Out of Character:
I have read up on the region, but as far as I could tell this is the only place I could hide a small country that nobody bothered with. The weather system is just weird and is probably the result of a magic war that happened centuries ago that I haven't explored yet. Sorry!
Picture, if you will, a sky so blue, so deep, so perfectly clear it will swallow you whole. Dimming only faintly as it plunged to the jagged horizon to the east, nestled like the finest gem, the sun beat down upon the desert beneath it like a relentless hammer.
Not even a breeze came through this stillness; to call up the sands and rustle the long dead trees that were dotted like sentinels, remainders of a forest that once grew on these blighted lands. They called it the Beyond; for nobody wanted to leave the protection Delphin Ridge gave; and in turn, the Ridge did not want to pass on it’s water to the land that so needed it until it could hit the rest of the pressure system that would return it to life. The Beyond was a barren place that existed purely because of bad luck, and possibly due to magic; the area was mostly unknown.
Delphin Ridge protected the Basin; in which life…lived. Of course it wasn’t entirely smooth; and certainly wasn’t a basin, but this wedge of earth, of green, of trees and stone, of baronies and minor kingships, bordered the cold, cold, ocean, and remained isolated from the outside world. One tiny outpost amongst a miasma of the Unknown; ignored by the inhabitants of the continent Dheathain due to it’s outward appearance of barrenness. This was possibly a good thing; because nothing the Basin produced was very nice. Their main export was war; their main import people from the ragged currents that rushed around the headland and forced ships onto the coral reef that devoured everything that came it’s way.
How such a place could occur was unknown, but, dear reader, I can tell you that such an event occurred beyond human memory certainly, but even further before that of Draconian and Fae; which separated the few tribes of humans who made their lives there. Survivors of shipwrecks, primal earth-speakers; lost princes and kings, they survived only amongst the prevalent magic that they shunned because of one anomaly; the Ridge. In turn, the storms from the sea battered them all, even those who were most inland; but none cared.
Their world was their world; and nothing came beyond it. They warred; and their population suffered. They lied, they cheated, they blatantly stole from one another to cause famine; and the Basin moved on, ever watched over by the Ridge. Nothing had changed for a thousand years, bar the influx of occasional news from a ship that had the misfortune of being wrecked on the shores of the more friendly states.
Until now, of course. The shockwaves of the event were still rippling through the midland, the coast had not yet heard of the shake-up; but they would, and by the time anyone could react it would already be too late.
The only reason that everyone could exist was that there was always conflict. Now the conflict had stopped; and rather unfairly; and a new age was to be ushered into the inbred, confused and foolish beings that called this place home. Fight amongst yourselves, but never invite the Outsiders in, those that came from Beyond. Monsters patrolled these skies; speaking demons dwelled beneath the rock and giant worms consumed what life they could find on the surface as they swam through an ocean of tiny, tiny grains. And worst of all; things that assumed human form and could do terrible, terrible things.
But let us leave this little country, let us feel a slight wave of pity for it; for it’s cut-off state and it’s ignorance that allowed cancer into it’s heart.
Although, had it not been for this mysterious figure we would not have a story.
There was, in fact, a trail.
An odd trail that started out strong but then dropped, every now and then, to become odd imprints of something else, leading from Delphin Ridge to the lands beyond.
There had been blood, originally; drip-dropped along the trail, but the scrappy forest that did make some form of living on the foothills of the Ridge had sucked it up the moment it hit. Likewise; it’s origin had clotted over, but the originator didn’t really have a choice but to keep going, if only for the tree's sake because the things had started to move.
Truth be told, he wanted to die, but a man who was born a survivor doesn’t die all too easy.
He just wishes he could.