Urtha; Volume 1: Beastiary Informum

By Sean Apple

From the fantastical origins of a strange world to the mighty details of many monsters, Volume 1 of Urtha is a series of entries in a Beastiary that describe various races and creatures from a world of the same name. In the beginning, it covers concepts native to Urtha such as the fundamentals of that reality and geographical anomalies, all from an insider's perspective with comparisons to aspects of our own world. The Beastiary is designed to categorize aspects of the creatures it covers and describe them in-depth, with some aspects similar in nature to modern fantasy and gaming. Content within Urtha includes races that are almost comical like the "Surale" or ones with exceptionally grim stories like the "Brimstoners." With a mixture of darkness and optimism, the entries are presented one after the other with the context of prior entries giving a linear experience, though hyperlinks to different sections of the book itself are available to those searching for specific sections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Apple
• Release date: Oct 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005645298

Sean Apple

Hello there! My name is Sean Apple, but I also go by the aliases; "The Alabastar Brothers", "Wesley Anton", and "Lord Agamemnon." It's nice to meet you! As of writing this, I'm a 21 year old fantasy writer with a couple of years of experience under my belt in working on a very particular setting called "Urtha." It started off a simple homebrewed tabletop game, but bloomed into something special as I played year after year of it with my friends. With twists and turns based off of conventional fantasy and things new to the setting, I hope to inspire others around me to role with those ideas and dive into fantasy and fiction of their own accord. And, if I can make a living off of creativity and inspiration in the process, that would make me all the happier!

Book preview

Urtha Volume 1: Beastiary Informum

Published by Sean Wesley Apple at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Sean Apple

Smashwords License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1; Introductions

Chapter 2; Nism Categorization

Chapter 3; Sparks of Origin

Chapter 4; Primed Races

Chapter 5; Wildmen of The Iyer

Chapter 6; Chimaeras

Chapter 7; Genis Draconics

Chapter 8; Slimes and Other Primordial Descendants

Closing Notes

Chapter 1; Introductions:

Great chattering static permeates the bubble of existence. Between glistening stars swells and endless formless darkness that we call space for its vacancy of all things. And beneath those lovely flickering lights and the wispy colors of an eternally twisting galaxy, worlds settle. Some habitable and others vacant of all life. Yet even those empty worlds continue to hold curios and merit in the form of potential or oddities onset by just the right conditions. Earth is one of the crown jewels of the star Sol and functions as home to countless forms of life, be them with the grandiose sapience of Humanity or the simple mechanical nature of bacteriophages. However, this compendium will only touch on such matters momentarily, to function as a perspective of comparison to a different world; Urtha.

My name is Lord Agamemnon, and I am what some would call a scholar. Native neither to Earth or Urtha, I have spent much of my time observing the similarities and disparities between them for the sake of satiating an endless desire for knowledge. Some would even call me an observer, a spectator, and eventually you will come to understand what such a title entails. These texts before you are all collections of creatures and various entities that inhabit Urtha, along with the briefest of explanations for how this bizarre world of magic has been constructed by the looming Gods that preside over it. Within this first chapter, my objective is to teach you how the entities of Urtha are classified and to elaborate on points of interest or environments these beings call home.

-Essences:

Much like Earth is constructed out of matter and atoms, Urtha is created through a material known as Essence which is completely paradoxical. Essences in combination with one another create other Essences, compose objects, connect them through an unseen web known as Aura both on the material and immaterial plane, and even exist because or despite objects. Without that which exists there cannot be Essences, but that which exists is created in great thanks to Essences, all sparked from a single point of origin long ago.

What the specific Essences are is a little hard to provide in full listing, but it's good to keep a certain rule of thumb about them; If something can be defined as a separate thing, then it can probably be tied to a specific Essence. This is a very vague statement, but some examples may end up elaborating on how this is treated in Urtha. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Order and Chaos are all considered the base Essences that combine and compose hybrids infinitum to form all other known Essences. However, those combinations result in things like Ice, Slime, Life, Metal, Senses, Magic and otherwise which are all seen as their own separate things that could be umbrellaed under the base six.

Inevitably, because of the unending amount of combinations that these could be applied to, the amount of Essences spirals into insanity and can be hard for many Urthan Scholars to define, unlike the elements of Earth and how easy it is to simply break objects down into those base components. But Urthan alchemists and similar professions specialize in doing something similar, cracking objects down into physical manifestations of Essences that hold unique colors. This helps to define what might be an Essence and what might not be. Sound Essence? It has a unique liquid and crystalline form and coloration along with responses to certain other Essences it comes into contact with that are repeatable and documentable. Absolute Zero Essence? While Absolute Zero might be a thing conceptually, it doesn’t seem to be unique enough from other things like Permafrost and Ice to be its own material with unique response from other of the two mentioned.

