A high-def­i­n­i­tion map of the Coast. Even­tu­al­ly, a gazetteer will be pre­pared, to define the qual­i­ties and lore behind each region.

Here’s a Google Dri­ve link to it. Bonus red-let­tered ver­sion here. This ver­sion is 40% the orig­i­nal’s sub­stan­tial 8K res­o­lu­tion. I’ve made the orig­i­nal 8K ver­sion avail­able here for a small sup­port­ers’ fee.

It’s a project of sev­er­al hun­dred hours, divid­ed most­ly between Autodesk Sketch­book and Adobe Pho­to­shop. The let­ter­ing alone is com­posed of over 1,300 words. I’ll update it occa­sion­al­ly, as required. Cur­rent ver­sion stands at 1.1.

Every­thing below is the in-progress gazetteer.

Firlund

North­ern­most Great Pow­er

The Coast’s most influ­en­tial sov­er­eign state. Com­posed of an exten­sive heart­land, a ter­mi­nal North­ern march­land, the vast wilder­ness of Awn, and sev­er­al extra­world­ly colonies, Fir­lund is the largest coun­try by land­mass. It the wealth­i­est, too, mas­sive­ly enriched by long­stand­ing pos­ses­sion of the Bay of Grey and prox­im­i­ty to the Gate of Sloe, the dual cen­ters of crit­i­cal indus­try: Griso­date extrac­tion and whal­ing. These are mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion’s irre­place­able core ingre­di­ents, and the Firl­ish enjoy con­tin­u­al finan­cial ben­e­fit in sell­ing them. A strong alliance with Tiber & Fel­lowes, a mature steel indus­try in the infa­mous Coun­ty Black, and an oppres­sive, wide-rang­ing navy backed by cease­less ship­yards have made Fir­lund and its gold­en pound the most dom­i­nant state and cur­ren­cy in mod­ern his­to­ry. So long as grey salt remains cheap, the whalers are per­mit­ted to pass out­world, and the great north­ern bor­der is guard­ed by thank­less Firls, the hege­mo­ny is accept­ed.

Fir­lund has seen peace since the War of the Line in 3.347, in which cen­turies of inter­mit­tent seaborne con­flict with Alagór con­clud­ed in bland armistice. The coun­try’s dri­ving force behind inter­na­tion­al war—its Monarchy—has died, and no exter­nal pow­er has trou­bled the Crown since, though fear of mod­ern war with Alagór remains a specter the Navy is eter­nal­ly pre­pared to face.

The Firl­ish monar­chy end­ed 81 years ago. Near­ly 900 years of regency under five roy­al hous­es end­ed in inglo­ri­ous fash­ion. The House of Prat­in­cole was the last, ter­mi­nat­ing with the reign of Alvon II, a king famous for enrag­ing his court, his peo­ple, the North­ern aris­toc­ra­cy, and his bank simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. He went to the guil­lo­tine after a six-year peri­od of unrest and rebel­lion known as the Splen­did Revolt, which was con­duct­ed by armed Repub­li­cans fired by visions of democ­ra­cy and financed sub-rosa by Tiber & Fel­lowes, a bank weary of thank­less bor­row­ing by unsta­ble heads of state. After Alvon, the cul­ture has main­tained a proud anti-monar­chist sen­ti­ment, despite dimin­ish­ment of demo­c­ra­t­ic rights achieved in the Revolt.

In the decades post-rev­o­lu­tion, Fir­lund’s demo­c­ra­t­ic fran­chise has marked­ly decayed. Mere decades after the estab­lish­ment of the bicam­er­al par­lia­ment, col­lo­qui­al­ly known as “The Crown,” a sys­tem meant to ensure pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion for all Firl­ish coun­ties and shires, the elec­toral process large­ly stalled. Under a pre­tense of increased local con­trol, the infa­mous Reeve Act restrict­ed abil­i­ty to appoint par­lia­men­tary mem­bers to the region­al cham­bers, remov­ing it from the peo­ple. As such, pub­lic par­lia­men­tary elec­tions ceased entire­ly. A clan­des­tine exec­u­tive branch emerged in the Upper Crown, a cau­cus whose mem­ber­ship became, and remains, com­plete­ly secret. Mean­while, mem­bers of the Low­er Crown are elect­ed by the region­al cham­bers, whose mem­ber­ship includes in large part mem­bers of the gen­try, who still com­mand cer­e­mo­ni­al and admin­is­tra­tive lord­ships orig­i­nat­ing in the defunct monar­chy.

Firlish facts

• Firls are staunch­ly non­re­ligous. Two Stellades—holy wars—were spurred against them in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages by Alagóran Avethans. The crimes of these the­ists, includ­ing the strik­ing-down and sink­ing of Fir­lund’s own Idols, its for­got­ten native reli­gion, still irk suf­fi­cient­ly to ban­ish any appeal offered by the­ists. Fur­ther­more, Firls believe that Aveth draws the ire of älves, and that fairy provo­ca­tion is a habit best avoid­ed.
• By law, Firl­ish chil­dren are not con­sid­ered indi­vid­u­als until the age of 10. This is a holdover from the Dark Ages, where­in par­ents, nev­er sure of a child’s chance at sur­vival, avoid­ed attach­ment until its first decade, the bet­ter to avoid woe at a babe’s loss. Today, child­hood sur­vival is much improved, but many enough still do not with­stand dis­ease, and child labor is too pop­u­lar and too lucra­tive to revise the law.
• Names end­ing in the let­ter A are wide­ly con­sid­ered unlucky. Fairies own that part of one’s name, they say, and any own­er­ship a fairy can get over you is “wan­weird,” or mis­for­tu­nate. Firls bear names cul­mi­nat­ing in sim­i­lar phonemes, like “Etne,” but will not dare bestow a child a let­ter-A suf­fix (like Pip­pa.)
• The Firl­ish exhib­it the high­est rate of muta­tion Coast­wide. One in twelve Firls is a vari­ant. Fright­ful vari­an­cies like Reve­nan­cy and cadav­erism are triply com­mon. Mild muta­tions even more so: Nov­el blood types, reduced sex­u­al dimor­phism, ele­vat­ed rates of inter­sex­u­al­i­ty, widened ocu­lar spec­tral ranges, synes­the­sia, noc­tur­nal­ism, luna­cy, and elec­tro­mag­net­ic sen­si­tiv­i­ty, among uncount­ed oth­ers. Quirks sel­dom report­ed, oft unno­ticed by those born with them, and only now wide­ly stud­ied.
• Lack­ley Hand­sign was made a Firl­ish nation­al lan­guage in 3.443. Induct­ed in part to facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of chil­dren born deaf dur­ing the Bend­ing Sick­ness of 3.439 and also as an ele­ment of the Shrop-Stan­ley-Billing­ton Pre­pared­ness Plan (SSBPP), which pro­pos­es that a soci­ety faced with poten­tial future mass plague out­break should be pre­pared to com­mu­ni­cate silent­ly, the bet­ter to avoid grues, which are attract­ed to human speech.
• The sec­ond land­ing of Tefelkan emis­saries was on Firl­ish soil. The Crown remains the only coun­try with diplo­mat­ic rela­tions with Tefelk.

Empereaux

Coastal Great Pow­er

Alagór

South­ern­most Great Pow­er

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