Location: Star Highlands of the Southern Continent
Government: Native monarchy functioning as a satellite state
Foreign Influence: Primarily Loen and Intis
The Highlands Kingdom is one of the surviving native political entities of the Southern Continent, but its independence is heavily restricted by northern influence. Loen and Intis compete through diplomats, businesses, Churches, military advisers, and local allies rather than always confronting one another directly.
Highland society preserves more of the Southern Continent’s native political and religious traditions than heavily colonized coastal territories. Local nobles, tribes, warriors, shamans, and old families still possess authority, although foreign money and weapons increasingly reshape that balance.
The kingdom is valuable as a gateway between colonial ports and the continent’s interior. Its rulers must satisfy northern powers without appearing to have surrendered their legitimacy to foreign interests.
Story Identity: A proud native kingdom trapped between tradition and colonial control, filled with proxy conflicts, old dynasties, and foreign-backed factions.
Location: Eastern Southern Continent
Status: Colonial region rather than a fully sovereign nation
Major Contestants: Loen and Feysac
East Balam was once part of the unified Balam Empire. By the Fifth Epoch, it had become a major colonial possession, primarily associated with Loen but repeatedly contested by Feysac. Northern armies, plantation interests, Churches, and colonial administrations dominate its major ports and strategic regions.
Native communities preserve traditions connected to Death, spirits, ancestors, ritual sacrifice, and the lost Balam Empire. Secret forces continue to seek the restoration of that empire and the return of its religious order.
East Balam’s colonial cities can appear modern near ports and military centers, but authority weakens rapidly beyond controlled roads. Jungles, ruins, burial grounds, rebel territories, and isolated native settlements remain beyond the comfortable reach of foreign officials.
Story Identity: Occupation, resistance, lost imperial identity, jungle warfare, Death worship, and colonial order surrounded by ancient powers.
Location: Western Southern Continent
Status: Divided colonial and native territory
Major Contestants: Loen, Intis, Feynapotter, local rulers, and hidden factions
West Balam is more politically fragmented and chaotic than East Balam. Much of the region is covered by jungle, while ports, plantation districts, military zones, tribal territories, and nominally independent communities answer to different authorities.
Loen and Intis compete for influence, while Feynapotter and native factions maintain interests of their own. Slavery, sacrifice, inherited tribal authority, foreign commercial exploitation, and continual warfare remain present in parts of the region.
No single administration possesses reliable control over the entire territory. Maps may show borders, but actual authority depends on which army, Church, company, tribe, or supernatural organization controls the nearest settlement.
Story Identity: Colonial rivalry, fragmented authority, dangerous jungles, ancient customs, mercenary warfare, and borders that exist more clearly on paper than on the ground.
The Balam Empire once unified much of the Southern Continent under the Underworld Emperor, also known as Death. Its government and supernatural traditions were connected to the Eggers family, Death Consuls, the Underworld, and powerful systems of ancestor and spirit worship.
After Death fell during the War of the Four Emperors, the empire fragmented into East Balam, West Balam, and surviving regional powers. Although the empire no longer exists politically, its ruins, bloodlines, rituals, loyalists, and restoration movements continue to influence the entire continent.
Story Identity: A dead empire that remains politically and supernaturally active through memory, blood, burial, and unfinished resurrection.