Urtha is maddening because of how ill-defined Essences are. Magic is inherently difficult to explain, possessing arbitrary rules that exist simply because the undefined entity of magic wants them to. Overthinking it such as our alchemists do provide us with plenty of answers and some of the most interesting inventions I’ve ever laid my eyes upon, but trying to dig too deep into the understanding of them will often lead to madness and stress that degrades the mind. The madder you become, the more of a chance you’ll randomly come to revelation after revelation that will pull you deeper into your research. So, perhaps those looking to keep their heads on their shoulders should just take things as they are, only digging just a few layers down to understand it all since being a little mad is healthy.

-Nisms:

In light of the fact that many of Urtha’s residences aren’t biological or organic, the term Organism is very ill-fitting for the entities that reside in this world. So, any creature or animal or otherwise that exists on Urtha are referred to as a Nism in an all-encompassing term that becomes more specified with the classifications placed upon it. Those classifications will be unveiled soon enough, but to simplify; they come in Rank, Type, Size and Essence. Things such as Golems, Fairies, Wolves and even Humans are all considered to be Nisms.

Inevitably, these entities will be further elaborated on within the rest of this book to such a deep level of detail that they take up their own subcategories in one massive chapter. For the time being, the information on these entities can be left this simply while other features of Urtha are provided in more detail, blanketing out where these entities might come from and how they tie to Urtha’s regions and construction culturally and geographically.

-Regions:

While Earth may have a collection of continents that its residents call home, Urtha is not as fortunate as to have such a divided mass of land. Rather, it holds a single supercontinent that houses all of its non-aquatic Nisms and flora which has been dubbed The Iyer by those who happen to use the common tongue. Scattered throughout The Iyer are different cultures who have worked to provide cultural boundaries through road and trade to establish the dominion of their powers, eventually having these areas labeled as Regions, Kingdoms, and Provinces.

-Western Region:

Fortified as one of the youngest Regions of the Iyer, the Western Region has been conquered almost in its entirety by the Kingdom of Lordsroot who rules over it with a sole king and a collection of individuals known as Grandmasters that are designated to the smaller provinces that exist within Lordsroot’s boundaries. Each province within the kingdom seems to hold its own unique ecosystems which are taken advantage of by the settlements and civilizations established there, eventually leading up a chain of profit to the benefit of the kingdom before being distributed back down to those at the bottom of the hierarchy. This allows for the kingdom to remain strong, its closest nobles to remain healthy and all who settle at the bottom to find themselves in the routes of life designated unto them by their Grandmasters.

How profitable being a part of the Commonwealth depends on the province itself, as the nobility have different perspectives on whether they should bolster their own men or provide to the people to improve the quality of life all-around. Regardless of their choice, they have all served the royal family with great loyalty for hundreds of years, new Grandmasters and families appearing, but never the bloodline of the king. This is because of how Grandmasters are determined, which is through a mixture of bloodline succession and democratic votes.

If there is no one to fill the role immediately, all other Grandmasters will convene with the king and vote for a representative among nobility to take up the role. Once the slot of Grandmaster has been fulfilled, they will choose a second-in-command and as long as the Grandmaster has a successor they will simply be elevated to the role. However, if that successor disappears, the second-in-command will take their space, have their family elevated to the line of succession and a new second-in-command voted in to repeat the process or until both families completely disappear and a new Grandmaster needs to be voted in. Totally, there are currently 12 provinces and Grandmasters present, excluding the king and his province.

-Southern Region:

Unlike the other Regions of The Iyer, which are connected through landborders easily traversable, the Southern Region is almost completely blockaded from the other regions for a couple of exceptional reasons. The first of these is the presence of a large jungle between itself and the Western or Eastern region, one that is filled with the presence of Nisms that could all justifiably be called monsters. A second reason for the inaccessibility is past the jungle, where a massive rolling savannah displays itself and leads into a vast desert that is almost completely barren of water except for a single river that cuts through its center and up into the Western or Eastern Regions. And as for the last reason, the residents of the Southern Region are somewhat hostile to outsiders even among themselves and have little need to make expansions northward into the other Regions.

Cultures that reside in the Southern Region are all hostile based on the grounds of their Emperors, territorial tyrants split up into many small factions who rule over their natives with an iron grip and any outsiders like slave masters if they aren’t put to death on the spot. Driven to this nature out of necessity long ago, the Emperors were completely incapable of shaking this demeanor, which may be misunderstandable if one were to assume that they were Human. In fact, the tyrants that rule here are completely different from Humans, and most of their residents are rarely even bipedal, let alone quasi-humanoid.

The rulers of the Southern Region are known as Lamassu, an all-male species of creatures with the bodies of a lion, the heads of men, the dreaded manes of a wildcat, the wings of a vulture and the horns of a bull. Combining these traits with an ancient purpose they were given, dominating the lands around them to provide organization, it's expected that they would forgo the opportunity to change over time when their lives are as cozy as they are.

