> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Valtorra > [![[Valtorra_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Valtorra.webp) > ###### Location Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Continent | > World | [[Elandis\|Elandis]] | > Defining Feature | Six ancient kingdoms bound beneath the Crimson Empire | > Capital | [[Val Luminor]] | > Ruling Power | [[Valtorran Empire\|The Crimson Empire]] | > Connections | [[Aetheris]] (continent to the east) | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Contested | Valtorra is the north-western of the four great continents of [[Elandis]] — a land of ancient kingdoms raised from the long ruin of the [[Chaos Wars]] and, for the last hundred years, bound beneath the iron rule of the [[Valtorran Empire|Crimson Empire]]. Its six human Kingdoms of Old, its mountain dwarves, and its now-vanished elves once held a fragile peace among themselves; that peace ended when [[Empress Morganna Eventide]] came out of the eastern sea and took the continent city by city. Today Valtorra is a single subjugated realm seething beneath a calm surface — its old crowns reduced to governorships, its frontiers restless, and the first sparks of open rebellion catching in the north. ## Geography & Landscape Valtorra sits in the north-west of [[Elandis]], a broad landmass ringed by open ocean, with the central continent of [[Aetheris]] lying away to the east across the sea. Its defining feature is its spine: the [[Silver Mountains]], a great double range that runs north to south down the centre of the continent and divides it cleanly into an eastern and a western half. Between the two ranges lies the long Silver Valley, sheltered and storied, where the city of [[Silverdeep]] sits on the valley floor and [[Orespire]] guards its southern mouth. At the very heart of the range rises Valfyria, a great volcano whose smoke is a landmark visible for a hundred miles across the central continent. West of the spine the land falls away into the [[Xericana Sands]], a vast and arid desert stretching from the foot of the mountains all the way to the western shore, where the port of [[Xenith]] clings to the coast and [[Brightwater]] marks the desert's greener southern edge. North of the mountains, the enormous boreal woodland of the [[Borealia Forest]] blankets the upper third of the continent; the city of [[Val Aran]] stands at the forest's southern mouth, in the gap between the northern Silver Mountains and the smaller [[Borealia Range]] that branches east toward the coast, while [[Everfall]] lies deep in the cold north. The continent's centre-east is given over to the Luminor Plains, broad temperate grasslands that roll from [[Val Aran]] in the north down to [[Val Miriel]] in the south-east. The Imperial capital of [[Val Luminor]] sits at their heart on the [[Luminor River]], the great waterway that is the Empire's spine of trade, and the plains are dotted with farming towns — [[Redhaven]], [[Nightstone]], [[Hillcrest]], [[Goldcrest]], and [[Ravencrest]] among them. To the east, the Borealia Range and the monstrous forest of the [[Darkwood]] wall the interior off from the coast. The Imperial city of [[Shardcrest]] commands the north-eastern coast, while the frontier town of [[Lighthaven]] keeps its vigil at the Darkwood's edge and [[Point Blackrock]] stands further out on the far north-eastern shore, where broken chains of islands run out toward the rebellious island-city of [[Val Noren]] — reachable, in the deep of winter, only across the shifting ice of the [[Frostway]]. In the south, the [[Aeolian Chasm|Aeolian Mountains]] and the colossal chasm they cradle cut across the far reaches of the continent. The [[Gulf of Miriel]] indents the south-eastern coast — a near-enclosed sea whose only gate to the ocean is the killing whirlpool of [[The Maw]] — ringed by [[Val Miriel]], the free port of [[Camaar]], the mining town of [[Faelon]], [[Sabine]], and the newer Imperial port of [[Darmouth]] further down the southern shore. The south-central highlands hold [[Val Aerie]] and the watch-town of [[Valewatch]]. Two great islands complete the map: [[Val Solis]], an island city raised on a cold and mountainous isle off the north-western coast and guarded by the great sea-fortress of the [[Shield Wall]], and — across the Erivan Strait to the south — [[Erivan Island]], the abandoned homeland of the elves, whose cities of [[Ithilmara]], [[Galathilion]], and the [[Towers of Mithrondal]] still stand intact and silent. Its climate runs the full range of the world: frozen sea-ice across the north-eastern reaches where the