Stolen Land Geography

Mount Branthlend

The tallest mountain in the Stolen Lands, Mount Branthlend rises from the landscape like a distinctively shaped monk's head. An incredible 5,400 feet tall, the mountain, also known as the Peak of Broken Promises, features a bare, knob-like pinnacle of white stone. The mountain grants its name to the range in which it is found: the Branthlend Mountains.

The mythos of the mountain is dominated by tales of Noarra, the great love of the barbarian lord Targran, who shouted curses from the peak of the mountain after the barbarian warlord took another woman as his queen. In that moment a great storm of fire and stone encompassed the peak of the mountain, and Noarra was said to be transformed into a great black dragon, who then rampaged across eastern Numeria. This myth attracts many travellers from throughout the land, drawn to the peak to cry out their own curses and oaths of vengeance.

Thousand Voices

Lying in the Stolen Lands, the Thousand Voices is one of the densest wildernesses in the River Kingdoms. It features a great variety of life, and an even greater number of mysteries.
Known also as the Forest of Breath, the Thousand Voices is a mysterious and strange place, with tall beech, white oak, hemlock, and veined orger trees. Those who speak of it are quick to mention the tales of unexplained disappearances, ghosts, and winding paths which encircle and confuse those who dare to walk the forest path. All who speak of the Thousand Voices give the same message: avoid it, where men are unwelcome.

Inhabitants of the forest include numerous fey and fairy-folk, said to live in the trees, and who defend the woods against those who might cut or burn down the trees. Bandits speak of even stranger things lying deeper in the wood.

Rivers of the Greenbelt

Thorn River: The banks of the Thorn River are thick with stinging nettles and tangles of sharp brambles. The river itself is relatively narrow, averaging 60 feet in width and 30 feet deep.

Stolen Land Settlements

Pitax

Troutmouth

The wharfside of Troutmouth is a strange mix of hardworking warehouse workers living with their families near the docks and freebooting sailors who drift in and out of the city with their ships. Though this often leads to loud and boisterous conflicts between the two groups in the wee hours of the morning, both the workers and the sailors share a grudging respect for one another. The two groups are unified by a shared loathing for the Trade Houses which they believe to be rich, selfish, and indifferent to their problems. Several noteworthy locales can be found in Troutmouth.

A: The River Reaver Inn

B: Rented Warehouse

C: The Devil’s Tusks

Pitax makes its home along a tributary of the Sellen River known as the Pitax River, a place known for its treacherous rapids. Here two small peninsulas jut out from the shore, forming a natural gateway and protective harbor. Those unfamiliar with navigating the narrow strait between the peninsulas—the Devil’s Tusks, known more informally as the Tusks— quickly find their ships stuck on the jagged rocks lurking just beneath the water’s surface. A pair of lighthouses, one on each of the Tusks, serve as beacons to guide ships safely into the harbor, but presently only the southern lighthouse functions as originally intended.

The Shattered Ward

Long the spiritual heart of Pitax, the Shattered Ward grew from the remnants of the bandit keep built during the city’s earliest days. This is where most merchants and travelers conduct their business. Its streets are the busiest, its buildings the largest, and its shadows the most likely to hide secrets and dangers.

D: Calistria’s Cathedral

The last remnants of the original keep built by the Cattanei family and the other original settlers of Pitax, the cathedral is where most of the citizens of Pitax worship. The walls of the cathedral are worn and battered, but those who live in Pitax like it that way. The cathedral stands as a symbol that no matter what happens, Pitax stands above the fray.

E: Square of the Common Man

Most residents of the Shattered Ward congregate in the Square of the Common Man, particular in the early hours of the morning and at high noon when the bells of the Calistria’s Cathedral ring loudest. These are the times when the town criers of Pitax appear in the square, announcing the important news of the day and the events of days to come. Merchants and nobles gather in the square to meet and conduct their business, often sitting side by side on the wooden benches circling the giant Fountain of Sorrows, which commemorates those lost in the recent civil war. The Square of the Common Man also draws crowds to its two other prominent features: the stocks and the yardarm (a mast-like structure from which multiple offenders can be hanged and displayed at once). Criminals in Pitax are typically punished with branding, maiming,
whipping, or hanging. Irovetti’s wardens mete out all of these punishments in the square, in full view of all those who choose to bear witness. Many of Pitax’s citizens eagerly turn out to watch, enough so that bread and cheese vendors make handsome profits selling food to the crowds on the days of hangings.