Fighting amongst each other with devilish ferocity in constant attempts to conquer the land other Lamassu own, most of their business during the day involves ordering their citizens to accomplish grand goals such as statues to their greatness or the domination of territory. But the people they rule come with very little sapience themselves, most simply being animals that are subject to the will of the Lamassu by nature. Those that do have a deal of intelligence to themselves typically live subservient lives dreaming of greatness, those few sapient being Human tribes that have lived isolationist lives beneath the Lamassu for the entirety of The Iyer’s longevity.

-Eastern Region:

One of the two oldest Regions of the Iyer that was created long ago, the Eastern Region has gone through immense changes over the course of its lifetime with powers rising and falling within its borders. Originally, it started off as a single ambitious Empire that bubbled and swelled with strength as its people spread out and claimed more land for its profit. Eventually, from its mass a small group of warriors would split off and head west to bring about the creation of the Western Region, while the Empire back home continued to grow.

After taking a massive swaft of land from the Iyer, including that which bordered the Great River cutting down the center of the supercontinent and a mountain range that bordered its peak with the Northern Region, the Empire within would inevitably shatter. After the death of their Emperor, his three sons soon went to war and fractured the single great Empire into three smaller ones which adopted names of their own that would not be forgotten to time.

Of them, the closest to the original Empire was that of the Cung Dynasty, an isolationist group of people settled deep in between its sister Empires with a vast desert that forced most of its population against a mountain range that ran through the center of the Eastern Region and held a lush forest in its valleys. This mountain range and desert combination would provide protection to the small population of people that kept the Empire maintained, both other Empires being held at bay by the environment themselves. More importantly, the magical forest that the mountain range protected would give it plenty of resources to thrive on its own with little to no trade made with the Empires stationed around it.

Eastward from this central dynasty is that of the Buntsuri Empire, running along the far eastern coast of The Iyer before sweeping down to run along the edge of the jungle that blocked it from the Southern Region. Driven by the ideal that life was not the end of existence, the Buntsuri Empire is considered to contain some of the most haunted locations on The Iyer as ritual practice, necromancy and Demonoid worship is encouraged by the governing body. With an undead Emperor forever bound to his throne and armies of competent necromancers and samurai willing to die and return from the grave for their nobles, it's fortunate that so much of the Buntsuri Empire is cut off from other civilizations on The Iyer. If not, there are bound to be cultural wars with it that would result in necrotic calamity as an undead horde march from one region to another, making more and more allies along the way.

Last of the three Empires inhabiting the Eastern Region is that of Buui Wang-gug, an Empire that inhabits territories bordering the Western and Northern Region. Because of its position, Buui Wang-gug is perhaps the most social Empire out of the entire group with external trade being so valued that most noble families are simply companies that work to export and import goods. The royal family of this region seems to control very little outside of being a figurehead for the Commonwealth, while most of the lords and ladies who contribute to the economy take control of the larger workforce tied to Buui Wang-gug’s prosperity. If there were ever an instance where the companies of Buui Wang-gug wanted to take initiative and overthrow their Emperor, there are simply too many allies on the outside of the Empire in those businessmen’s pockets to stop them. The only consequence would be the discontent with the Commonwealth, driven by the fall of the Emperor they are bound to religiously.

-Northern Region:

Harboring some of the most familiar cultures to Earth out of the entirety of The Iyer, the Northern Region could potentially function as one’s gateway into understanding some of the reflection between the two worlds. There do exist a couple of groups who happen to function completely outside of relation to any culture of Earth, but many of them have similarities or reflections. Something to be noted about the provinces within the Northern Region is simply how vast they are, with the region itself being a wide expanse of cold tundra and plains cleared of trees. Ponds are usually frozen over unless large concentrations of salt are placed into them, which pressures many of the civilizations here to resolve the issue of water purity early on.

As a summary, the similarities between the Northern Region’s cultures and many of Earth’s cultures is apparent with civilizations like the Lysanders compared to the nomadic cultures of Earth and the Naht-Zlav people compared to middle Europeans with a heavy focus on socialist views, at least during times of stability. However, close the similarities may initially be, things change quickly when their origins are observed alongside how they respond and use the magical aspects of the world around them. These are even more apparent when the various races of the Northern Region are accounted for in all of their diversity.

Some other cultures of the Northern Region include the proud people of the Centaurs of Cantar, the Red Kappas of Krimshell, the Lycanthropes of Lysander and the Humans of Naht-Zlav. While these are not all of the races nor provinces involved within the Northern Region, they are some of the more prominent ones due to how willing they are to cooperate with one another, and the regions settled outside of the north. Those who oppose the external world and may even be seeking to cause trouble within the Northern Region include an enormous bandit clan known as the BOOM BOIS who are a group of Carnivans and clown-like Demonoids, along with another group of Demonoid enforcers known as the Citadel of Hell. For the most part, the groups within the Northern Region tend to focus on themselves and the inner workings of their people instead of prying into the business of others.

