire sits at the spot in the Beast World most like the sun itself. Those who reach it enter a trance of sunblood, hacking at the pillar with the weapons they carry. Aubadians who demonstrate themselves to their god return with a piece of the pillar. Everyone else fades away, leaving nothing behind but a sun-bleached skeleton to decorate the dunes for no one.

Tilkisan
Tilkisan is a beautiful Causeway city at the convergence of two tributaries of the Mavimar river. Life in Tilkisan isn’t beautiful for everyone, however. The city’s lower class lives on the Causeway’s roadside in packed, spartan homes overlooking the sprawl of Tilkisan wealth. Old mansions lie in verdant courtyards below, the homes of thousand-year old family lines whose ancestors once pleased some bey or another.

Silent dissent flashes between the faces of Tilkisan’s commoners. The wealth of travelers passing through has increased recently, as delver caravans display well-earned new wealth. The path to a better life is hope for a common beast, but bad news for a ruling class. They haven’t noticed yet.

The Causeway
The Causeway is an elevated stone road that runs for a thousand miles throughout Arneria. Its structure is a wall, a waterway, a haven from wildlife, and a bridge to the west. Entire cities exist on this monumental feat of Bat’yan and Beylik engineering.

The Causeway is the symbol of Arneria and the first thing about it that most people think of. Its western end joins Arneria with Allemance, as a 6-mile bridge across the Strait of Glass. It snakes through the Bat’yan rainforest, across the thundering Attamek river, and all the way through the Beylik desert in the east.

Monument to Collective Might
After the Attamek Wars ended in 212, beys who weren’t executed during the Blackwild Revolution combined their power to form a single Beylik. Meanwhile, Bat’yan datus were eager for an enduring symbol of peace. Both sides of the newly anointed Arneria sought a way to unite their people with collective effort.

The Causeway began construction around the end of the 200s. After decades of research into physics, magic, and logistics, the effort commenced to erect this road of lasting friendship. Every man, woman and child on the continent labored for over 60 years to make it real. By 366, the ones who drafted the original blueprints were all gone. Babies born at the start of its construction were old men and women. But a lifetime of collective tenacity had forged a bond between the Bat’yan and Beylik, and the Causeway would stand for over a thousand years.

Safe Above the Canopy
The road’s elevation varies in each region based on its purpose. Through most of the Bat’yan, The Causeway is one hundred feet high, peeking over the rainforest canopy. The top is accessible via staircases and ramps every few miles that climb up the side of the wall. Some larger towns even build cable elevators, which haul food from farmland below up to the towns on the side of the road.

The Bat’yan’s Causeway is covered in moss and foliage that covers the side of the ancient stone structure. Wide arches stretch across the horizon to allow rainforest herds to move underneath. The road bridges rivers and keeps the residents of Causeway towns safe from the predators lurking in the depths of the rainforest.

Water Highway
After crossing the waters of the Attamek, the Causeway drives through the southern desert of the Beylik. Here, it serves a crucial role in delivering water to towns in the south and central regions of the homeland. Without the Causeway, much more of the Beylik would be uninhabitable.

Within the stone columns of the structure, water is pumped from aquifers deep beneath the sands. It’s forced upward into an aqueduct made of white stone, constructed on a shady level underneath the main road. This engineered river runs all through the Beylik, replenished whenever the Causeway passes through a major underground source of water.

Cities of the Road
Settlements of every size are alongside wider stretches on the road. Every few miles, a cluster of houses forms a village around one of the Causeway’s stairways to the ground. Some of them never touch the ground at all, sustaining themselves with traded goods and complex hanging gardens. The Causeway is never a lonely walk.

A few locations on the Causeway’s structure support sprawling cities. The road splits into a ring that surrounds farmland, and the roadside is packed with structures. They take up every inch of allowed space, and angled wooden supports allow them to dangle past the edge of the stone wall. Buildings also scatter out under the structure and everywhere in between.

Causeway Culture
The thousand miles of road are how the Bat’yan and Beylik mix. The cultures blend on the road; some desert towns resemble barangays and some aghas oversee villages under rainforest canopy. The border of the Attamek isn’t as strict as it once was, and the two peoples are integrating more quickly than ever since the Pilgrimage.

