The Mithril Isles are a broad chain of temperate islands rising from the Emerald Ocean, defined by rolling green lowlands, ancient forests, fog-heavy moors, and mountains riddled with abandoned stoneworks. They are a land where kingdoms can still be born the old way — through conquest, oath, and endurance rather than decree.
For centuries, the Isles have existed at the edge of greater powers, raided but never conquered, coveted but never fully claimed. Their people endure not because they are protected, but because the land itself resists domination.
This is a place where armies march, banners matter, and history is still malleable.
Vast tracts of fertile plains and gentle hills form the agricultural heart of the Isles. These lands are ideal for settlement, grazing, and massed infantry warfare. Rivers cut slow, deliberate paths toward the sea, creating natural borders and defensive lines. Fog rolls in regularly, dulling sound and sight, favoring ambush and maneuver over brute force.
Ancient forests dominate much of the interior. These woods are thick with layered canopies, moss-covered trunks, and root-choked ground. Visibility is limited, movement is uneven for the untrained, and sound carries unpredictably. Many roads here are older than current settlements and no longer match modern borders.
Highland plateaus and windswept moors stretch between forest and mountain. Thin soil covers stone, making construction difficult but defense natural. Stone circles, standing monoliths, and collapsed watch-forts dot the landscape, remnants of forgotten dominions.
Jagged mountain ranges rise sharply in the northern and central isles. Beneath them lie vast cavern systems and ancient halls, many collapsed or sealed. These mountains hold the world’s last known veins of mithril, embedded deep within bedrock and guarded as much by geological instability as by memory.
Beneath much of the Isles lies a shallow subterranean expanse known as the Deep Root — not a separate world, but a continuation of the surface.
Here:
Tree roots pierce cavern ceilings
Bioluminescent fungi provide dim, steady light
Stone halls and roadways stretch into darkness
The Deep Root once supported entire civilizations. Now it is quiet, half-forgotten, and dangerous only in its emptiness.
The earliest era of the Isles was defined by monumental construction, subterranean cities, and colossal stoneworks. Vast halls were carved beneath mountains, supported by pillars thick as towers. Roads ran underground as often as above.
This age ended not in collapse, but in attrition — population decline, internal wars, and external predation.
For centuries, the Isles stabilized into scattered settlements, druidic circles, and low-conflict societies. Nature reclaimed ruins. Borders softened. The land healed.
This peace created vulnerability.
A hundred years ago, the Mithril Isles were discovered by seafaring raiders seeking land, labor, and challenge. Coastal settlements burned. Inland communities adapted or fled. The Isles were never conquered outright, but were bled repeatedly.
One raid, led personally by a foreign emperor, nearly eradicated the last stoneborn empire in a single campaign.
The Isles have never been the same.
Only remaining source of mithril
Ideal terrain for medieval-scale warfare
Natural resistance to centralized conquest
Multiple viable settlement zones
Whoever unites the Mithril Isles controls the balance between land-based power and imperial ambition.
The land favors:
Infantry formations
Archer dominance
Defensive fortifications
Terrain-based strategy
Naval power enables raids, not control. True authority must be won on land.
Fortresses built on rivers, forest edges, and mountain passes shape campaigns for generations.
Fertile farmland supports long campaigns
Timber from ancient forests
Stone from moors and mountains
Mithril — rare, difficult to mine, impossible to replace
Trade exists, but self-sufficiency defines survival.
The Mithril Isles are not unified.
They are:
Clan-held valleys
River-kingdoms
Forest enclaves
Mountain redoubts
Loyalty is personal. Oaths matter more than law. Memory carries more weight than coin.
Mithril is not merely metal. It is a legacy burden.
Its presence ensures:
Constant external interest
Internal division
Generational conflict
Those who mine it attract war.
Those who hide it invite conquest.
Those who wield it are never ignored.
Civilization must be defended or it erodes
Nature remembers what empires forget
Strength without restraint destroys futures
The past is not gone — it is buried
The Mithril Isles are designed for:
Founding kingdoms
Long-term wars
Political evolution
Cultural survival
Slow, meaningful change
This is not a land of destiny.
It is a land of choice.
What rises here will endure — or be erased — by will alone.