-Islands of The Lost:

Though not directly connected to any portion of The Iyer in particular, the Islands of The Lost are a collection of landmasses that exist far away from the coasts of The Iyer. Whether because of the northeastern mountain range being detonated or simply having been formed back when the world’s sea level rose, these islands function as some of the last safe havens for life under the circumstance that The Iyer were to come under catastrophic threat via an internal source.

Among these islands very few cultures have been established, to the point that it is most likely that none exist upon them at all. Yet, the presence of pirates from each region of The Iyer have been found turning the Islands of The Lost into docks where they can mingle and trade with others of their kind without the intervention of lawmen searching for their heads. The islands are simply too far from land to risk going into, as the resources on a ship would dwindle and their connection with kingdoms back home would prevent them from refueling at these pirate towns. But, even with the lack of true laws being ironed into them, the Islands of The Lost are not truly glamorous and many of them are drab and pitiful.

Because of their size and disconnection with external landmasses, the Islands of The Lost lack biodiversity and many of them are barren wastes fit only to settle into by those carrying the resources necessary. On these barren islands, some have been able to establish farmland and make settlements dedicated to refueling pirates, protected externally by those who they had promised to provide payment for. But even then, many of these farm islands are few and far between. For the most part, the only islands that have pirate towns upon them are those already inhabited with a well of life, functioning as an oasis out in a vast salty sea filled with titanic monsters.

Tavern Keeps scavenge fruit and other plants from the islands to turn into ales, rums, and other alcoholic drinks for the pirates. Hunters perform fishing along the coastal regions of the island or hunt the few beasts that roam the tropical foliage, bringing back fresh meat to be traded off or cooked for dinner. And pirates themselves bring in goods to trade to the settlers here in return for the handiwork of repairmen who have spent the entirety of their lives practicing to serve pirates in their trade. Those who live here have found themselves subject to pirate captains and their quartermaster’s needs, only finding freedom in a life fully spent or joining their crew, only to leave after the mainland has been touched.

-The Learned Isles:

Even farther from The Iyer than the Islands of The Lost, so far in fact that it dots the opposite side of Urtha to the center of The Iyer, these isles were founded long ago as a collection of mountains risen from the ground by an exceptionally important religious figure. This man of magic and wisdom constructed a collection of mountains to function as his workspace while he remained in the mortal world, building mystical inventions that would help to maintain its perfection while also giving to those who lived upon them. Only in the flood that followed a great tragedy did they fall and become The Learned Isles.

Inhabiting The Learned Isles are the last remnants of this figure's servants, artificial humanoids designated to the task of maintaining all his magical creations while feeding upon the excess Essence they produce. Because of this position of servitude, eternally bound until a new master’s arrival, they lack the autonomy needed to form a culture of their own. This was, until a mortal had claimed an artifact of their master and manifested upon The Learned Isles with an intent to claim the knowledge and magic found there.

Also garnering a following of these artificial people, that man would work tirelessly to advance his own power upon the isles while improving its defenses with his modern-day perspective on magic and how it could be used. This even included concealing The Learned Isles behind a barrier and teleporting them into a zone of Urtha’s great sea layered with constant storms to prevent intervention from pirates and sailors set astray. Eventually, as this ambitious man gained power and knowledge, finding his heart warmed by an acolyte that would visit and socialize with him from time to time, he came to establish a peculiar system that would allow access to The Learned Isles from The Iyer itself.

Continuing with his streak of narcissism and knowledge seeking, he established a college off in the Western Region of The Iyer which held a collection of corridors that would open into The Learned Isles where a city of what could only be called plastic stood. The residents here were those artificial people, who now filled out the roles of workers who assisted the students of that college as diligently as possible, guiding them through The Learned Isles on their journey for knowledge until they needed to return home. Eventually, the artificial people became studious on their own, learning from their idol like a muse or master until they could sneak out on their own in search of new knowledge.

-Geographic Anomalies:

Urtha has a vast arrangement of environments that seem to be entirely unique to it, thanks to the presence of magic which has worked to mold the landscape into different forms over many years. Though Urtha is exceedingly infantile compared to Earth, these environments have quickly developed thanks to the presence of Essences and work to house many of the residents of The Iyer in all of their fantastical variety. Below is a list of the magical environments that belong to Urtha, along with attempts to explain how they are formed without the presence of continental shifts and other typical natural systems that Earth possesses.

-Draconic Mountains and The Highland Steppes:

Urtha, upon its conception by the original creator deity, was granted large and completely immobilized continental plates that do not drift or shift. These plates are known as Tumb, Ind, Modren, Reng and Heil with one more continental plate being called Occula. These plates together correspond with an interpretation of how the planet was formed, by that original creator using a giant stone fist to encapsulate a realm known as The Abyss. However, the fact that these plates never move does not explain how mountains and other dents within the world have come to form.

