As you crest a gentle rise along the forested trail, the mists part just enough to reveal Aberlain, a quiet burg nestled low among the swaying birches and mossy alders of the northern Anoran lowlands. Wooden rooftops, some sagging under the weight of sod and time, peek through the trees like watchful eyes, and smoke curls lazily from stone chimneys into the damp air. The scent of wet earth, pine resin, and distant woodsmoke fills your lungs, while a narrow wooden palisade encircles the village like an afterthought — more a mark of habit than true defense. Raised boardwalks crisscross between buildings to avoid the marshy ground, and carved runes glimmer faintly on doors and gateposts, their meaning lost to outsiders but clearly cherished. The only sounds are the creak of wood underfoot and the distant call of a raven — a place forgotten by time, but not by those who live there.
Aberthol, the proud capital of a Sholedian province, broods behind its stark stone walls on the southern banks of a sea-bound estuary. Its towering citadel, veined with divine iconography, looms over austere temples and rigid plazas laid out with calculated precision. A dense shanty town clings to the city's outer wall like an unwanted second skin, populated by the laboring poor and those not yet graced by Sholedian approval. Hemmed in by shadowy deciduous forests to the east and west, Aberthol is a solemn monument to Sholedian divine order, where heresy is not merely unwelcome—it is a crime.
Tucked deep within an ancient forest whispered to be touched by the Fae, Achnacloich is a quiet, defiant outpost nestled along a narrow river that winds its way toward the heart of Khiz. With fewer than 800 souls, it remains a resilient holdfast anchored by a squat stone citadel and a moss-veined plaza that serves as its heart. Though technically under the dominion of Baragz, Achnacloich feels far older than the nation that claims it—its roots entwined with legends, half-remembered songs, and the eerie silence of a forest that listens. The shadows here are long, and so are the memories.
Aelinthor is a teeming jewel on the eastern shores, where salt winds from the ocean meet crisp air descending from the mountain-fed inlet. With over fifty thousand souls packed behind its high, weathered walls, the capital city stands as a nexus of trade, faith, and power, anchored by its commanding citadel and grand central plaza. Aelinthor's harbor bustles with sails from far-flung coasts, while its shanty outskirts groan under the weight of new arrivals and old debts. Ringed by coniferous forests to the southwest and open plains to the north, the city is a convergence point—between wilderness and civilization, between wealth and poverty, and between the old ways and what lies ahead.
High in the jagged spine of the northern Feranonan range lies Aeloria, a walled mountain burg of barely 1,600 souls, perched on the edge of ancient mystery and whispered dread. Shrouded in thin mountain air and fading dwarven legends, it clings to a steep plateau just south of a ruined, long-silent dwarven kingdom—once a gateway to riches and rune-forged wonders, now a forbidden place of shadow and superstition. Aeloria bears the bones of older settlements and the breath of new scholarship, housing a modest temple and a dense, frost-worn shanty town where faith, fear, and folklore live side by side.