Part of a map I'm working with Greg Older for the Mhar Fantasy Role Playing Game to expand the world setting in some upcoming books covering the Varian City-States.

Whereas Anaeland covered a medieval English style setting, Gwythia was Welsh, and Frisia a late Saxon/medieval Dutch hybrid, the next kingdom books go to two very different sort of places.

The Broken Lands source book covers the river basin of Talatia, infamous for being the heartland of the Empire of Remanus and the cradle of Durinic Civilization. Remanus was once the twin city to Rome (founded by Remus who it turns out faked his death and was brought here by a Dryad through an artifact called the 'Gate of Janus'). Like it's counterpart, it rose to be the center of a vast empire, but its end was far more tragic. The city is now a blight--a ruin haunted by the Undying--and its empire fragmented into three separate empires in the North, South, and West. The Western Empire became the pagan Empire of Drawnar, while the South became the Orthodox Saramyn Empire. The North struggled on for a century and a half before being overrun by barbarian tribes that went on to found many of the modern kingdoms of the continent. The Broken Lands of Talatia struggled on as they passed from one kingdom or another until being finally fragmented into a confederation of robber barons in a buffer state between three mighty powers: Varia, Anaeland, and Averne (the French lands).

Massea lies across border from Talatia and is the first of the City-States being tackled. It's one of the weakest as well, relying on its relations with its powerful neighbor Varia to maintain its independence. It's also somewhat poor, since most of its territory is the broken remnants of an ancient plateau now eroded into deep ravines and pillar-like hilltops that make agriculture difficult (in fact some of the land has been badly wrecked by deliberate destruction by the Empire centuries before to extract copper and gold from the hillsides, leveling an entire mountain to extract every ounce of metal from it). The only thing Massea is well known for is olives and grapes and it's on oil and wine its wealth is now based. The country is run by a coalition of nobles and elected city aldermen who do their best to keep the state on an even keel, but the natural distrust of the people for officials limits the terms of offices of officials (between 6 months to 2 years), so there is a high turnover in people in public offices with bureaucrats running the show. The source book features mostly the city with an overview of the state (now there is going to be one heck of a mapping project with the largest city we've so far planning to map).

The Golden Republic of Varia to the northwest is perhaps the most wealthy state in the region. Not very large geographically as a state, the city of Varia is even larger than Massea, being one of the few true metropolises on the continent. As you can guess, its based on Venice. The city is ruled by an elected duke and a senate of the 200 most powerful noble and merchant families in the state. Its wealth is largely based on the trade in luxuries like silk and spices brought across the sea from the neighboring continent and distributed throughout the rest of the continent. Politics and economics are intertwined in the city and assassination is common means of removing political enemies. Many of the elite travel in masks to hide their identities, particularly the infamous Unholy Trinity--three men selected by the Duke to form the leadership of his secret police (one of which is almost always a mage). No word as to when we will be doing a book on Varia, but it'll be in the works eventually.

For a list of current books now available go here: http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?man.....cturers_id=551