Anash'col
Updated: May 31
Overview
Anash'col is a remote northern continent largely cut off from the rest of Ilisara. Recent trade routes have begun to connect it to the Twin Crescents, with its primary trade partner being the Azure Empire and Arcadia.
The bulk of Anash’col features snow-covered forests, frost-bitten plains, and a coastline of rocky fjords and port cities. Its interior is divided by mountain ranges separating the northern wastes from the southern lowlands. Port cities serve as the continent's primary points of contact with the outside world. A network of roads connects them inland, passing through scattered hamlets, druid groves, and fortified waystations. Anash'col's northern reaches are dominated by the White Death, a desolate arctic so frigid that no civilization has ever taken root there.
In the more temperate south, Anash’col features scattered remote islands where penguins and selkies live. One large landmass known as the Kingdom of Sovgorod recently lifted itself from the sea to the east. This nation has political tension with Anash’col’s more traditional and well-established realms, known as Great Borea and Kuenugarth.
Political Landscape
Three kingdoms currently divide Anash'col's territory, with a fourth vacant kingdom awaiting opportunity to rise.
Great Borea is the oldest and most powerful of the kingdoms. It was formerly ruled by an immortal Sorceress Queen who maintained an iron grip on the continent for over a thousand years. She imbued her daughter with immortality after making a dark deal with Vandun’s mortal wife, Pythea. The Queen created a harsh matriarchal society where men were considered slaves. She was slain by her daughter Queen Anastasia who is slowly transitioning the culture to a more modern one with the help of her husband, the Messiah Agyrios Idrendorakis. Political tensions are high between the crown and upper class women who hold prestige and power in the realm. Old traditions die hard.
Kuenugarth was founded by dissidents who fled Great Borea's matriarchal customs thousands of years ago. It has spent most of its history resisting Borean expansion, and establishing itself as a wealthy independent nation. In recent years the Arthelian faith has grown strong in Kuenugarth. Ruled by a line of beloved Tzars and Tzarinas, it is currently governed by Tzarina Katarin. There are many in Kuenugarth who wish for Kuenugarth and Great Borea to reunite and become the Northern Empire with the Tzarina as its ruler.
Sovgorod is the newest power in Anash’col. It is a kingdom restored from beneath the sea after a thousand years of chronomantic suspension. Its sudden emergence has destabilized the continent's political balance, as its heir Natalya Soborovsky and her companion and Hero Evelyn Stone strive to annex Great Borea and dethrone the usurper Queen Anastasia.
Dreadrock is a vacant kingdom. Once, it was the strongest power in Anash’col. Today, it is empty inside its great mountain halls save for a small group of young dragons who keep their existence secret. Deep in the bowels of Dreadrock, an army of soldiers waits in temporal stasis for someone to sit upon its Throne of Stone. Dreadrock has been abandoned and left alone by the rest of Anash’col’s citizens. It has even faded from most peoples’ memories.
Shrines from the Godwars
Scattered across the land are six ancient shrines dedicated to old gods. Each shrine contains a statue hundreds of feet tall of one of Ilisara’s old gods, who are worshipped across Great Borea in a religion known as Orthodox Pantheism.
Arth's Shrine
Arth's shrine is a collapsed network of tunnels bored into a mountain, now little more than crumbling ruins. His statue toppled long ago and lies broken at the entrance. No one tends it.
Vandun's Shrine
Vandun's shrine was sealed inside a mountain after its entrance was deliberately buried by demons. What lies within is unknown.
Remedia's Shrine
Remedia's shrine is the heart of a thriving druid village that has grown up around it. The druids who settled here tend the grounds, maintain the shrine, and regard the surrounding land as sacred.
Hejong's Shrine
Hejong's shrine is built around a colosseum that once drew thousands of warriors in his name. After Vidar led 10,000 of Hejong's followers to Strom, the complex fell nearly silent. A small number of remaining warriors still maintain the grounds.
Anashta's Shrine
Anashta's shrine is surrounded by a sprawling tent city that shifts and grows with the season. Travelers from across Anash’col come to seek her blessing, including lovers, sailors, and wanderers alike. A lively market of love potions, charms, and perfumes has taken root around the shrine's endless party.
Varos' Shrine
Varos' shrine is tended by a devout community of sun elves who have rejected Verunism, clinging to the old worship of Varos before Veladriel's ascension. They are few, but fervent, and regard the shrine as a last bastion of the original faith.
Religion
The Arthelian Faith is the dominant and fastest-growing religion on the continent, spreading rapidly through Kuenugarth and into Great Borea. Orthodox Pantheism (worship of the old gods Hejong, Remedia, Anashta, Varos, Duros, and Seluna) is practiced widely throughout the population and is the state religion of Sovgorod. Older pagan traditions persist in rural areas, centered on the six god shrines scattered throughout the mountains.
Hostility to Demons
For centuries Anash'col has been afflicted by demonic activity originating from the Lonely Tower, Vandun’s shrine, and a portal to Hell that burns beneath the continent. Pythea used the continent as her staging ground for generations to further Vandun’s schemes. In recent times, the Ice Guard (an elite force of tracker-warriors operating jointly under the crowns of Great Borea and Kuenugarth) has dramatically reduced the demonic presence on the continent. Monoliths placed throughout cities create an anti-demonic ward network that saps the power of infernal creatures within range.
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