Codex THE WORLD Garuun

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Garuun

You are a hunter-gatherer at the dawn of the Iron Age, and this is your country: Garuun, the lands of the Gar — a great valley and the wilds that ring it. Meadow and brush, timberland and open plain, marsh and river, desert and mountain, cave and drowned ruin.

At its heart lies the crater vale the tribes call simply "the valley": Ganah, where your own Oom'Gar dwell. Scholars of the empires across the sea name the whole world Anthropa; the Gar keep no name for all of it — to them it is simply the world. What you walk is one corner of that world — Garuun, the Gar country, and the powers that reach for it.

It is a world on a threshold: stone giving way to iron. Your people still knap flint and fire-harden spears, while beyond the borders two empires have already learned to forge, to sail, and to conquer. That gap — stone against iron — is the engine of everything. Survive. Explore. Dominate. The choice is yours.

THE WALL

Garuun is ringed by hard edges — the sea to the south, impassable mountain ranges to the east — and the tribes call this encircling barrier The Wall. To them it is the line between the world they know and the world that is coming for them.

It is from beyond it that the iron empires press inward, through the two known breaches: Mudwater Canyon in the south, where the Arken come ashore, and the eastern valley toward Rakka, where the Teshari send their caravans.

The Wall keeps much out. It has not kept out the things that matter.

PLACES OF GARUUN

The valley is thick with names, and the ill-named places earned their names. A traveller's rough reckoning:

  • The wetlands (northeast) — The Swamp, black water and reed, Hiss'Gar country; the sunken ruin Ssarnath rots among it.
  • The northern wall — Blackrock Forest, the blade-sharp Murder Mountains, and the cave-riddled Crags where Throg'Gar war-bands den.
  • The Kun River road (east) — the Kunlands of the horse-people; Farkan's Rest, Drakenr's altar; and the still, sacred water of Thaluna's Tarn.
  • The centre — the open Midflats, the great natural arch of the Archstone, Gronnir's Pillars, and Esskaal, a fire-blackened Elder ruin.
  • The dry west — the Burning Sands, Windy Mesa under Celebor's eye, and Throg's Folly, where the hero Farkan led their doomed last stand.
  • The south — Honeybug Hill (sweet plunder, sharp stings), Celebor's Mirror, Stagdrop Caldera, and Rabbit's Deep, thick with easy first game.