The rise of mountains was onset by an ancient species of Dragon which opted to go into a supposed dormancy, burrowing themselves beneath the crust of Urtha to raise its shelf onto their backs like a blanket. After a great deal of time, the remnants of these Dragons either remained alive as a volcanic activity or died during their hibernation and became deposits of resources underneath these mountains. Earthquakes and the rising of land is typically a consequence of these Dragons giving birth to new eggs which are pushed into new locations nearby before producing a great deal of heat that softens the ground around them into a molten material malleable and easy to pass through.

Now, in the modern day, these Draconic Mountains function as a border between the Northern and Western Region in a location known as the Highland Steppes with others bordering the Cung Dynasty and Buui Wang-gug. There used to exist another collection of Draconic Mountains bordering the Northern and Eastern Region, but a cataclysmic event occurred as a consequence of a titanic entity lashing out in self-defense. For future reference, there also exists a deadzone of mountainous lands lining a location called Frozen Hell that consists of Draconic Mountains, but those have all frozen to death.

-Iris and The Elven Woods:

At the center of the borders between the Northern, Eastern and Western Region is settled a monolithic mountain that drifts its peak high through the sky. Standing so tall that clouds gather and freeze upon its surface during the day, only to run off as it is warmed by the solar glares above during the day, forming The Great River, is that of The Iris. One of the Draconic Mountains and perhaps the most prominent of them, The Iris also functions as the tallest mountain on Urtha including those that are plunged beneath the ocean.

More enormous than any mountain, the destruction of the Northeastern portion of the Draconic Mountains was enough to result in the awakening of the Dragon that slept beneath the crust of this mountain. Crawling out through a great canyon that cracked in its side, this godly behemoth soon left to fulfill its own devices and now leaves an enormous cavern in its place, just barely supported by the remains of that Dragon’s sheddings and molted skins.

Upon the base of The Iris are a collection of forests imbued with magical properties because of roots feeding from the secretions of this Dragon, functioning as a mystical beacon to those bound to nature. The Elves and other similar entities conquered this domain in the early years of its presence, eventually digging a moat around The Iris and The Elven Woods to form an isolationist zone to live unimpeded by other intelligent races. Because of this, the Elven Woods are rarely visited by outsiders, unless in direct business with the isolationists who now call the surface of The Iris their own.

-The Great Lagoon and The Deadlands:

Before the formation of The Great Lagoon because of the Northeastern Draconic Mountains being destroyed, the establishment of the Deadlands had already been put into place. Originally, these grounds were the home of the original Empire that sprouted both the Eastern and Western Region, but after a series of wars between the east and west in a fruitless attempt to hold the land for religious purposes it had become completely desolate. Not a single source of life resided in this wastrel after the war, with the only denizens now being undead who soon immigrated into the Buntsuri Empire.

Claimed by the eastern Empire of Necromancers, it was considered a place of great worship and value for a lengthy period, only to have such purity tarnished with the obliteration of a nearby mountain range that created a cascade event that destroyed what was left of the Deadlands. In the place of this mountain range was now an enormous lagoon between the Northern and Eastern region and running along that southern coast were the remnants of the Deadlands where the ashes of ashes now stood. Fortunately, the waters of The Great Lagoon soon cooled and allowed the Northern and Eastern regions to commune and trade, but little wanted to settle into the Deadlands for many thought it was destined to meet destructive fate after destructive fate.

-The Great River:

Forged because of The Iris’ constant runoff, a glacial peak melting by day and freezing by night, the formation of an immense river was established that cut directly through the border of the Eastern and Western Region. This path soon breached one of the most difficult to inhabit landscapes possible and repeated this until it inevitably halted in the driest desert of Urtha. After it had been established over the course of many years, pushed to progress faster by the magical properties of Urtha, many other rivers began to cut from this one which formed many lakes and ponds.

Similarly, each coast of The Iyer produced their own attempts to form rivers and lakes which created small central areas of the east and west that were dry and arid with one being a heated desert and the other being a cold one. Both are slightly southward of their direct center, and occasionally are graced with passing clouds that rain down upon the ground, but the intervention of mortals has prevented them from becoming lush habitats. For now, The Great River does its best to work against the sapient species of The Iyer by pushing water gathered in the sky onto the land when rain cannot.

-The Living Jungle and Marshlands:

Being one of the two ecosystems that The Great River passes through, The Living Jungle was formed long ago because of an ancient race’s last-ditch attempts to save itself from extinction, just barely ensuring that a single instance of their species survived long enough to give descendants. Filled with dense plant life almost impenetrable to cut through with the technology of the time, even through the use of magic, this is also met with the most prominent magical property of the jungle. Out from the ground, the trees and other components of The Living Jungle tend to manifest monsters adorned with vile weaponry.

