Guardian

Irony is often high in the most acrid of cases, and so it is with the Scorpinnians: they are not the World’s best farmers, and the majority of their marvelous land passes unused from one generation to the other. The same may be said of the immense ore and other precious metal deposits which abound throughout the Empire—iron, bauxite, thorium, uranium, manganese, silver. They are literally everywhere, waiting to be mined, refined, employed. But they are also untouched, save for a few subcontracts arranged by Nespora which litter the “Emperor’s” coffers but do little to enrich the country’s standard of living. The foreign mining concerns then ship their ores to the World’s industrial centers in Nespora, G’Rdellia, and Zend Avesta, where small, crude factories fashion poor replicas of First Age genius. The state of the nation is not, however, a great concern of the general population, which is scattered throughout the vast countryside in small, towns and villages and administered to rigidly by a caste system of governors and other ranks of hegemony. There is a quasi-military aspect which blankets the people like a shroud, and imparts a pallor to their lives, adds to the already dreary regimen of their existence. There is little art, practically no music, and rampant illiteracy. They are a plain, ignoble folk whose best virtue can be described as “dependable,” but then the same may be said of horses and oxen. In time of war, they serve their virtue best, having been known to march into the face of overwhelming odds, be slaughtered to the last man-jack, and not sully the battle with one creative protest. The principal city is Calinthia which is settled comfortably, like an obese man in an overstuffed chair, in the geographic center of the Empire. From this spot, the Emperor “reigns”—a duty which is largely concerned with hour upon endless hour of courtly foolery and de rigueur obsequiousness, parties, alcoholic drinking bouts, and dancing girls, preferably naked. Naturally the second level of advisors, chancellors, and viscounts have maintained close ties with Nespora, using that nation’s worthy emissaries to make use of Scorpinnian’s natural resources and continue at least a semblance of commerce and stability. While it would be unfair to say the Scorpinnian government is corrupt, a close look at its two chief ports along the Gulf—Mogun and Talthek—would convince the wary observer that this nation is at best running a treadmill to oblivion.

But there are worse places.

To the northeast of the Scorpinnian lies a bleak and singular place. It is called the Slagland. Like a flat, gray-watered ocean, it stretches to the far horizon, continuing perhaps to the edge of the World itself. It is smooth as a sheet of glass, and equally featureless, being composed of vitrified rock and basalt and melted steel. At one time, far in the world’s past, it may have been a huge complex of cities and industries, but something happened which caused even the earth itself to boil like oil in a cauldron. Everything melted and ran like lava, staying hot for perhaps a thousand years, until it cooled into a diamond-hard, totally flat, unbelievably dead place. It is a cold-steel meadow where nothing moves, where nothing lives.

But as one moves south and west of the Slagland, life appears once more, although grudgingly and with little respect for itself; the aforementioned smears of Pindar and Eyck, which lie huddled along the meanders of the Kirchou as it empties into the G’Rdellian Sea.

To the south of that emerald body of water lies a flower in the midst of and nothingness: the nation of G’Rdellia. Perhaps the oldest continuing country in the modern World, G’Rdellia is proud of its heritage, its history, and primarily its culture. Although the land is as poor as the Scorpinnian is rich, the G’Rdellians coddled and coaxed and worked the land until it produced for them. They are a nation of workers. They sing and smile as they work, weaving it into their culture and their tradition. G’Rdellia is a nation of builders, sailors, artists, traders, and thinkers. In their capital, Eleusynnia, beauty flourishes. There is art here; there is music in the streets. Architecture born of a feeling, design from the philosopher’s stone, function following the rigors of meditation, all of these things are found in Eleusynnia. The country is involved in World commerce and is probably second only to Nespora in such skills, but it is also concerned with the propagation of culture, of true humanity, and in this it is second to none. The citizens are autodidactic philosophers, and their concepts of form and beauty have permeated their personal interpretations of logic, but this has become no impediment. The G’Rdellians see the World as a naturally logical place, with everything having reasonable cause and effect. They never attempt to go against this natural cosmic flow. And above all this, there is the long-standing heritage of their status as class-one soldiers. The special sect of Kell Warriors are the most dreaded in the World, but they are employed only in defense of their own borders. The G’Rdellians are by nature a peace-loving, nonimperialist people, although it would not be such a terrible thing if all the World were not at least similar to such a country. Here, at last, peradventure, is a time and a place where a little imperialism would not be a bad idea.

South of G’Rdellia lies one of the greatest mysteries of the First Age. The land, untouched by loving hands and minds as in the north, has become arid and dusty and full of a singular gloom. The soil here is changing into sand and the vegetation is becoming wiry and scrawny, if not dying out altogether. It is called the Ironfields and with good cause: it is a gigantic graveyard of metal things. Relics from uncounted wars, death dealers of past ages, war machines, whose functions have been long-ago forgotten, lie broken, half-buried, and corroding in the unrelenting sun. Time lies heavy in