The Outer Colonies and Trade Roads form the restless edge of civilization—a sprawl of coastal strongholds, open plains, and distant harbors where divine law thins and mortal ambition takes root. Here, coin outweighs creed, banners shift with the tide, and empires rise on the promise of gold, grain, and glory. To some, it is a frontier of opportunity; to others, a graveyard of ideals.
Stretching from the western deltas to the storm-beaten southern reaches, the Outer Colonies occupy a patchwork of newly conquered frontiers and contested hinterlands. Roads of cracked marble and sun-bleached brick wind through trade posts, farmlands, and half-finished forts. Beyond the settled routes lie open grasslands, volcanic scarps, and haunted ruins.
Key Features: Bronze Bastion of Locria, Myron’s Hold, Thresia, the Waking Fields, Emberfield of Myrrhine, The Crimson Causeway, The Saltmar Edge, The Isles of Tarn, The Beacon Hills, The Golden Span, The Dust Markets.
Climate is sun-baked and fickle, alternating between arid heat and sudden storms. Seasons are marked less by weather than by which banner claims the roads that month.
No single crown claims dominion here. The region is divided among Independent City-States, Merchant Leagues, and Colonial Mandates of heartland powers like Aegion, Telyria, and the great rivals, Arekthon and Myrrdin. Authority is fluid—written on parchment one day, rewritten by conquest the next.
Hidden Powers: The Guild of the Third Coin, The Free Company of the Emberfield, and The Oracle of Chains housed within the Bastion of Locria.
Laws: Each colony enforces its own code, though most recognize basic contract law. Vengeance is an accepted form of justice when courts fail.
Major Conflicts
The primary tension spilling into the Outer Colonies is the endless "War of Broken Wards" between Arekthon and Myrrdin. This is not a war of open field battles here, but a shadow war fought through proxies. Both city-states sponsor rival mercenary companies, bribe officials in the independent colonies, and establish fortified outposts to control resource-rich territories and vital trade routes, turning the frontier into a chessboard for their unending conflict.
The Outer Colonies are the arteries of the known world’s economy, carrying everything from sacred grain to contraband relics.
Exports: Wheat, wine, bronze and enchanted alloys from Locria, timber, and mercenary contracts.
Imports: Skilled artisans, weapons, spices, and arcane reagents.
Currencies: All standard coinage circulates, but the most trusted medium is the Roadmark—a stamped bronze chit honored in every colony.
The Outer Colonies attract pioneers, profiteers, and outcasts. To survive requires wit, steel, or both. The culture prizes pragmatism, freedom, and cunning more than faith or honor. Humans, dwarves, and half-elves dominate, joined by itinerant minotaurs and centaurs. Social advancement depends on profit and reputation.
Festivals & Rituals: The Pactfire Fair, The Grainlight Feast, and The Chainfall Games sponsored by Locria's guilds.
The gods are honored here only as patrons of fortune. Shrines to Hermes, Hephaestus, and Athena stand side by side, tended from pragmatism. Arcane practice is unregulated, and magical contracts, inscribed in living ink, serve as both legal documents and potential curses if betrayed.
In addition to numerous independent forts and trade posts, the region is dominated by several key powers:
Bronze Bastion of Locria: The floating fortress-city and industrial heart of the colonies, supplying mercenaries and arms.
Myron’s Hold: A neutral citadel-state where emissaries from rival powers negotiate under truce.
Arekthon (External Power): The militaristic City of War, projecting its power from the heartlands. Its influence is felt through its frontier citadel of Sableford, a bastion of martial law that screens the northern roads and serves as a recruitment hub for its sponsored legions.
Myrrdin (External Power): The scholastic City of the Aegis, rival to Arekthon. It extends its reach via its fortified bridge-polis of Aegisbridge, a center for strategy, engineering, and the enforcement of treaties sworn on its Styx-oath basin.
Thresia, the Waking Fields: The breadbasket of the colonies, its endless wheat plains shimmering with divine vitality.
Emberfield of Myrrhine: A wasteland of blackened soil haunted by spectral warriors from a past war.
Port Vassian: A sprawling harbor colony known for its shipyards and night markets, called the “Mouth of the World.”
Heraldry: A bronze coin stamped with crossed roads over a field of gold and ash.
Relations: Viewed by Aegion Vale as a necessary liability, courted by Telyria’s merchants, and feared by the more remote lands for its ambition.
Influence: The Trade Roads tie the world together; where they run, prosperity follows—until war, greed, or gods intervene. Every empire’s reach ends here, where the next one begins.
In short: A frontier of ambition and avarice—where the laws of coin eclipse the decrees of heaven, and every road leads to fortune, ruin, or both.