Frostway forms; cold boreal winters under the northern forest; temperate, fertile weather across the central plains; arid heat in the western desert; and warm, wet, storm-prone air around the southern Gulf. ### High Quality Maps > [!example]+ *Links* > - [[Valtorra-Parchment.jpg|Valtorra - Parchment]] > - [[Valtorra.jpg|Valtorra - Colour]] ## History Valtorra's deep history is the world's history. Before the cataclysm there were advanced civilisations whose works survive only as overgrown ruins and half-remembered legend; then came [[The Shattering]] — though the rift itself was torn far to the east, on [[Aetheris]], not here — and the five centuries of the [[Chaos Wars]] that followed, ended at last by the Sacrifice of the Seven. From the wreckage of that age, over nearly two thousand years, three great peoples rebuilt the continent: the six human Kingdoms of Old, a unified dwarven kingdom seated in the [[Silver Mountains]] at [[Glimmerforge]], and the elves upon [[Erivan Island]] in the south. For centuries, a fragile peace held between them. That peace ended a hundred years ago. [[Empress Morganna Eventide|Morganna]] arrived from across the eastern sea, and city by city the continent fell to her — not so much to armies as to something quieter and harder to resist. The human kings were each given the same choice: rule on as Imperial governors beneath her, or be replaced; most chose survival, and so the proud Kingdoms of Old became provinces of the [[Valtorran Empire|Crimson Empire]]. The dwarven kingdom was conquered outright. The elves, foreseeing what was coming, had already withdrawn from the world entirely, leaving their island cities sealed and untakeable behind them. Only [[Val Solis]] held out. An island city that can be approached only from the sea, it is shielded by the [[Shield Wall]] — a vast defensive structure built out into the ocean that any attacking fleet must pass through to reach the city, and that breaks approaching ships long before they ever arrive. The Empire's fleets shattered against it, and rather than keep bleeding for one stubborn island it abandoned the attempt and simply cut Val Solis off — an isolation the islanders have been quietly content to keep. Roughly fifty years into the occupation, the dwarves rose in rebellion. It failed. In its aftermath the Empire imposed the conscription that defines dwarven life to this day: every dwarf, on reaching the age of eighteen, is sent down to the gem mines to serve until twenty-five. In the present day the Empire's grip has grown heavier still — harsher laws, steeper taxes, citizens vanishing in the night — and the resentment it breeds has finally found its edge. The island-city of [[Val Noren]] is in open revolt, and the Empire has seized [[Point Blackrock]] as the staging ground to retake it. Across the continent, the rusty-nail sign of [[The Bloody Nails]] has begun to spread as the mark of a growing resistance. ## Peoples & Powers ### The Valtorran Empire The [[Valtorran Empire|Crimson Empire]] is the unchallenged power on Valtorra, ruling the whole continent from the capital at [[Val Luminor]] under [[Empress Morganna Eventide]]. Its genius is indirect rule: the conquered human kingdoms are still governed by their own surrendered royal lines, now bearing the title of governor — a familiar face on each old throne, so that subjects see one of their own rather than a conqueror's appointee. Beneath that velvet glove sits real iron: Imperial garrisons in the key cities, the elite enforcers of the [[Hand of The Empire|Hands]], and the Imperial mages known as the [[Voice of the Empire|Voices]]. ### The peoples of the continent - Humans hold the six Vals and the central plains, the continent's most numerous and politically dominant people both before and under the Empire. - Halflings farm most of the Luminor Plains — a largely peaceful folk who are, in effect, the breadbasket of the central continent. - Dwarves were once a single unified kingdom in the [[Silver Mountains]], seated at [[Glimmerforge]], with [[Gemhold]] and [[Orespire]] carved into the stone and [[Silverdeep]] in the valley between. Fully conquered, and bound since their failed rebellion to mandatory service in the gem mines. - Gnomes are scattered through the smaller mountain ranges across the continent, some among the Silver Mountains; their finest are associated with the Prismatic Academy at Glimmerforge, of which the artificer [[Belinda Bubblegum]] is a graduate. - Elves are gone from the material world, withdrawn into [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]] in the [[Faewild]]. Their homeland