The Causeway makes transit through Arneria possible for commoners who couldn’t make the journey otherwise. This freedom and mobility has made the towns and cities around the Causeway a third distinct culture from the rest of the Bat’yan and Beylik.

Arnerians on the Causeway have more interac�tions with Allemagnians and other foreigners. This worldly influence is distinguishes them from anyone from a Küzmek caravanserai or a barangay deep in the forest.

Pirhouanism in Arneria
A temple of thick stone built to last an eternity is the bethel of the Causeway and the lands below. Within these hallowed places, made of the same materials as their beloved sky-road, the people of Arneria pray diligently for guidance from their goddess. Rather than a place for chatter and congregation, the Arnerian bethel is a solemn hall of contemplation and rest after days of hard work.

Arnerian Pirhouanism emphasizes discipline and achievement over ease and pleasure. The Arnerian work ethic is both the cause and effect of these religious tenets. Here, Pirhoua is the goddess of discipline, order, and the pursuit of excellence.

Compared to other homelands, the divine charges of Pirhoua’s portfolio are more informed by power and state. The church of the Beast Mother is a useful way to manage the conflicts and friction that can arise from sharing a homeland between two disparate cultures. This straightening-out effort can create its own friction, however. While few would admit it openly, Arnerians bristle at the arduous labor of their religious duties.

The First Divine Charge: Service. Even before the construction of its thousand-mile Causeway, the people of Arneria were bringing fertile mulch from the rainforest and using it to enrich the sandy soil of its desert. Pirhouanism adopted this practice as a moral principle. A merciful world is one where deadly extremes are made into something beautiful and liveable. To achieve this end, one must be willing to sacrifice important things in service to their fellow beasts and brethren.

Arnerian Pirhouans strive to give the best service possible to one another. Arnerian clerics find serenity and a fulfillment by giving their best effort. They hone their own skills to the sharpest point they can be.

The Second Divine Charge: Unity. For an Arnerian, the Pirhouan ideal of community is applied to a much broader scope. To cooperate with one’s peers is the beginning of an Arnerian’s ideals, but this mindset also asks, what is best for my homeland? The lesson that many hands make great works begins from birth. Arnerians call themselves a “united people” with fiery pride, knowing they are pleasing the Beast Mother.

The Causeway is the ultimate expression of this charge. It stands as an ever present monument to the idea that the achievements of cooperation border on supernatural. This belief has also protected the people from the bey at certain points in history. Past rulers annoyed with the check of their opposite have flirted with the idea of establishing hard lines between the two sides of Arneria, but the risk of acting against the popular Pirhouan church has kept them in line.

The Third Divine Charge: Order. The third Divine Charge for an Arnerian Pirhouan is to strive for blessed serenity in life. Arnerian clerics teach children and adults that an orderly society is one where mercy and community can flourish. If all the beasts and brethren of Arneria pull their weight, no one needs to go hungry or forgotten.

The Sun Bull
The aforementioned bristling against the religious labor and stifling order of Pirhouanism has created a unique phenomenon of faith in the east. Friction between Arnerians and their church has ignited love for Aubade, the Sun Bull. The Bat’yan and Beylik have unusual tolerance for followers of the god of passion and self-expression. To fight the spread of his teachings would be too costly, and the bill would be paid in blood. The official attitude of the bey and raja of Arneria is that Aubadism is an alternative lifestyle, allowing good citizens a chance to blow off some steam. Never mind the occasional murders.

The Aubadian Chapel
In Arneria, the chapels of Aubade’s faithful are not required to hide. They are are open about their function, if somewhat off the beaten path. It’s common to find a chapel to the Sun Bull in any town with more than a few hundred people. Some small farming hamlets are even wholly devoted to his portfolio.

The chapels themselves are usually a tightly knit community of intense faithful. They eschew hierarchies of leadership; most understand their seat in the chapel is a place to temporarily cast off the restrictions of Arnerian society. Nonetheless, its members are usually in passionate fellowship. As an Arnerian spends time in the chapel, they almost always become fanatically loyal to the other members as much as their fire-eyed god.

