Civilizations

Humans

The Confluence Marches CivilizationThe first Human civilization, founded c. 40,000-c. 20,000 BR: basin lordships, marcher strongholds, and exchange roads bound by kin, oath, and the strength of their lords rather than by any crown…
The Serathic League CivilizationThe Human civilization within the Confluence Marches of the walled towns of the Lower Serath, founded c. 22,000-c. 16,000 BR and bound by sworn guarantees and the great river houses rather than by a…

The Rootcrown Concord CivilizationThe oldest Elven civilization, the Wood Elves of the Elderweald, gathered c. 490,000-c. 460,000 BR: no capital and no seat that speaks for all, only sacred places, elders whom the groves heed, and a…
The Thornbound Circles CivilizationThe Thorn Elf civilization of the Briarreach, founded c. 405,000-c. 392,000 BR, whose own gift is earned hospitality: a stranger is let in only by steps and under a sponsor.
The Crownbough Courts CivilizationThe High Elf civilization of the Crownboughs, founded c. 390,000-c. 375,000 BR, in which several great houses rule rather than one crown, and a house's place is read in its hall, its gardens, and its…
The Gloamroot Covenant CivilizationThe Dark Elf civilization, founded c. 324,000-c. 318,000 BR, an order of resource-holding Houses and warding orders grown into one another in the Roothollows.

The Ironspine Holds CivilizationThe oldest Dwarven civilization, founded c. 460,000-c. 438,000 BR, whose unit is the hold, a stone-rooted order of defence, memory, and craft ruled by whoever keeps it standing.
The Stonewake Compact CivilizationThe Dwarven civilization within the Ironspine Holds, founded c. 360,000-c. 348,000 BR: a deep-hold order of guarded ways, reservoirs, and archives, with the severest closure custom in the lower…

The Floodkeeper Houses CivilizationThe Reedfolk house order of the lower rivers, founded c. 210,000-c. 182,000 BR, which keeps the memory of every flood and the oath forms of the archive world; the Human river powers took its command…

The Edgeway Kindreds CivilizationThe first civilization of the Salvage Peoples: kin-linked companies who travel known circuits between ruin zones, keep the works along them, and share one mark-language and a calendar of…

The Windscar Pacts CivilizationThe first named Orc civilization and the far side's first inland founding, c. 180,000-c. 150,000 BR: kindreds bound by treaty-grounds, escort oaths, and the blood owed for a broken passage, split…

The Gaugeward Leagues CivilizationThe Gnome civilization of the Tidelace Coasts, formed c. 165,000-c. 146,000 BR, an order of signals, soundings, and measured entry.

The Foldward Commons CivilizationThe Halfling civilization of the Leeward Folds, c. 170,000-c. 152,000 BR, which began when the separate folds came to depend on one another: an order of terraces, cisterns, and bounded plenty.

The Returning Concord CivilizationThe first named Thaluren civilization, which binds sea settlements, estuary thresholds, and upriver spawning sanctuaries into one world of return; it is not a sea kingdom.
The Blightward Keepers CivilizationThe Thaluren civilization within the Returning Concord that keeps faith with damaged sacred water: a water turned deadly must still be guarded, contained, remembered, and never abandoned.
The Open-Run Concords CivilizationThe Thaluren civilization within and around the Returning Concord, risen from redirected return, which holds that a rightful return may move to other waters if it carries memory-debt towards the…

The Bankright Circles CivilizationThe first Kavari civilization, c. 190,000-c. 160,000 BR, which nobody founded: the bank councils, pool-kin circles, and nursery keepers of many linked tributaries simply began to stand together.

The Crossing-Oath Houses CivilizationThe first great Troll civilization, descended from the crossing-charges sworn on the colossal roads: crossing houses and bridge-oath families who hold the dangerous places no one else will stay at…

The Hearth-Weight Compacts CivilizationThe Ogre civilization formed from c. 15,000 BR as the organized refusal of the Chain-Camps: no master, but a custom carried from camp to camp that a band is fed, sheltered, and protected before it…

The Underhouse Compacts CivilizationThe first named Kobold civilization, grown from older underhouse lines and from the vent-kin who survived the ash-furnace world, whose strength is the collective refusal.

The Iron Compacts CivilizationThe first great Goblin civilization, which took its present shape c. 20,000-c. 9,000 BR: armed Goblin companies that hold a road, a fort's watch, or a ruin for a lord who would pay more to drive them…

The Mending Orders CivilizationThe first Wrought civilization: sanctuary workshops that from c. 50 CR hid newly awakened Wrought in their walls and swore to who they were against the Unmakers, and by c. 200 CR had houses in most…

Archive-Law Civilization CivilizationThe elder world of the Witnessfields, c. 235,000-c. 175,000 BR, of archive-cities, oath halls, and inscribed marker roads, which ruled by the carved word and the warden's spear until its keepers shut…
Upland Colossal Civilization CivilizationThe elder world of the high ridge country, c. 260,000-c. 195,000 BR, of ridge roads, storm terraces, and weather shrines built on a scale no living builder can match; it withdrew, and the Giants are…
Ash-Furnace Civilization CivilizationThe elder world of the great furnaces, whose long fall, c. 225,000-c. 168,000 BR, was an overburn of its own making; its glassed ruins still scar the Glassbelt and still hold its dangerous craft.
Sepulchre-Kin Civilization CivilizationThe Sepulchre-Kin, a remote elder civilization of death-work and remembered names that no one else ever recorded.