Unlike most other Nisms that can be reasoned with, tamed, or at least turned docile through the appropriate actions, these abominations only harbor kindness and peace for the ancient race the jungle was made for. And as one goes deeper into its flora, the fauna will become more copious and violent, eventually overrunning anyone who hasn’t been given express permission by its creators to be there. But even then, the monsters can hardly prevent themselves from attacking and time spent too long will almost assure an unmatched bloodbath. Adjacent to it, on the Eastern Region’s southern border is a much more docile variant of The Living Jungle known as The Living Marshlands.

Incapable of manifesting entities like its sibling in the Western Region, The Living Marshlands functions as one of the few barriers between the Southern and Eastern Region that has a chance to be passable if given a strong enough expedition. However, permanent routes through the location are exceptionally hard to craft, as the plant life is always regrowing at an alarming rate which prevents reverse travel and can quickly lead to a group getting lost. And out of The Living Jungle and Living Marshlands, by far the weakest portion of it to pass through are the rushing waters of The Great River that carves right through it, far enough from manifesting monsters and intense enough to destroy an abundance of plant life.

-Desert Wastes and The Oasis:

Beyond The Living Jungle and even farther through a savannah located just behind it is the start of a vast realm of sand and scorching hot winds, rolling dunes blanketing a realm filled with hostile Empires constantly struggling for power. This location is known as the Desert Wastes, and among it are a vast variety of creatures that have learned to live in the immense heat, survive off the smallest portions of water, or even completely live without it. Yet, one thing is for certain about this domain; the only ones made to survive it are those born within. If you’re lucky enough to be an outsider who happens to roam through and live, you may find yourself in a place abundant with greenery and luxury.

Beyond the Desert Wastes begins a collection of tropical zones covered in plant life with hundreds of small ponds and lakes formed by the rising tides of the ocean below it, deemed by many travelers as the fabled Oasis. Here, there are said to be many sapient species living in harmony by tending to the environment with an almost religious fervor and the wildlife is said to be so docile and nutritious and a single hunt can provide all the necessities for a single man’s entire life. In truth, this statement isn’t very far off. Those who natively inhabit The Oasis have lived completely separated from Humanity and have grown with absolutely no violence. Most creatures are composed of plant matter, and those that aren’t are almost entirely herbivorous, feeding off the plant-based creatures like slow and methodical predators. This has made The Oasis an absolute legend among adventurers. But what makes it even more fabled, is the temple that's said to wait there, a personal hideaway and luxury suit for a group of Gods known as The Pantheon of Monstrosities.

-Frozen Hell and The Frozen Steppes:

In the opposite direction of The Oasis, The Living Jungle or even the Western and Eastern Region is the northern passages of Urtha which ultimately caps itself off with a single glacial cap vast and vicious. Initially, as one traverses The Iyer north, they will come across lush plains and some tundra that happen to litter the environment along with cities set by the sapient races of the Northern Region. But if one travels far enough, they will begin to feel a bitter cold and come across a mountain range known as The Frozen Steppes.

This is the final stop for travelers before things become lethal, but if one is brave or stupid enough, they can head through the valleys of the mountain and into a location known as Frozen Hell. This place is such a bitter and cold environment that all moisture without its own source of heat is almost immediately frozen, leaving valleys filled with the glacial statues of those who foolishly tried to enter its domain. But for those who survive the immediate flash freezing, the hail is as sharp as daggers and dice up those soft in flesh and the Nisms that call this domicile home are either colossal in scale or directly demonic, it's said that a hole into Urtha known as The Gateway into The Abyss awaits directly at its center. There is little profit here, few monsters to hunt and an environment that intends to kill anyone who contests it. Frozen Hell is better left off isolated, to avoid unneeded casualties.

-The Gateway into The Abyss:

Within the core of the glacial plates that form up Frozen Hell is settled a single massive chasm, immediately visible from the skies above if one were even to drift into space. This hole leads all the way down into a boiling sinful core of Urtha known as The Abyss, and thus has been dubbed the name; The Gateway into The Abyss. Frequently, entities known as Demonoid crawl to the mouth of this pit in an attempt to free themselves from confinement, but quickly their bodies are flash frozen into statues that create an ever-piling wall of bodies belonging to frozen demons as a warning to those closing in. And if that isn’t enough of a warning, there exists one other structure that should ward off travelers.

Settled at the edge of this chasm is a monolithic tree, just about as large as it is, with roots that dig down into the heated core of Urtha’s hell where it siphons the energy it needs to survive without photosynthesis. In return, this massive structure has become the sole citadel of demons who have successfully adapted to the harsh conditions of Frozen Hell, establishing a castle among its branches carved from wood and the ice made from their frozen kinship. If there happens to be any place worse to visit than Frozen Hell, it's hell itself.

-The Great Split:

With disruptions on par as mountain range obliterating titans and Gods waging war with one another over the mortal lives of Urtha, it's undeniable that more of the Draconic Mountains that have slumbered for thousands of years would come to awaken at a single time. For the Northwestern range, one of the awakened Dragons broke free from its wicked sleep in an eruption that carved a temporary and secondary hole directly into The Abyss. However, the presence of this disrupted Dragon would only last for a short time, its tyranny sluggishly dragged from one side of The Iyer to another as it soon entered the Cung Dynasty.