F: The Palace

Once the sprawling manse of an eccentric wizard, this estate—known simply as “the palace”— presently serves as home and headquarters to Irovetti and his band of thugs. Like most things accomplished by Irovetti in Pitax, the bandit king’s acquisition of the palace was both swift and sudden.

The New Ruins

Nearly a hundred years ago, Pitax endured a small but bloody civil war, in which the northern part of the kingdom seceded and formed a small realm known as Corvenn. The violence between Pitax and Corvenn culminated in an incident known as the Deafening Flames, when rebels from Corvenn torched the western wall of Pitax and razed the western half of the city. Though Corvenn and Pitax eventually resolved their differences and merged back into a single River Kingdom, the damage was done. The western half of Pitax lay in ruin for decades, just a pile of rubble and lingering ashes. When Irovetti ascended to power in Pitax, he proceeded to take ownership of the burned section of Pitax, which had long lain fallow, and began rebuilding it according to his own garish tastes. The Red Crescent Theater and the Academy of Grand Arts became the heart of the revitalized west end of Pitax. Though both were built ostensibly for the purpose of making Pitax a haven for fine art, Irovetti had a shrewder purpose in mind: attracting builders, artists, and merchants, and, by extension, more money. The New Ruins now presents a half-realized appearance, with the sculpted stone facades of buildings along the Inner Fortress turning to carved wood and eventually to plain timber near the edge of town. At its farthest reaches, public funding and interest waned, leaving several blocks of aging rubble and dangerous, burnt-out frames available for whatever squatters or dangerous creatures dare to claim them.

G: The Academy of the Arts

Led by Headmistress Atalia Gitaren, this institution ostensibly exists to train the finest artists in all of the River Kingdoms and, according to Irovetti, all of Golarion. However, although no expense was spared to construct the buildings for the academy, Irovetti proved notoriously cheap when it came to attracting skilled teachers of the various arts. Unable to tell the difference between good art and bad, and generally preferring bad anyway, Irovetti recruited a faculty of failed artists, has-beens, and never-weres, most deluded into believing themselves unrecognized geniuses rather than mere hacks. Bad teachers begat bad students, and combined with Irovetti’s heavy-handed control over the art projects in Pitax, the Academy bears a reputation for producing publicly funded affronts to good taste.

H: The Red Crescent Theater

Both a center for entertainment and a haven for learning, the Red Crescent is where many a would-be actor seeks fame and fortune. A small group of actors, led by Salvarri Cattanei, puts on elaborate productions every month at the behest of Irovetti. However, the king’s mandate that the theater must “serve as an institute of learning” is partly a cover to recruit cheap performers, and as a result, performances suffer. Irovetti also insists the theater only put on productions that he likes, meaning that most are crude, violent, poorly written, and borderline pornographic. The result is that few actors with any true talent bother to work for the theater, and the shining promise it once held grows dimmer with each passing day.

Stolen Land Landmarks

Wyvernstone Bridge (Landmark)

A remarkable bridge of stone spans a gorge here through which the East Sellen River flows. This engineering marvel, built nearly 200 years ago just after Choral the Conqueror united Brevoy, offers an easy route over the wide river just before its southern flow empties into the Hooktongue Slough. Although the roads that once extended from the bridge are long gone, the bridge itself remains intact, the stone wyverns that guard each end now home to dozens of birds.

The gorge that it spans is a little over 100 feet wide.  The bridge is wide enough for two wagons to pass by one another with room to spare, and there is a low but thick two foot high wall on either side that has pillars of carved wyverns at regular 15 foot intervals along each span.  The wyverns face each other from opposite sides.  The gorge below is well over 50 feet deep, perhaps as much as 75. The wide river flows from the north and appears deep enough for large craft to travel easily along its route.  The river cuts directly into the rock walls of the gorge, yet in various places branches and bushes jut out from the stone that is jagged and step-like, but descends almost perpendicular to the bridge.