Purdue Fantasy Club

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====== Kratal ======

{{settings:kratal_1.png}}

===== Geography =====

To the southwest and across the ocean is Geleia. Lojem lies on the opposite side of the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is roughly 6600 mets from South to North and 5280 mets West to East. It lies across the equator with about 80% to the North. The region of Kratal is roughly split into two parts, with the western side having approximately 65% of the land mass. A fault line and chasm runs down between the western and eastern sides. The eastern side had low arid plains and hills, the Dwarves lay no claim to that land and it has since sank back into the ocean. This chasm is highest in the North where it rises over 5 mets off the sea floor. The southern end of the continent has a splendid shoreline of beaches. The western edge has a mostly forested shore and eventually reaches the mountain range going to the Northeast that holds the capital city of Driedheim, named after the God-King of the Dwarven Tetrarchy, Driedach Stohnk’lar. On the northern side of the mountain range the land rises as it heads east.

The northern mountain range contains numerous mine shaft and rail lines. A cart on the rails can reach speeds up to 132 mets per hour. The trip back though is not as quick. There have been some experimental methods tested that have had less than favorable results to speed up the uphill trip.

The portal to the Dwarven land exits in the center of an extinct caldera’s crater. The land had been leveled and turned into farmland to support the dwarves mining the mountain range. At the portal there are a couple of warehouses located behind it. One warehouse roof extends over the portal to offer some cover from weather for the guards who are posted there. A road stretches north from the portal to the ridge in the distance 175 mets away which holds the capital city of the Dwarven land. It had already been established as the main city for the Dwarven kingdom for millennia as chosen by prophesy but the lack of farming land limited growth until the continent rose around it.
There is a small support town halfway along that offers lodgings for visitors as well as entertainment services. 

Driedheim, the capital city, is over 90% underground built into the ridge of the caldera. A coliseum is built into the ridge to the east to host events. Around the crater's edge is a roadway for patrols with stationary posts every met.

===== Notable People =====

The King of the Dwarven nation is Driedach Stohnk’lar and he has been King for the Last 100 years after his father passed of natural causes. When the land rose he was quick to establish a hold across the continent and began sending out notices to many of the dwarven cities that are spread over the world. The news of the Promised Land foretold of by the priestesses of A’tena after the coming to Jaern.

===== History =====

After the Day of Shaking in the year 2537, the surface of Jaern was changed. Sea levels dropped worldwide to stabilize 15 feet lower. Not only was new land exposed from beneath the shallow seas, but in some areas of the planet, massive upheavals of land also occurred. A new continent arose and then broke in two. On the western edge of one was a Dwarven City that used to be at the center of the chain of islands they had been mining. The King of Dwarves, Driedach Stohnk’lar, sent word out that the Dwarven Kingdom, as prophesied, has arisen and laid claim to the western landmass.

Dwarves from all over the world have uprooted from their homes to be part of a new Dwarven Kingdom. The original farmland was drastically increased to help provide for the new arrivals. For an unknown reason, Otherworld and some similar magics do not work across most of the land. There is one known portal that has stayed open to the Alpha Site: Portal XCII. This one portal has been used as a source of supplemental materials and an entrance port to the migration of Dwarves who choose not to come by sea.

120 garrisons have been constructed all around the continent to keep a watch on the seas. Some have support towns located nearby. Still much of the internal, newly exposed, land has yet to be explored with reports of sunken ships sticking out of the now grassy plains.

Many priests of Osiris have been the first to walk the lands and by divine means grow forests and brought forth wildlife. They formed connections of forests between the previous islands and grasslands. A canal has been built to channel water from the mountains and out to the oceans as the lands did not have natural rivers due to it being at the bottom of a shallow sea.

During the Rebuilding Years ('61 to '74), outsiders were not allowed in Kratal beyond the border towns for trade, this policy set in place by the Dwarven God-King, Driedach Stohnk'lar. Land on Jaern is valuable though, and so frontier towns have begun pushing into the eastern side, into a desert region called the Gravelands. 

The frontier towns are distanced from the Kratal Theocracy, and while its influence is definitely felt in the priests and temples about, law and order is really kept by the local Marshal and Codes of Honor between townsfolk. The area around Hemoth is a prime picturesque example of this frontier: cradled within the bones of long dead titans, rich in new resources, and a small mote of civilization in the lawless desert. The eastern half of Kratal has seldom been explored, with long lost shipwrecks, new lands, and strange monsters populating the plains.