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| Map by Michael Gibbons |
Once a country of picturesque villages, pristine forests, and sublime mountain ranges, Krevborna is now a land of Gothic ruins preyed upon by fiends, ravening beasts, and the unquiet dead. Shadows triumphantly lengthen across Krevborna as two fell moons ominously illuminate the ink-black night sky. The blood moon brings pain, bloodshed, and uncontrollable passion. The bone moon brings the silent morbidity of the grave. The great powers of darkness converge to usher in the dread dominion of an everlasting empire of night. Someone must light a candle against the enveloping, corrosive darkness. The land is in need of heroes to save it from falling into damnation.
Aside from Krevborna’s major settlements, the land is dotted with farming communities, hamlets, villages, and isolated towns. Krevborna’s settlements are connected by rough trade roads fraught with hazard. Those who travel through the wilderness had best keep an eye out for highwaymen, bandits, and supernatural horrors that prey upon wayfarers.
There is no tsar and no national army to protect the land and its people. Krevborna was once a land ruled by a hereditary nobility, but is now without centralized authority. The Church of Sacred Blood holds sway in many areas—Chancel and Piskaro, the largest cities, are under the Church’s control—but it is highly factional and has difficulty managing secular matters. The Church of Sacred Blood venerates a pantheon of gods through rites that involve the imbibing of sanctified blood. It is the last bulwark of authority in Krevborna, yet the Church is internally divided by sectarianism, intrigue, and corruption.
Outside of the areas controlled by the Church, villages and towns are independently governed by landholders and burgomasters. Evil has wormed its way into the land and its people. The citizens of Hemlock have turned to witchcraft and devil-worship for protection and insurance against bad harvests and failing mines. Lamashtuans live under the thumb of vampire masters who demand blood tithes in return for what little prosperity they are allowed in that frigid and unforgiving realm.
The Sea of Cerna lies off Krevborna’s coast. Its waters are rough, the weather temperamental. The Sea of Cerna connects to the larger Onesti Ocean both south and west of Krevborna. Travel by sea to other lands is perilous; few can boast of seeing other shores. The River Krev winds its way from the mountains, past Chancel and down to Piskaro. Riverboats traverse the Krev and the land’s other major rivers and canals.