Aubadian Art
As the epicenter of the Sun Bull’s scattered and disorganized chapels, Arneria is also where his followers create and perform their wild art. The practice of Aubade’s portfolio means living a hard, open, and audacious life whenever possible. The Arnerian sect of Aubadism is especially focused on performance art, preferring the chaos of noise and movement over the permanence of craft.

Music
Performing compositions by the Sun Bull’s faithful drives a voice hoarse and an instrument to its breaking point. This doesn’t always mean that their music is some abstract blast of noise. Some of the absolute masters of string music have plucked their fingers bloody with intense, captivating performances lasting 24 hours or more in the public square.

Dance
Arnerian Aubadians see the art of movement as so central to their religion that the motion of the sun and moon is considered to be the Sun Bull and Moon Wolf performing a dance of ardor for the world to see. Like everything else about them, Aubadian dancing is a heart-rending expression of raw soul, often at the cost of their bodies. The discipline of every step is flawless, as a dancer pours out their routine in sweat and tears. Their dance can also be a storm of stars colliding with the world as the performer’s spirit and body unravel for the audience.

Violence
The art of battle is the same as any other in Aubadism, and Arnerians who perform it are especially keen to combine dance with death. The blades of an eastern sunblood chaser flash like a corona across a body clad in silks. They are beautiful and vicious, and drive themselves into combat with a combination of grace and a total abandonment of safety.

Far'soro
"The city is everywhere ahead. It teems with the Bat’yanand Beylik, mice and sloths, donkeys and armadillos. The crowds are dense on the sandy-colored road, if it can even be called a road; the Causeway has widened to the size of a courtyard. Even more city cascades to the ground below in a zig-zag of flat rooftops. The route into the city wraps around the edge of an elliptical stadium big enough for ten thousand people.The Sapphire Palace crowns the city, tall enough to tower over the top of the Causeway. Its majestic elevated gardens and interconnected towers are at the center of all Arneria, where the bey and raja sit together at its head."

Culture Clash
Far’soro is the city where the Bat’yan and Beylik and Causeway all combine. With the Attamek river flowing underneath into the harbor below, culture and travel flow in from four directions. A quilt of farmland watered by the Attamek surrounds the city and pushes out to the horizon to feed its people.

The people of Far’soro are the true realization of the Arnerian cultural experiment. Their demeanor is a blend of the different hard-working, big personalities of east and west. Far’soro has a flexible urban rhythm to flow with the needs of its foreign visitors. However, the bey’s influence over the city gives it a strictness and traditionalism that capitals like Louvain let go of to sprint toward the future.

Passing Through
Far’soro draws influence from the caravanserai cities that lie beyond it. Converging trade routes crowd the city with temporary visitors, foreign travelers on their way elsewhere. If people are the blood of a metropolis, then Far’soro has a hammering heartbeat.

The city’s ever-changing faces reflect changing times. Inns and infrastructure have adapted to delvers and the Dungeon, easily accommodating large caravans. Delvers are common in the city, rolling into Far’soro to connect with scouts from both sides of the road. Rare medicines are available here, blended from herbs grown only in the most specific Bat’yan conditions. Affordable jewelry and magic-infused finery rides in from the desert, offered at every street corner and open courtyard.

Ptotection of the State
Bey Vartan rules his domain from the Sapphire Palace in Far’soro, so the Beylik infantry is a common sight. Pairs of soldiers patrol the street, carrying kilij swords and dressed in the uniform of the Arnerian military. Vartan’s forces keep the streets orderly and the bey safe from anyone wishing him harm.

Beylik soldiers are ill-humored, but most won’t harass a foreigner for no reason. Visitors should be prepared to answer questions and cooperate with their requests, but run-ins with the throne’s army are less common than with Vinyotian Sellswords or Alley Crown Guard.

Arnerian General Post Office
Wherever they are, donkeys are a temporary presence. The smaller equines aren’t the heroes of storybooks, or beys, or lords. Despite all this, their lasting impact on society is deeper than most others. Donkeys share a traditional profession that has spread to become their calling in every homeland: they are the deliverybeasts.

