TheWorldOverview

World of Fairy Storm

Overview

The world of Fairy Storm bears the scars of ancient catastrophe. Once a barren, nearly airless wasteland, it was forever changed when a titanic collision carved a massive wound across its surface—a gouge stretching 8,000 kilometers long, 2,000 kilometers wide, and plunging kilometers deep into the planet's crust.

Over countless eons, atmosphere pooled in this great valley like water in a basin. Life crept in through dimensional rifts and portals, transforming the scar into a thriving realm.

Now, most inhabitants know nothing of their world's violent birth, though their languages whisper hints—words meaning "valley" or "crack" passed down through generations. Even those dwelling at the base of the towering walls see them merely as impossibly tall mountains, unaware they stand within the planet's great wound.

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The Regions

The Walls

The valley's borders rise like the edges of a god's sword cut, their faces climbing kilometers into the thin air above. These are not mere cliffs but naked stone barriers, their surfaces scarred by wind and weather yet still bearing the brutal angles of their violent creation.

The northern wall basks in sunlight, its stone warming to gold and amber in the afternoon light. The southern wall dwells in perpetual shadow, a realm of twilight where the sun never climbs high enough to banish the eternal gloom. Between them stretches the wide valley floor, carved by the deep central sea.

Climbing these walls tests both body and spirit. Experienced mountaineers can find routes where the slope is barely navigable, but reaching the summit demands magical aid to endure the cold, airless wastes of the world's true surface.

The Wall Folk

Even in this vertical wilderness, life persists. Hardy mountain folk scratch out their living in caves carved by ancient streams, on ledges no wider than a merchant's cart, and in chasms where echoes speak back in foreign tongues. Here dwarves and humans live side by side, their bodies hardened by thin air and harsh winds. They greet strangers with caution but warm to those who prove themselves worthy trading partners, their hospitality as solid as the stone they call home.

These are not soft valley dwellers. The wall cities stand as monuments to stubborn artistry—what valley dwellers might call mere towns, the wall folk have carved into vertical wonders. Stonemasters have coaxed these settlements from the living rock, creating communities that spiral up the cliff face for hundreds of meters. Buildings thrust out into empty air on buttresses of metal and stone, while deep caves open into vast living spaces.

Wall folk trade in rarities: gems pried from raw stone, lichen that glows with captured starlight, and minerals that hold magic like wine holds spirits. They connect to the "flatlanders" through elaborate pulley systems and rope railways that cast geometric patterns across the cliff faces. Some wall cities boast hand-carved roads descending the wall itself, many wide enough for caravans to navigate up and down, complete with way stations for weary travelers.

The Mud Hills

Time has softened the valley's harsh edges. Where once the walls met the floor in brutal angles, erosion has built vast hills of rich earth and stone that stretch for leagues from the wall's base, rising until they disappear into low-hanging clouds.

"Mud hills" hardly captures their grandeur. These are mountains in their own right, their peaks crowned with snow and their slopes thick with the richest soil in the valley. Millennia of erosion have concentrated minerals, organics, and magic itself into these rolling giants. Only when compared to the raw walls do they seem diminished.

The northern hills catch the sun's full blessing, their terraced farms glowing golden in the afternoon light. The southern hills brood in cooler shadows, perfect for the pale mushrooms and shade-loving plants that thrive in perpetual twilight. In both regions, magic flows like mist down from the heights, pooling in hidden valleys where even the stones hum with power.

The Mudders

These fertile slopes cradle scattered communities of farmers and miners, their settlements connected by cart roads that wind through valleys thick with exotic crops. Generations of families have carved vast cave systems into the soft rock, creating underground farms where bioluminescent fungi paint cavern walls in blues and greens, mushroom beds where prized rarities are harvested, and crafting communities where stone and minerals become valuable goods.

The trading cities at the hills' base pulse with industry. Here wood from the foothills meets metal from the walls and minerals from deep mines. Workshops ring with hammer blows, and the air shimmers with forge-heat and magic. Merchant caravans load their wagons here before setting out across the valley, carrying the hills' bounty to distant shores.

The Drakmules

Scattered across the hills from the deepest caves to sunny outcroppings live the drakmules—great lizards whose scales shimmer in shades from deep ocean blue to forge-fire red.

Some grow as large as warhorses and prove twice as intelligent. Drakmules can be difficult to tame, but a bonded drakmule becomes a great treasure. They can haul massive loads for days with little rest, navigate by instincts sharper than any compass, and - often frustratingly for their owners - always find their way home when they slip their traces.

Mostly peaceful, drakmules tend to avoid human activity but become defensive and territorial when cornered. Their diet consists mainly of lichen and grasses, though they also thrive on raw mana that they seek in their native deep caves.

Many legends claim that drakmules were once dragons that settled down and crawled into the caves to sleep.

Northlan: Jewel of the Hills

Forty thousand souls call Northlan home, their city spreading like creeping vines across the hillsides.

What began as a small fort behind ancient walls has grown into an industrial marvel, its guild halls and workshops stretching far beyond the old boundaries to cover the mountain faces and delve deep into giant caves carved over centuries.

Iron rails spider out from the city like a metallic web, carrying hill farmers and their harvests down to market on simple carts before drakmules haul the empty cars back up the slopes. The sight of these rail lines etched across the green hills has become as much a part of Northlan as its smoking forges.

