World Geography:
Saturnalia is dominated by the continent of Erythria which is a roughly rectangular land mass approximately two thousand miles east-west and four thousand north-south.

Across the great North Ocean several months voyage north lie the Northern Isles. Rough lands dominated by fierce war-like clans that eke out their existence amongst the ice and snow. Prime amongst these arctic lands are Tafkhim and Jorlheim.

Between the mainland and the Northern Isles lie the Serpent Isles, a smaller chain comprising four main islands: Bromo, Formo, Trefato and Sepakak.

Across the warm southern seas lie the tropical Southern Isles of Alagas and Krang. .

Erythrian Geography/Demography/History:
The only four geographical features of importance on a continental scale are as follows:

  • The Great Divide - A collosal range of mountains that runs east-west more on less half way down Eyythria, dividing the continent and making a land passage from North to South nothing more than a fairy-tale.

  • The Great River - This flows from the Great Divide to the North Ocean and splits north east Eyrthria from north west Erythria. It more of a fresh water sea on the move than a river and at points is over a hundred miles wide.

  • The Southern Desert - South Erythria is a hot arid land dominated by a vast desert. Close to the coast the land can be quite fertile and there are even forests and jungles but head inland and you face a deadly oven of blazing white sands.

  • The Northern Plains - Stretching for millions of square miles north of the Great Divide are the grasslands of the Ocean King. A land so vast and often featureless that one can ride in a straight line for months without seeing the sea or indeed anything more than endless waving grass.

  • History

    For modern day Saturnalians the history of Erythria begins, as does the written history of the isles, with a man named Erik the Forger after whom the calender is named (The current year is AE 915 , AE=After Erik).

    Erik was the main instigator of the great invasion that took tens of thousands of northmen from their ice-locked homes to the northern shores of Erythria. These vigourous northern warriors somehow turned the tide against the almost numberless native tribes and drove the followers of the Ocean King back across their domain at the astounding rate of over a hundred miles a generation.

    Within three hundred years there were northmen strongholds stretched from their landing sites to the extreme south of the continent. A great empire was founded south of the Great Divide and the immense city of Basradur was constructed at its heart. From here the descentants of Erik the Forger ruled over the majority of the known world.

    History has cycles as the followers of Corgul will tell us. The northmen conquered Erythria on the rising side of their cycle as the plainsmen were descending into stagnation. Enevitably though the hard life of raids and skirmishing forced upon the line of the Ocean King toughened his people where as the luxury of their empire corrupted the invaders and softened them until at last the empire split and was broken.

    The remnants of Empire focused in the South and formed the basis of the Sultanate that ruled over most of the coastal areas for hundreds of years. The Sultanate was final broken up only in the last ten years by the desert nomads, the descendants of the plainsmen driven south before Erik's invasion. The Sultanate now holds but one city and that in the hands of a man whose royal heritage is open to question.

    In the north the plainsmen destroyed all the great cities excepting only the most strongly defended costal towns. The ruins of the Great Empire lie scattered across the plains, left as haunted and unclean sites by the plainsmen who still ride in their hundreds of thousands beneath the banners of the Ocean King. The plainsmen now only act against cities as separate tribes and for their own reasons but they do occasionally attack. Twelve years ago the strongly defended North Eastern city of Tig fell to their hordes and six years ago in the North West the decadent metropolis of Gagh-Arch fell to their riders.

    The remnants of Erik the Forger's descendants now live within various small city states and fight their religious wars against eachother.

    More specific North West Information

    Feasts & Fealty