Donkeys living on the Causeway are especially proud of this reputation. The Arnerian General Post Office is a masterpiece of efficiency, a massive square building in the middle of Far’soro. Packages within its sorting library rush through an accurate, speedy process of sorting, stamping, and sending. The postal donkeys are always innovating ways to get things where they need to go even faster. One conspiracy theory even says a secret cabal of postal donkeys was behind the Causeway itself, pulling strings for a long road on which to run mail.

More donkeys live in Far’soro than the rest of the world combined; at least, by duly registered postal address. They swarm around the General Post Office, awaiting the next pack they’ll deliver to a remote corner of the world.

Sapphire Palace
The jewel of Far’soro, and all of Arneria, is the gleaming blue and white spire of the Sapphire Palace. It sits against the Causeway, overlooking the elevated road and the metropolis below. The wide Attamek flows to its east, framing every treasure of the homeland at once.

The bey’s wives lounge in his harem within the palace when they aren’t away on missions of diplomacy or economy. Each of Vartan’s wives is more cunning and beautiful than the last, and they often wander Far’soro’s streets to greet foreigners and stay in tune with the Beast World’s song.

Far’soro is the Bat’yan and Beylik’s centerpoint, and the pressure of two homelands leaning against each other peaks within the Sapphire Palace. Bey Vartan rules Arneria alongside the voice of the Bat’yan: the mouse Raja Hiraya. Hiraya has no direct power of her own, but she is the trusted voice of the datu collective throughout the rainforest. She governs from her own wing of the Sapphire Palace, but there’s no debating it: this is the bey’s house.

Vartan and Hiraya are the latest example of an old Arnerian tradition: they hate each other. Friction between the rulers of Bat’yan and Beylik is so historically vital to the Arnerian state, it is a law. Arnerians consider it dangerous for the raja and bey to be friends, as each one checks the other. If the viziers deem the pair to be getting on too well, it is their legal duty to report it to the datus so they can replace the raja immediately.

Moon Needle
An imposing, slender tower sits at the edge of the city’s outskirts. Dramphinians filter through its surrounding gates at all hours of the day, carrying out their lady’s justice. This tower is a base of Dramphinian activity known as the Moon Needle.

The paladins of Far’soro are rarely open about what goes on within their ivory tower. Citizens whisper rumors about its true purpose when they’re sure no paladins are around to scold them for speculating. Some believe the building itself is a listening device, used by paladins to monitor thoughts from inside its hollow core. In truth, the Moon Needle is a monument to their beloved Lantern Lady, and another of the judges’ meeting places.

Probably.

Attamek Harbor
Another ingredient in the chaotic mix of life in Far’soro is the riverside harbor beneath the Sapphire Palace. Attamek Harbor is a freshwater port desert vulpines use as an alternative to sending cargo on land along the Kazmak. The unpredictable river requires caution and an experienced captain. Swift currents make a trek upriver arduous, if not perilous.

Selling goods in the Attamek Harbor Market makes fighting the river worth it, though. Foreigners crowd the harbor, eager to buy from overwhelmed fennecs selling straight out of crates on the dock. Savvy shoppers use the market to cut out the middleman, as well as procure some unsavory wares that might hide in those crates.

Rooftop City
The moving parts of Arneria’s central city require thousands of laborers. Rooftop City is named after the stair-like pattern of shanty roofs adjacent to the Causeway. Their colorful structures crowd themselves over the side of the road and down, like a waterfall emptying into the ground level below.

Life in Rooftop City is crowded, noisy, and dangerous. The packed neighborhoods offer little privacy, and sometimes it’s a fifteen-minute walk to fresh water. Yet, Far’sorian commoners hold deep affection for their own box among the pile. They trade the personal space of a home under a barangay tree for the cosmopolitan bustle of the capital.

Far’soro Grand Arena
With a running jump, one could leap from the edge of the Causeway into the back row of the Far’soro Grand Arena. (This is not recommended, but Aubadians occasionally try it anyway.) A thousand shops, storehouses, and homes cluster around the edge of the stadium, and residents charge a copper to sit on their roof to watch big events. The view probably isn’t worth the price of admission, but everyone in Far’soro becomes a spectator.

