At the time of our tale the Second Empire is a fragmented beast, scrabbling to protect the wealth and power of the Imperial kings, who claim the high city of Varansgeld and tutelage of the boy who would be All-King, Gorek Nerensen. Rich and fertile the riverlands are divided into a dozen or more small but densely populated kingdoms, each sworn to the All-King and responsible for the levies of the Varangian Guard.

Within these riverland kingdoms the land is rich and fertile and the cities are old and worn, full of strife and politics and intrigue. Demagogues and provocatuers of these kingdoms spread lies and rumours as they ferret out truths and secrets. Associates from the Geltvar and the Geltkol trade in blood and fear, whilst the thieves of the Brotherhood of Small Knives watch from the rooftop highways. And the red-robed priests and fanatics of the Storm King's Children vie with the black- and white- robed men of the Priesthood of Salt and Iron and the brown-robed Devas of the Eight-Handed Snake. Amidst this all the solars and colleges tinker with their machines and their hedge magic.

In the steppes to the north, the Althings of the Northmen have reverted to the Laws of Salt and Iron with the Priesthood holding firm grasp on the towns and villages and nomadic mammoth herders. Dark nights and the unforgiving nature of the land have meant the Imperial presence here is reduced to a handful of garrisons clinging to the border towns and the twinned cities of Holm's Guard and Brakspear. Beyond that the Althings rule, proped up by the Priesthood - and iron fist in an iron gauntlet.

Southward the riverlands give way to the tumbled high plateaus of Semur, where the Bhem and Hlad live in quiet isolation in their dells and canyons far from the mining towns and factories that fuel the Empire. Several nomadic Juret tribes claim their territories towards the sheer cliff that drops into the humid jungles of Varsoom and it's many Aelf towns and Juret villages. Plague has swept through the Varsoom and the decimated villages of the Jotun are being reclaimed quickly by the jungle, whilst settlers from the riverlands move in to the half-filled towns and the Aelf join the caravans of the Great Migration towards the Edge of the World, where the jungle gives way sharply to the Great Southern Desert - and beyond that the rocky cliffs where the mainland Islander ports hunker between sand and sea.

In those southern oceans the main continent fractures into many chains of islands, rocky like the cliffs where the desert ends but often teaming with jungles much like Varsoom. Spread over these islands are four tribal conglomerations, with strong trade between them by ocean-going ships and airship.

Beyond them are the Farlands, a distant chain of islands extending east and west of the Farj Republic, long broken away from the Empire.

If one turns east rather than south from the riverlands then the land continues as a wide rolling plain, dotted by woodland and the occassional range of low hills. Within these Karresh Plains the Empire maintains a firm hold from the cities where the bread of the Empire is harvested and milled and made. In the rural cattles towns and farming villages however there is a strong undercurrent of rebellion and the tensions between the cities and the towns are rising as the Empire responds with legions of tax collectors. Once past the plains the Greatwood dominates the terrain, hiding the rising hills and rough terrain before the Blackened Peaks rise suddenly beyond.

Beneath all these lands rumours speaks of the Dwarrow Underealm, a system of canals and waterways that connect not only districts with the Dwarrow cities together, but that connect the cities themselves