Minor Nations

Not all who endured the Severance bent themselves into vast empires or pacts. Scattered across Masada are peoples and polities who have endured through stubbornness, isolation, or sheer refusal to yield. These “minor nations” are no less vital than the Concordat or New Antioch. Some guard secrets older than history, others prepare for wars no one else believes in, and a few shape the world in ways their neighbors barely comprehend.

Each entry below opens a window into their culture, faith, and struggle. For players, they provide new backgrounds, fresh ancestries, and stories rooted in lands far from the Vale.

Panarchia

The rune-scarred goliaths of the Rock Teeth Mountains live as mystics and sentinels. Bound to the pulse of the mountains themselves, they see their role as wardens against a second Falling. Their cliffside holds whisper of a war between gods and something far worse.

The Northmen of the Endless White

Far to the north, goliath clans endure where maps fail and the sun dies for months at a time. They march the Deepmarch into lands no one else dares, seeking truths in the frozen ruin that might break lesser mortals.

The Heartwood

The elven homeland, Almaerina, is not a kingdom but a living forest where time moves at its own pace. To enter the Heartwood is to risk vanishing into its silence, where even fire is forbidden and the trees themselves remember.

The Maw of Korath

In the arctic wastes stands a nation built around a pit that should not exist. The Maw consumes light and memory, and those who worship it call themselves chosen. Few outsiders return from its lands unchanged.

The Isles of Samvara

At Masada’s far southern tip lies Samvara, a tropical archipelago of low technology and deep ritual. Its people live by tide and storm, guided by ancestral chants and a reverence for the sea that outsiders barely understand.

The Rock

A bronze and brass fortress-city sealed against the world, the Rock is the birthplace of the dragonborn. It is part temple, part armory, and part mystery, its secrets locked even to those who live within.

The Gnomish Depths

Beneath Masada runs an endless war. The gnomes fight the Core Spawn in Holds of steel and fire, inventing wonders born of desperation. Every firearm, every machine is another bulwark in a war that never ends.

The Dominion of Vey Chalyth

Once orcish tribes, now something far stranger. Twisting flesh and spirit into grotesque new forms, the flesh-lords of Vey Chalyth rule over a kingdom where even humans and elves can be remade into horrors.

The Broken Tusks

An orcoid kingdom defined by brutality and endurance. They are raiders, warlords, and beast-masters, claiming the eastern steppes in tides of steel and blood. Where they march, civilization falters.

The Dwarven Holds

Strongholds carved into stone and oath. Each Hold is independent yet bound by the Chain of the First Flame, an alliance of memory, craft, and mutual defense. No empire has ever bent a Hold to its will.

The Halfling Stonefasts

Behind cliff walls and mountain gates, the halflings prepare. They do not live poorly, but they live with purpose. Every meal rationed, every fortress stocked, every plan drawn. When Masada cracks again, the Stonefasts will endure.