Incredible public spectacles are a weekly occurrence on the arena floor below. The pinnacle of every pop-bard’s career is their Far’soro show. Aubadian theatrical masterpieces explode in color and power across the stage to the delight of thousands, and more cautious delight of bethelkeepers worried about their safety during the actual-steel duels their shows are known for.

The locals love all of this. Their true passion, however, is for something a little more flashy…

Storied Histories League
You see it as soon as you pass the gates into Far’soro. Every business has banners in the window or above their stand, each with the name of some stranger. Maybe this is how Far’soro gangs mark their turf? Down the main road, people suddenly explode in cheers. They’re crowding around a bison who’s dressed in chain mail and a tunic so pink, it’s hard to look directly at him.

The stranger is screaming in someone’s face. It’s a shorter man, a smirking rat who’s… dressed like a colorful garbage-picker. As you edge around the still-growing crowd, you see the knife behind the rat’s back. Right in front of your eyes, the argument breaks down, and the senseless tragedy of urban gang violence plays out before your eyes. The two beat each other senseless, each one trading blows that send the other reeling. The bison roars in agony. It escalates. Knives flash. Spells ignite in the square. This is a duel to the death.

The crowd backs up to make room for the flamboyant criminals to kill each other, and you see their faces. This carnage delights the crowd; they are enraptured. After flaunting with a gesture emulated by at least fifty beasts in the crowd, the bison casts a spell that completely engulfs the rat in flames. When the victim collapses, the flames go out. He’s somehow unburned. The poor soul must have succumbed to smoke inhalation instead…The crowd bursts into another pop of cheering! A third stranger raises the murderer’s right arm. The crowd chants.

“SHL! SHL! SHL!”

A Chronicle of the Blackwild Revolution
The following are excerpts from the Journal of Narek, a Dramphinian relic. The journal chronicles the end of the Attamek Wars, which lasted nearly two hundred years in the land that would become Arneria. Narek was the first paladin to take the Oath of Revolution.

February 8, 212 The datus and beys fight for this many-named city. These fields and houses have shared so many rulers’ names in my short life. It feels foolish to call it by any single one. Tonight was the thirtieth day of conflict. I face thirty more, and then thirty more. My hands are numb.

The datu who has ruled the city for the last three years wakes up every morning to rouse his boys for another day of battle. His commanders straighten them out, stand them up, close their fingers around dull kampilans. They inspect the boys’ eyes to ensure that their weariness is properly swallowed. They chant, and the boys chant along, until there’s enough energy to send them into the fight. I am watching them fan a cookfire in a monsoon.

A month ago, the boys’ eyes were changing. They were beginning to feel secure in this place, to smile again. All their lives, the boys have fought for promises. This city is their home forever, once they defend it from the Beylik’s “vermin horde.” The last home was promised to be a temporary solution, to losing the battle for the one before that.

I tend to any boys bleeding badly enough that it wouldn’t stop without my intervention. I am a tool, sent to stop a boy’s bleeding so he can go and bleed again. This is all I’ve known. There’s a rumor of a western place where they don’t carry weapons. I hope it is real. I hope there is a better place than this.

Carrying out the will of justice leaves me with a weary heart. All of me is weary. The datu promises reinforcements are coming. The other barangays will send more boys for me to stop from bleeding. He promises.I doubt Dramphine is in this forest at all. Narek

May 1, 212 The black mass broke the air with a hiss, and it spread with a shriek, like Nature itself crying out. The sound shakes a person, it makes their fur stand on end. That shrieking blackness spread faster than a fire. The boys helped others and we all ran together. With speed and luck, we outran it until the mover-sloths could whisk us away to a place that is safe for a while.

Everyone in the barangay escaped it. They moved together, rushing between the trees in harmony. I am proud of them. They are afraid, but there was also a feeling of purpose. I felt it fill me, then it filled them even more. A cycle of purpose and empowerment. I’ve never felt anything like it.

As we ran, I saw the bey’s boys running, too. I hope they got far enough back. I hear others saying the same thing. The datu stops them when he can. Sympathy for the “vermin” will not be tolerated, but I wonder if the boys still care.