Here, the Dragon found a peaceful tranquility with the empty and scorching desert it possessed, usings its mighty claws to burrow into another portion of the ground to return to its sleep. This process ended up being stopped short as it dozed off just before it could fully submerge itself, creating yet another chasm that almost touches The Abyss which is now filled with its body. Referred to as The Great Split, this location within the Eastern Region functions as a molten domicile for any hellish imps or demonic lords to crawl from uninhibited by anything other than the Dragon’s slumber itself. Because of this, the three fragmented Empires of the Eastern Region have all made an agreement to create and train forces to ward off an eventual invasion by the invasive Demonoids, currently known as The Infernal Inquisition.

-Mountains of The Cung Dynasty:

Cut down between the border that runs along the Cung Dynasty and Buui Wang-gug is a collection of Draconic Mountains layered in a tropical zone that collects the moisture produced by The Great River. This geographic feature has worked to not only protect the Cung Dynasty from any advances Buui Wang-gug might have made in the past, but also functions to fortify the desert that slights the Buntsuri Empire’s own efforts to assail the Cung Dynasty. However, around the northernmost collection of these mountains appears to be the most fertile portion of the Cung Dynasty and a large forest where the capital and sole city settles.

The forest in question is known for its mystical properties and deep ties to Fairies, Essentals and Yokification as many of the more magical Nisms of Urtha seemed to have some sort of variant that resides within this enormous forest. While outsiders are often cast out by an immensely violent defense provided by the protective and inhuman residents here, the native members of the Cung Dynasty and those they have granted passage seem to remain unharmed as they pass through which functions as a signifier of the control the Cung Dynasty’s Emperor happens to have over this ecosystem. With dense jungles and mountains blocking the north and west, and an endless desert blocking the east and south, the Cung Dynasty is perfectly isolated with the assistance of their valued mountain range.

-Deserts of The East and West:

Familiarly, the Cung Dynasty’s deserts are a vast landscape that surrounds The Great Split with a blistering dry heat that scorns most outsiders who try to enter its grounds. This desert is formed by the presence of the Draconic Mountains that run between the border between Buui Wang-gug and the Cung Dynasty, but not all deserts are formed through heat and the presence of mountains. In fact, one of the most prominent deserts within the Western Region is instead formed by the actions and intervention of Humanity.

Long ago, the Western Region and the Kingdom of Lordsroot was founded by migrants from the Eastern Region who wanted to form their own Empire with a leader known as King Xander Wilhelm. This king installed a collection of Grandmasters who would carry the responsibility of managing the provinces that would form from separation of the land and establishment of the borders, with one of them taking up a province just south of his own. This province lived in fear of the Living Jungle beneath it and frequently had Grandmasters who would live paranoid lives. One of these individuals was so maddened that he used both magic and blades to fell every single forest in his province and along its borders. The lack of trees and their roots caused the ground to become extremely dusty, and the use of magic stained the land with color and ashes. Destroyed trees and bare stone were collected to build the citadels located in this province, but all of it eventually culminated in a better and cold desert over the next few hundred years. That province now exports inventions for defense of other provinces, in return for resources to supplement their barren wasteland, but no attempts to save it have ever been made by the province’s Grandmasters.

-Mystic Forests of Lordsroot

Outside of the one province that had completely destroyed its forests, most of Lordsroot actually has a deep tie to those forms of ecosystems after dominating a landscape which had originally belonged to the Living Jungle. Many of the provinces possess at least some sort of mystical biome, rooted with remnants of the ancient species who made the Living Jungle long ago, or perhaps twisted into this current state by Human hands. Out of the many magical forests, the most accessible to those seeking tourism is known as the Luxurious Woods.

Configured out of tall standing trees that twist and bend into one another with bright pink leaves, this beautiful environment almost completely layers the province of Curacion which functions as Urtha’s capital for apothecaries and medical knowledge. The Luxurious Woods, while wild, are ultimately an addition to their campuses and harbors of knowledge to help students and the studious calm their minds and explore relationships while in pursuit of personal advancement to help temper the power hungry and ambitious. For those like this that ultimately find the romance of Curacion distracting yet want a magical forest to pull their resources from, another option comes from the province of Siluas which houses a monumental forest so magically infused that Essences crystallized and form giant pires that push from the ground.

Known as the Owl-Eyed Forest, many of the trees that form here have properties incredibly important to those seeking the pursuit of power through magic. An example of these trees is the Learned Apple Tree, a black barked, blue leafed and pink cored tree that produces fruit highly imbued with Essences. Another fantastic example for the enchanters of Urtha is the Static Birch Tree, which is layered with a twisting and churning white bark covered in gray and black stripes. While typically appearing as Birch Tree, its leaves seem to gather the lost souls of the forest and imbue their powers into protective runes and at the roots of the tree form Soul Phylacteries used to gather souls. All these magical properties make the Owl-Eyed Forest the perfect location for wizards seeking to scavenge for natural ingredients and artifacts that can assist in their pursuit of knowledge and stature, but for those looking to simply hunt in a place laden with the mythical, the Silva Terran Woods is a far more footing location.

