Industries
Life and Society
Government and Politics
Groups and Organisations
Religion
Important NPCs
Major Geographical Features
Most of the terrain of Malundi is inhospitable to travel. Dense jungle alternates with steep cliffs and impassable swamps. What little travel and trade exists is mostly limited to the coast and the few large rivers that allow passage for boats. And even then, most rivers have a large number of rapids and waterfalls, thus limiting boats to those that can be transported over land across short distances.This general isolation means that vast territories are basically unexplored by all except those tribes who live there. Anything might be hidden in the jungle - from ancient ruins to full-fledged cities and civilizations which simply have made no contact with the outside world.
Reever Islands: This chain of volcanic islands off the coast of Malundi used to be uninhabited for a long time, since the volcanoes frequently omit noxious fumes that cover the land which can ultimately lead to death if breathed in too frequently by humans. However, the same islands also have an abundance of plants with curative powers, which are now being exploited by a consortium of merchants from the Flannish Cities. The main dwellings for the merchants and the workers are magically protected from the fumes, but all too often the workers don't make it in time to the shelters when the fumes descend to the plantations. As a result, turnover among the workers is high.
Tarma Swamp: This inhospitable region was widely avoided by the humans who lived nearby. However, in the last few decades, strange, lizard-like creatures have been pouring out of the swamp - some of them are bigger than the largest crocodile, some walk on two legs, and some even fly in the air like birds! These beings were dubbed "dionsaurs" by noted explorer Edward Dunkin of Dartmouth, who recently returned from an expedition to that region. However, his lurid claims that the perfectly circular hill in the center of the swamp is actually a gigantic structure of pre-human origin where these creatures are created through ancient magics are generally dismissed as the imagination of a fanciful mind.
Important Towns and Cities
Chikwase (Large City 356,223): This city controls some of the most profitable gold mines in the Known Lands. These mines are also famous for their miners - specially-bred giant ants, which seem to be able to sense gold in the mountain and dig it out. Many people have tried to steal a queen ant (or at least an egg with one) to start similar mines elsewhere, but so far without success.Mewa (Metropolis, 1,917.882): This city was carved into a small mountain range through a rather unusual method: The city's priesthood possess the power to create (or gather - exactly how they attain it is a closely guarded secret) a substance called yezû - a sort of green slime that can destoy any stone, even the strongest granite (prevalent in the vincity of the city), leaving only loose powder, but which leaves metals and organic matter intact. The city's architects know the exact amount of yezû necessary to destroy any given amount of stone, and thus, with enough careful application of the substance, have hollowed out dwellings, caverns, and even whole palaces from the mountains. All this requires a through understanding of the arts and sciences, and Mewa therefore serves as a center of learning throughout the region.
Nkolo (Metropolis, 1,231,639): A city openly ruled by a cabal of liches, Nkala is a city where the dead are held in higher regarded than the living. The citizens are taught that life is just a transient stage, while death is eternal, and one's effort in life will determine one's position in death. The lowest rung of death - those who didn't contribute much to the city - are the reanimated zombies, carefully preserved with embalming fluids to protect them against decomposition in the tropical climate. Above them are the ghoul, ghast, and mummy shock troops, ready to defend the realm, and the incorporeal undead and the vampires who serve as spies and secret police. At the top are the liches, and only the most powerful and loyal spellcasters among the living are taught the techniques to join their numbers.
Despite the large number of undead they are rubbing shoulders with, life is not actually all that bad for the living. Zombie labor provides for many of the material needs, and the relative prosperity of the city is shared by those citizens who toe to the line. But anyone who threatens the status quo is punished harshly, usually by being fed to one of the undead who still require sustenance of sorts. Thus, people in the city are careful in what they say at all times, since they never know who - or what - is listening.
The city controls a fairly large territory, much of it filled by zombie-staffed plantations and minor client villages. Nkolo doesn't generally act aggressively towards its neighbors, but if any of its neighbors provoke it, retaliation is swift and final, with the offender being incorporated into the city's protectorate. Coupled with the fact that it has never given up any of its territory, the protectorate has grown slowly but steadily - and never faster than the population of Nkolo could support. The more paranoid observers worry that sooner or later the city will control the entire region, and wonder how many of the conflicts that lead to further conquests were actually secretly instigated by the rulers of Nkolo...
Ombuso (Small Metropolis, 513,411): This city is unique in all the known lands, for it is located on top of a gargantuan plant growing many miles above the surface. Its origin has long been a mystery, but it has recently been revealed to be one of the world trees of the planet Yethrod - though how it got to this place is still unknown (the city's records go back for more than a thousand years, so it must have been there for a long time).The tree and its symbiots provide most of the food and water the city needs, and for trade with the surface the city has a complex elevator system involving numerous platforms that spans the entire distance. Additionally, the nobility and a chivalric order of paladins both breed and train hippogriffs, which they use to patrol the surrounding areas and defend the city in the rare occasions when this becomes neccessary. Lord Amrast of the Alliance of the Pantheon has studied with the local paladins for a few years before returning north, and gained both a hippogriff mount and several paladin warriors for his defense of the Alliance as a result.
Port Coriano (Large City, 445,312): The Atalan Empire did not only try to expand to the north and east, but also to the south, but the high humidity and the hostile jungle made it extremely difficult for them to maintain permanent settlements away from the coast. And even theses settlements were mostly abandoned once the Atalan Empire fell.
The city of Coriano, however, did not fall. Though its fortunes waxed and waned over the centuries, it eventually established itself as a meeting place for traders, smugglers, pirates, exporers and fortune hunters. Its population became a mixture of both native Malundis and Northerners, and the customs of its inhabitants are a strange mixture of a large range of cultures.
With the recent arrival of a rail line from the Parginian Rim (which followed the old Atalan Road along the coast), there a push among some of the wealthier resident merchants to make the city more "respectable" and orderly to attract more business. This does not sit well with the local crime bosses, and a conflict is brewing.
Shago (Small Metropolis, 739,515): Shago is famous for its birds and bird breeders. A variety of birds are kept as messengers, pets, or even helpers with many jobs, and hurting or even killing one is severely punished by the law. Some birds of this city, especially parrots, show a recognizable if limited intelligence, and are prized even in faraway regions.
Important Sites
The Mating Grounds of the Gods: This is how the nearby tribes call this ancient crater, and they have all sorts of tales of alleged eyewitness accounts of amorous exploits of various divine entities. These stories are regarded by most of the rest of Malundi as just that - tales. However, recent publications of these tales in nothern regions have caused a dramatic increase in the number of people who find perfectly plausible reasons for exploring this area - the 1422 expedition of the Dartmouth Ornithological Society being only the most infamous of these expeditions.Valley of the Fog People: This remote mountain valley is shrouded in mists every time night falls. One of the caves found in it has an extraordinary property: When someone stays in it for an entire night and meditates on the image of human, the mists will consolidate into an actual living human once dawn arrives. This being is in all ways a normal human, except that it is sterile, has some rudimentary knowledge of the world gained from the person who spent the night in the cave (enough to give it one class level), and that it has only a very rudimentary personality. It will "imprint" very rapidly on anything it is told during its first day, and this will form its personality for the rest of its life.
A small tribe of these "fog people" lived in this valley in peaceful isolation for many generations until five years ago - when an explorer from the Parginian Rim discovered this valley and immediately hired a mercenary company to seize it. The original fog people have all been driven away or killed, and now wage a desperate guerilla struggle against the occupiers to ensure their continued survival, while the mercenaries now use the cave for a highly specialized and extremely valuable sort of slave trade.