Qhashdea

Gateway of the gods

Qhashdea is centered around the region of fertile land between the Balaam, Onnissa, and Hasshak rivers to the Tannah sea. During most of the 4th age the region would be divided among large populous city states that dominate surrounding farmland. These city states are some of the oldest in the world. Many neighboring peoples have myths claiming Qhashdea to be the birthplace of mankind, and the qhashdeans themselves say the region is where the first humans descended from heaven before migrating to other places. The first recorded histories in Qhashdea date back to the second age when powerful mages ruled as god-kings. The exploits feature these mystic kings in their clashes with various rival civilizations such as Zulithan and the ancient Romalian Empire.

Geography

Qhashdea's geography is dominated by three major rivers that generally flow north towards the Tannah sea. The Onnissa and Hasshak flow down from the Dusk Mountains, while the Balaam flows out of the Great Centras Forest. In the lowlands between the rivers one finds rich farms along with wilder swamps and small lakes. As one travels further south or farther from the rivers the uplands are dominated by arid grassland and rocky badlands, though lush oases are never too far away.

Duidain Desert

An arid plain on the north coast between the Onnissa and Hasshak rivers, the Duidain Desert grows little but meager scrub-brush and receives little rain. Its infertility and scattered salt-plains are explained as either a gradual receding of the Tabus Deathfields, or the result of repeated tsunamis that flooded the region during the Great War that were brought about to bring divine punishment on the evil of Nian.

Balaam

Known to the Qhashdeans as the “river of the gods” (competing for a similar claim to the Rahiel of Zulithan), the region around the Balaam supports the inner heartlands of Qhashdea, with the oldest and most insular city-states.

Moal Hills

A large relatively flat hillland seated between the Onnissa and Hasshak rivers, the Moal hills have supported nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes for millennia. Lumped together by the Qhasdeans as Moalites these herding migrants are often purchased to supplement the manpower of the city states for labor, warfare, or trade.

Nod Wanderwood

Onnissa

The region around the Onnissa river that marks the border with the Midnight Desert of Zulithan. Historically the region held a significant population despite the river's relative infertility to the Rahiel and Balaam, with people mostly in fortified settlements along the coastline. These forts and the towns that supported them were often ruled by client kings caught in an ever-shifting web of tribute and dynastic marriage with Qhashdea and the High Kingdom of Orises. However, during times of internal stability both major powers were often happy to keep the area as a buffer zone for trade and resource exploitation. Eventually most of the river basin came to be dominated by the city of Onis, by which the river became known, which was rich in cedar and near the western mountain pass.

In the High Imperial Era, the Pax Romalia and Romalian colonies brought the region further investments and coastline infrastructure, with Onnissan shipyards being a vital industry for the Romalian navy. A cosmopolitan Onnissan culture, distinct yet blending Qhashdea, Orissian, and Romalian elements, flourished until the Great War. Being a military stronghold for Romalia, Onnissa saw heavy fighting and the destruction of Onis and the complete scattering of the Onnissan people.

In the 4th Age the Onnissa region receives seasonal ash storms from the neighboring Dusk Mountains, leading to a boon of fertility. The destruction of the Onnissan culture and its trade networks, however, has kept the region a lawless and isolated backwater in the Tannah Sea. Though some cedar forests has regrown, and Pheocian and Zulithan colonies of Utibal and Sifothai, respectively, have restarted trade between Qhashdea and Zulithan, Onnissa remains a pale ghost of its former glory.

Hasshak

Tabus Deathfields

A wide saltmarsh near the once-famous harbor of Nian, whose ruins now lay along a shattered coast. Tradition holds the deathfields are the result of the siege of Nian during the Great War, when the mage-king Sadah fell into madness and sacrificed his people to cast plagues and curses to lift the siege. Though he achieved victory in the bloody battles that followed, the curses lingered and spread. The city and its harbor were abandoned and fell into ruin, and the marshy fields are still reported to expel pools of blood and diseased corpses that feed swarms of man-eating flies. Misama from the deathfields spreads plague and illness upon the wind, leading to the area remaining uninhabited except by the most foolish, desperate, or depraved.

Ul Floodlands

Named after an ancient (and long abandoned) city of Ul, the region occupies the reedy salt marshes where the Hasshak meets the Balaam at the sea. Wholly unsuitable for larger trading ports and highways, the area is known for small fortified outposts, river pirates, and overgrown ziggurat ruins.

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Moalite

Ulonian

The majority ethnicity of human qhashdeans, named for the fabled city-state of Ul. Ulonians have brown skin and, based on their lineage, either dark hair and eyes or blue to white hair and eyes based due to nephilim admixture. Many dark haired Ulonians bleach their hair to mimic high-admixture lineages.

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