The Foothills

Between the mud hills and the central plains lies a region that would count as mountainous anywhere else. Here, ancient granite thrusts up in sudden pillars, volcanic cones wear crowns of snow, and deep ravines cut the land like old scars. Vast forests cloak the rocky areas, their canopies hiding trees older than most kingdoms.

Rivers find their headwaters in these heights, growing from mountain springs into the mighty waterways that feed the central plains. Mountain lakes conceal unknown depths, while ancient lost cities sleep beneath the forest canopy.

Well-traveled roads cut through the foothills and forests, connecting the Mud Hills to foothill outposts and onward to the central valley, though scattered throughout are mining colonies, craft halls, and hunting lodges.

Foothill Folk

The rocky peaks harbor mining colonies that delve deep into the mountains' hearts. Lower down, lumber towns cluster around sawmills where ancient trees become the valley's building material. River ports mark the heads of navigation, where mountain streams become navigable waterways.

In the deep forests, two kinds of people make their homes: the gregarious crafters in their great halls, their workshops ringing with shared laughter and competing skills—and the hermits and hunters who prefer solitude broken only by the company of trees and wild beasts.

Between them lurk the bandits, using the forest's green shadows to prey on travelers who stray from the patrolled roads.

The Central Plains

From the foothills' edge to the Central Sea's shores stretch the valley's heartlands—vast plains broken by gentle woodlands and crossed by lazy rivers that wind like silver ribbons through grasslands and fields. This is the valley's breadbasket, where farming communities cluster around rivers like pearls on a string.

Between settlements lie empty leagues where wild herds thunder across the grass and danger lurks for unwary travelers. Forgotten kingdoms rose and fell on these plains, leaving behind ruined castles where adventurers still search for lost treasures.

Rial: The Fallen Capital

The city of Rial began as a small outpost where the wide, slow Ironwater River met the Thorn Road connecting the city-states of Silverford and Roseheath. Merchants used this junction between river and road to transfer goods between many major cities, and Rial grew from small outpost to bustling town quickly. Later, more major routes connected Rial to every other significant city and port within thirty days' travel, cementing its reputation as the center of the world.

Approximately 5,500 years ago, elves under the banner of Aldric of Thorns—having recently driven off the Tenclaw Orc warband—began tracing ley lines in the region and discovered that several converged just outside the growing port of Rial. This led to the formation of the first great college of magic and a further explosion of population and travel to the city.

Rial's importance waxed and waned over the centuries, but it never ceased being significant in whatever empire or kingdom held sway.

At its height, Rial housed over 200,000 souls and served as capital of the Second Empire. With the empire's collapse and return to warring city-states, Rial has waned again, though it maintains a favored position. As a central hub for trade and connection, few of the scattered remaining kingdoms will attack it outright, tending to give the city wide berth even when marching against other regional powers.

The Eastern Icefields

The valley's eastern reaches climb toward the distant wall, rising until snow never melts and glaciers grind slowly across the land. This is no dead wasteland—great evergreen forests march across the taiga, sheltering herds of elk and stranger creatures adapted to the endless cold.

Scattered settlements dot this white wilderness, their inhabitants as hardy as the Wall Folk but wrapped in fur instead of leather and stone.

The Western Icefields

Smaller and more treacherous than their eastern counterpart, the Western Icefields are dominated by savage peaks that tear at the sky like broken teeth. Few dare travel here, and fewer return.

Here, dimensional portals still occasionally tear open, spilling light and strangeness from other worlds before snapping shut like closing eyes.

The Central Sea

The valley's liquid heart stretches nearly its entire length—sometimes narrowing to channels barely hundreds of meters wide, sometimes spreading into inland seas that challenge the horizon. Every kind of coastline can be found along its shores: fjords that knife deep into the land, marshy deltas where rivers spread their fingers, and volcanic islands that smoke like dragons' teeth above the waves.

Great port cities crown the major harbors, their merchant fleets carrying trade from one end of the valley to the other. But the sea demands respect—volcanic activity keeps the waters restless, and storms can rise with little warning to test even experienced sailors.

Endon: The Ancient Harbor

Of all the sea's great cities, none can claim Endon's antiquity. Born from desperation when the first settlers to this world huddled for shelter on a small rocky outcropping, it has grown like a living thing—spreading its stone tentacles across leagues of coastline and reaching both inland toward the hills and outward into the sea itself.

What began as a handful of crude shelters clinging to weathered rock has become a sprawling metropolis where ancient foundations disappear beneath layer upon layer of newer construction. The original outcropping now serves as the city's beating heart, its summit crowned with the Harbor Lord's palace while its flanks bristle with docks, warehouses, and the counting houses of merchant princes.

The city's growth tells the story of the valley's prosperity. Outer districts spread like ripples from that first stone refuge—each ring marking another generation's expansion, another wave of fortune-seekers drawn by Endon's promise. Harbor districts built on pilings stretch into the water itself, their wooden walkways creating a maze above the waves where fishing boats moor alongside merchant vessels from the sea's far reaches.

The Caverns

The same cataclysm that carved the valley also cracked the world's foundation. Deep beneath the surface, vast cavern systems stretch through darkness—some flooded with underground seas, others filled with strange fungal forests that have never known sunlight.

The Dark Elves claimed some of these spaces for their own, but they represent barely a fraction of the underground realm. Most caverns remain unexplored, their secrets waiting in the patient dark.