Fresgulen 101

Fresgulen is one of my favorite places in Hekinoe. It goes back a ways, only a few years though, but it is kind of important to me. Back in the day Tony and I were kind of awesome in terms of DnD. We were the ones that cared and knew everything and had all the books. We were both fairly competent writers and we had enough experience with the rules of the game that we felt we could do a good job creating a game world together. So we tried, and we got lazy and burned out on work and he got a bit burned out on DnD while I got burned out on Shadow Chasers, and it never ever went anywhere. Perhaps we could do better these days, but Tony is still burned out on DnD and has no interest in coming out to play as far as I know.

I may have said before that The Old Empire is kind of my homage to Tony's unnamed kingdom of monks and psions he always wanted to create. Fresgulen is my homage to the campaign world we once thought we were going to collaborate on. Maybe it holds up to the potential it had, but probably not, because it is a small continent named Fresgulen, rather than a massive unnamed campaign world Tony and I had planned to pour our creative and technical expertise into. I lament a bit for what could have been, and I try to let that never tapped potential inspire me to do the best I can with Hekinoe. Anyway.

So Fresgulen is this smaller continent somewhere on Hekinoe, perhaps slightly larger than The Old Empire. It's kind of broken down into three geographical areas. In the center of the continent is this mountain range with castles and fortresses and towers and such sprouting from the sides and tops of the peaks. There was once a mighty and noble nation inhabiting the mighty and noble fortresses of the mountains.

Spoiler Alert: They don't live there anymore.

In the depths of the fortresses, in the humid dark places full of rank swamp gases and fog (both are ubiquitous features of Fresgulen) are the Mawkethnay. The Mawkethnay are tall, slender creatures with iridescent black skin like a beetle's shell. Some of them have fine gray or brown hair on their bodies, others have strange patterns of brightly colored markings. Their eyes are black and empty like a shark's and they have fanged mandibles like a Yautja (look it up), heh. Their thin limbs possess immense strength and are taloned, making them adept climbers. The Mawkethnay are a brutal and primitive race of hunters and stalkers, their immense strength and grace make them deadly warriors and the bane of any living thing traversing their mountain home. Little is known of them, other than the fact that they sent the original denizens of the mountains running for the forests that ring the mountains.

Oh yeah, forgot the important bits, those clawed limbs, they have eight of them. Those black shark eyes, there are eight of them too. Yeah, they're spider men. Tall, creepy, chittering, fucking spider men. Hide your kids, hide your wives, hide your husbands, cause they be raping...er eating everyone up in here. By here, I mean the mountains of Fresgulen.

Those forests that I spoke of, they're green and tall, but kind of on the scraggly side with patches of sickly looking bark on some of them. Dwelling in these forests is a proud race that once inhabited those mountains that the Mawkethnay live in. They call themselves the Norvenmik and they are a proud and noble warrior race of pale, blonde human-looking humanoids. I mean, in game terms, they're basically human, but possess low-light vision. So I don't know what you'd call them. I guess we can add them to the list of human-like things that aren't quite.

They aren't nature lovers, but they know the forest supports them and it is a fragile thing and they must be careful not to take too much timber from it or hunt too many animals from it. They tend to dwell in clearings in the deepest parts of the forest, where the trees are thick and sturdier than on the outskirts. The outskirts of the forest butt up against a heck of a swamp, and this swamp is shrouded in somewhat poisonous fog, and the thicker parts of the forest almost never see this smog. This allows the Norvenmik to safely breathe and whatnot.

Now it is time for the swamps, my favorite place. These things are fucking fens man. "Lakes" of this sluggish, slow moving, thick ass swamp water. Pits of gurgling sludge that reeks like piss and dead animals. Rocky vents with yellow and green smog erupting from them and poisoning everything around them. The swamps run in a ring around the forests, which run in a ring around the mountains, and they are choked with this low hanging greenish tinged smog.

Dwelling in this green haze is a hardy and primitive race of creatures. They wear hides and leather, armor themselves in gator skin, and are as tough as even the Mawkethnay. They're insular and xenophobic and terribly violent and possessing no mercy in their hearts. They ride huge beasts into battle, creatures as ill tempered as they are huge. They (the beasts) also stink like skunk ass and will throw themselves into a frenzy of bloodthirsty violence when near death. They're huge like bears, with savage jaws and claws for digging and tearing apart their enemies and are covered in bony spurs that stud their black and brown shaggy fur. Their masters don't control them so much as they survive training them long enough for the beasts to develop a respect for the ferocity of their diminutive masters.

The race is known as the Ethryll and they're just slightly over three feet tall. Their hair is usually dyed in tribe specific colors and spiked with wax or animal shit or whatever will hold it up in a crazy shape. Their skin is usually a sickly grey color from the caustic smog of the area, but they are a hardy and tough people, it is usually tattooed or ritually scarred as well, depending on the tribe. They're tough little fuckers.

Those are the races that inhabit Fresgulen. There are all kinds of critters and veritable monsters that inhabit the place, but nothing on a wide enough scale to represent a true race of creatures or a nation, which is not to say that the previously mentioned races are each unified into a single kingdom. There are some tribes of lizardmen in the swamps, but they're kept in line and endangered enough by the Enthryll that they don't really represent a civilization anymore. I'm sure they'd happily wage a genocide of a war against the Ethryll, but they lack the manpower and resources to do so.

The mountains are a pretty barren place, aside from some super hardy goats. The Mawkethnay hunt in a pretty rapacious manner. I mean, they store their food, they can spin webs tight enough that it Ziplocs food away in the bottom of their stolen fortresses, so they're not starving or anything. They just like to hunt and have been running around in the dark places of the mountains for some time.

The forests are foresty, bears and other creatures. A few tribes of non-Norvenmik races, but nothing noteworthy. Or perhaps there is a hidden race of ancient power that dwells deep in the forests, deeper than even the Norvenmik, perhaps they slumber and wait to be woken so they can wreak havoc upon the mortals that have taken Fresgulen from them. Behold the SECRETS! The MYSTERY! STUFF!!!1!

Like The Known World, Fresgulen is a pretty well occupied place. Two of the main races are pretty savage and uncivilized, and the formerly civilized Norvenmik aren't too terribly far ahead of the others. Nothing is known of firearms or any of the comforts of The Known World. Sorcery is even more feared out here though, its not outlawed because that would indicate that there is some manner of codified written law in place in one or more of the areas. It is reviled and mistrusted almost more than it is in The New Empire. I guess that's enough about a continent that is only spoken of as half-hearted rumor in The Known World, so I guess technically all of the above could be lies and Fresgulen could be this smaller continent that is a flat piece of glassy black rock riding upon the waves for all anyone in The Known World knows.

So you can run an tell that homeboy.