I am looking into the valley where this began. I cannot see any of the city outside the black anymore. It creeps out, and trees fall away into it. Fields vanish. The boys watch their home swallowed, perhaps forever.

More paladins are coming. We must halt whatever this is. I am ashamed that this shadow might be our doing. Have we failed Dramphine forever?

When the boys helped the others to run, so many kampilans were left behind to be taken by that creeping shadow. Remembering that makes me hopeful. Narek

May 3, 212 We have stopped the advance of the black mass. It sits still and quiet now, like a missing piece of the world. A ring around the blackness is beginning to rot. We abandoned the border to cauterize the wound. I hope that the gods will forgive us for surrendering any part of their world to that darkness.

There are over a hundred Dramphinians here now. All of the faithful of the forest came to stop the black shadow, but the paladins from the desert also arrived yesterday. There are more of them than I expected. They eat with us and sleep in our camp. Even now, I can see one of them, talking with one of the datu’s boys. Neither of them look angry.

The panic from the black space’s appearance has broken something in the datu’s soldiers. They are talking amongst themselves, ignoring their orders to congregate. There are two or three officers still trying to rouse them, but I wonder if the fire burning down this beautiful world has finally gone as far as it will go.This afternoon, after another attempt to pull the boys into a drill, one of them approached me. His eyes were not afraid, not weary. He told me something I will not write here, in case their plan goes wrong.Dramphine is here, in them and in me. Narek

October 29th, 212 I have walked the rainforest and the desert, through every village and every beylik. The clouds of doubt have lifted and I have found my purpose in all of their hearts. I walked with the beylik paladins, and with their soldiers into their cities. We showed the soldiers the hole in the world, and asked if they would still fight. We asked them if the death of the world was worth a bey’s lust to hold one more river bend. Every link of every chain has shattered.

Dramphine grants them power through me. Justice has come to this place. The Moon Wolf would wait at the door no longer. The war is over. No one will fight if it means ripping the world at its seam, and those who would force their people against each other have been brought low.

The beylik’s rats are changed by the thing in the forest, which the people call Blackwild. Their speech is slow and stammering. As they move closer to the void, their words become mixed, guttural. Unnatural. The affliction seems to calm somewhat as a rat travels further from the void.

The beys insist that the datus hatched a plot to open the Blackwild. They presented us with forged evidence of a pact with some unknown force beyond everything that exists. They say that the datus traded their city to steal the rats’ silent speech. The datus make the same accu�sation in reverse. Their evidence is also a lie, conjured proof of a wicked conspiracy to give the unnatural force their voice, in exchange for a darkness that would rid the forest of their kind forever.

Dramphine herself cannot discern the truth of this. Our magic fails to ascertain it and their words are made somehow flat, unreadable. I suspect the truth itself is lost, fallen into that horrible void forever. If that black void can hide something from even the lady’s lantern…

The sentencing is tomorrow. The warmon�gers who stoked the flames for so long will answer for it. The horrors they forced on this place will be accounted for. Her great justice, that of her people, will be done. Narek

March 5, 213 This place is united under a name. Arneria. The relationship is uneasy, but the beginning of something. The people are eating together, discussing the future of the home they’ve snatched from the ripping jaws of war. Old wounds may take generations to heal, but Dramphine’s most faithful will keep the peace for now. It is their true will, untarnished by fits of pique. They want peace, and peace is a seed that takes time and care to grow.

Pirhouans have begun to resurface in the new barangays, mice who have hidden among the people during all this violence. Their bethels have never taken hold before now—the Beast Mother does not belong in a place where her children cut each other down. We guard their keepers as they foster good faith in this newborn union. Our people are learning quickly, and I hope they can find their own way to pay penance for the lives wasted in spite of her teachings.

The wounded minds of the rats have healed, but the Blackwild still claws at them. The stammering speech and lost words persist when they are close to that unnatural place, but they are no longer in pain from it, at least. Many have already left for the west to study the affliction, and more will soon follow. The rats grieve their lost home. I grieve with them. I will visit their new homes soon.Peace will take time. But we will protect it with unbreakable will. Narek