of [[Erivan Island]] stands abandoned but wholly intact — its cities sealed at the elves' departure behind wards that inflict mounting, ultimately fatal psychic agony on any non-elf who lingers, which is precisely why the Empire never took it. - Goblinoids and monstrous folk — goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, and the like — claim the [[Xericana Sands]], a desert effectively beyond the reach of Imperial order. Imperial authority is near-total across the plains and the great cities, but it thins toward the edges: the unconquered island of [[Val Solis]], rebellious [[Val Noren]], the free port of [[Camaar]] and its [[Mawbreakers]], the barely-tolerant northern frontier of [[Lighthaven]] and [[Point Blackrock]], the deep wilds of the Borealia and the Xericana, and the sealed elven island. ## Regions & Territories - [[Silver Mountains]] — the continent's central spine, a double range enclosing the Silver Valley; heart of the conquered dwarven kingdom and home to the volcano [[Valfyria]]. - [[Xericana Sands]] — the vast western desert beyond the mountains, lawless and home to the continent's goblinoid peoples. - [[Borealia Forest]] — the immense boreal woodland of the north, ancient, cold, and shadowed by an old necromantic taint. - [[Borealia Range]] — the lesser eastern mountains branching from the spine toward the coast, walling the interior off from the east. - [[Luminor Plains]] — the fertile temperate grasslands of the centre-east, the halfling breadbasket and the heart of Imperial power, threaded by the [[Luminor River]]. - [[Darkwood]] — the monstrous eastern forest at the continent's edge, held back from [[Lighthaven]] only by an ancient warding tower. - [[Gulf of Miriel]] — the near-enclosed south-eastern sea, sealed from the ocean by the whirlpool of [[The Maw]] and ringed by the southern ports. - [[Aeolian Chasm]] — the colossal river-canyon of the far south, splitting the Aeolian Mountains down to the ocean coast. - [[Frostway]] — the deadly winter ice-bridge of the north-east, the only seasonal crossing to rebellious [[Val Noren]]. - [[Erivan Island]] — the abandoned elven homeland off the southern coast, its sealed cities untouched across the Erivan Strait. ## Dangers - The Empire itself — the heaviest hazard most Valtorrans will ever know: disappearances in the night, forced conscription into the dwarven mines and the Frostway crossings, and the swift, total reprisal that met the dwarven rebellion. - The wilds — the monsters of the [[Darkwood]], the shifting ice and beasts of the [[Frostway]], the killing whirlpool of [[The Maw]], the undead taint of the deep [[Borealia Forest]], the goblinoid raiders of the [[Xericana Sands]], the active volcano of Valfyria, and the sheer drop of the [[Aeolian Chasm]]. - [[Riftshard|Riftshards]] — scattered nodes of unstable energy left by the Shattering, where any magic worked nearby turns unpredictable. - Lingering monsters of the post-Shattering age still roam every wild corner of the continent, a danger civilisation has learned to live beside but never to be rid of. ## Significance Valtorra is the whole stage of [[The Bloody Nails]] — the homeland the party fights across, and the cradle of the rebellion against the Crimson Empire. As one of the four great pillars of [[Elandis]], it stands alongside [[Aetheris]] (the central continent, and the site of [[The Shattering]]), Seraphon (the old northern continent), and Eldara (the largest and richest). Of the four, Valtorra is the one whose fate the campaign turns upon. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 01 - The Rusty Nail]] The campaign opened with Valtorra itself: one of the four great pillars of the world, a continent whose centuries of fragile harmony were shattered a hundred years ago by a lone woman arriving on its eastern shores. The human cities fell first, the dwarven strongholds next, and the elven lands were found already abandoned — and from that conquest the Crimson Empire was born. It was beneath this hundred-year shadow that five prisoners, bound on a ship from [[Val Noren]] toward a labour camp, first found themselves thrown together — and first found their way free. ## Trivia - The prefix *Val-* runs through the names of the continent's great human cities — Val Miriel, Val Noren, Val Luminor, Val Solis, Val Aran, Val Aerie — a relic of the Kingdoms of Old, and the volcano Valfyria carries it too: *Val* and *fyria*, the place of fire. - Of the six Kingdoms of Old, only Val Solis never fell to the Empire — saved by the [[Shield Wall]], the great sea-fortress that no Imperial fleet could pass.