There is vegetation in the Manteg that resembles steel chips and shavings; there are mutant things that might have been men at some point in their ancestors’ dim past; there are crawling things that live beneath the oven-baking sand and come out at night to suck the fluids from anything which might be sleeping or resting upon the gritty desert floor; there are flying things that ride the ever-present thermals.
But there is little else.
On the eastern slopes of the Haraneen Divide lie two nations of disparate personality. To the south, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Aridard, lies the enlightened realm known as Nespora. Not a large country by World standards, it is not small either. Enjoying a moderate climate and a very fertile agricultural river valley, fed by the clean waters of the Cruges River, Nespora is a prosperous place. At the river delta into the Gulf, the city of Mentor flourishes like a well-kept orchid. It is a cosmopolitan port of call for statesmen, traders, sailors, adventurers, educators, and rulers. A majority of the city is given over to the wealthy controllers of finance and World trade, thus forming a vast, complex center upon which the economic stabilities of most of the other nations now hinge. And so Nespora’s nation of traders and businessmen have come to provide a built-in national security system for its people. As the focal point and the kingpin for the World’s economy, Nespora is almost unequivocally safe from aggression by anyone. They keep no standing army and do not fear rule by anyone; they are the experts in what they do and no one wishes to usurp their unique position as clerks to the World. While its other principal cities of Elahim and Kahisma (a fortress-city guarding an ancient pass out of the Divide) are not as large nor as opulent as Mentor, they are nevertheless comfortable, clean, and possessing some of the finer amenities of modern civilization.
North of Nespora, contained in the west by the Cruges River and the Black Chasm, and to the east by a ragtag “empire,” toils the no-frills Shudrapur Dominion. Almost as an afterthought left over from the jagged realities of the Haraneen, the terrain of Shudrapur is rugged, unyielding, and full of rock. The land rolls on relentlessly, as if unconcerned with the legions of peasants who yearly plow and plunder it. There seems to be an independence which permeates this nation. It is a feeling that begins in the land itself and spreads out to the populace, which is mostly represented by thousands of small, pastoral villages, each governed by a small, rustic council of elders—men who became wise because they lived long enough, and vice versa. Agriculture is the key to life in Shudrapur, a fact reflected in the low profile of its only two cities, Ghaz and Babir. Although there is no real politics, or even a strong current of nationalism among the giant, amorphous collection of peasant-citizens, there is a government in the Shudrapur Dominion which is based in the eastern city of Ghaz. The city is large and spread thinly across a floodplain, where the summer rains are an invitation to the flowering of a million buds. Its architecture reflects the national weltanschauung: functional, simple, but without the cold severity of a totally ascetic personality. The country’s art and music and literature are conservative, at times moralistic, and, in the final analysis, dull; however, it is a respectable country, a responsible country, and not without its unseen wealth. Its unspoken dedication to the land pays off in a great agricultural surplus which is shipped throughout the northern countries as a desirable trade entity. There is no one of culture and taste who does not delight at the flavor of fruit from Dominion orchards, wines from its vineyards, grains from its waving, rolling hills.
Indeed, if there is anything truly negative to be said of the Shudrapur Dominion, then it must be the Black Chasm. It is a wound in the earth that stretches for more than one thousand kays, and plummets jaggedly into its depths more than twenty. Leaning out over its edges, one stares into infinity, the true bottom of the Chasm lost in the hazy mist which huddles near the deepest regions. The walls are scored and sliced as if from a monstrous cutting tool, the natural rock a blend of basalt and granite and lignite. It is an evil-looking place. No one of sane mind and valued life ever enters the Black Chasm, although in past eras there have been stories of explorers who have attempted it. No one knows whatever became of them; more ever returned or exited from the opposite end. Many Shadrapurians believe that if there exists an entrance to Hell on the surface of the earth, then it is surely here.
Prior mention of an empire to the east of the Shudrapur Dominion can be none other than the Scorpinnian Empire. Easily the largest nation of the modern World, the Empire is a vast land of untilled meadows and uncut forests so thick that it is almost impossible for the summer’s light to penetrate. There are huge prairies which roll uncontested from the Eban flood-plain north and east to the borders at the Kirchou River; and the soil here is rich and black as night. Legend says that once great battles were fought on this land, and it is the millions of corpses that have, over the millennia, made it so fecund.