Located just south of the province of Siluas is that of Silva Terra, another location completely covered with forests. However, these forests are a direct subsect of the Living Jungle that lurks just behind a monstrous wall bordered at the bottom of Silva Terra’s province. Because of the rampant expansion of its borders, the most the province can do is keep the forests around it integrated into their way of life. The Silva Terran Woods house some of the strongest elk that an arrow can pierce and, for those seeking a more mountainous challenge, there persist monumental that occasionally leak from the Living Jungle. Perfect to collect a lifetime’s worth of stories and a trophy to mount on a tavern wall.

-Blood Ocean and The Coast of Gore:

After the accidental lashing of the titan that obliterated the Draconic Mountain range bordering the Northern and Eastern Region’s border, that same enormous entity received an injury that opened a wound. Of course, all wounds bleed, but no one could imagine the monolithic amount of blood that flowed upon Urtha. This occured all the way out in the Sea of Tears, but the blood produced did many things. It stained that portion of the ocean crimson permanently and bleached the waters with the heat it carried and imbued the environment with so much Light Essence that the ocean it consumed now glowed so crimson day seemed like night. This event, and the environment caused by it, were deemed The Blood Ocean and soon it would touch upon the far western coast, staining it with a massive tsunami caused by the sudden increase in sea level.

Titanic amounts of molten and angelic blood coursed through the landscape, soaking into the ground and slaughtering thousands in a cataclysm that obliterated environments like no other. But more of a consequence of it, was the blood itself healing separate from the titan’s body. Eventually, it solidified into a landscape of Angeloid flesh as if it were one monstrously large organism, now hatefully referred to as the Coast of Gore. Extremophiles returned to the environment and carnivores joined them, soon becoming docile as they fed on the flesh produced by the land, ever healing thanks to the light from the celestial body above. But unlike the environmental damage of the cold desert in the Western Region, several bodies worked tirelessly to restore the environment to its glory, cleaning off the Coast of Gore up to an uninhabited region of the Northwestern coast where it could function as an environment to house all of the new scavengers who called it home.

-Volcanic Crags and Active Dragons:

Tucked just beneath the portion of the far western coast affected most by The Blood Ocean is an almost terrifyingly savage environment formed from a single enormous Draconic Mountain ever fertile and producing new ones scattered throughout its range. Having its name used for the province it inhabits, this mountain is known as Testudo Estuan and it functions as the core to a location that houses hundreds of species of Dragons both true and false. Covered in a jungle environment that has reached out from the Living Jungle, such an expansion is kept at bay by the frequent fires and births of new mountains caused by Testudo Estuan.

Through enormous draconic eggs that are born out from the sides of this enormous mountain, rise volcanoes that are worshiped and idolized by the sapient inhabitants of this province, often kept calm and dormant through the activation of rituals that cool and unfertilize the eggs. But for those that have spent time gestating too long, they are set into a constant state of eruption with magma circling to the surface before lava slips in through the cracks, back into the bubble that surrounds the massive dragon eggs. Known as Active Draconic Mountains, the presence of these in such a high quantity have allowed for the Living Jungle to remain culled and prevented the Coast of Gore from stabilizing here before it was torched to ash. Thanks to these godly beasts living beneath the surface, Testudo Estuan has had little issue ever truly dealing with the natural disasters frequent to The Iyer.

-The Cycle and The Asylum:

Life on Urtha is bound to a few strange arrangements that vary from one creature to another, which can be defined as two groups and at least three objects in each. The first of these groups is known as The Cycle of Life which contains the state of Life, Death, and Decay. The second group is known as The Asylum which includes the Mind, Body, Soul, and Aura of an entity which all hold together to form each individual Nism.

Uniquely, in each creature the components of their Asylum can be in any different arrangement of the Cycle at any given time with the state of them determining what a creature is capable of and whether it's even considered alive or not. For the most part, many of the mortal entities that exist have all their components set at Life with perhaps one or two exceptions that differ from time to time. To provide the simplest example, when something is killed the component of Body enters the state of Death.

Interesting combinations of these states come in the following: Undead creatures have their Bodies in the state of Decay, their Souls in any state at the time, but their Minds and Auras both in the state of Life which allows them to move through means that could only be considered magical. Therefore, aiming for the head on some Undead ensures that the creature is returned to the grave with a single strike as it sends the Mind into the state of Death. Another intriguing example are Artificial Nisms which are caused because of having a Body in a state of Death while all other components are set in the state of Life, making them similar to Undead in existence but with their Bodies in a state of stagnation.

All of this information on The Cycle