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Hermea
Capital: Promise
Ruler: Mengkare, Shepard of Light
An island nation ruled by the gold dragon Mengkare, who seeks to perfect the human race, something he calls "The Glorious Endeavor". While originally composed of volunteers, immigration to Hermea now works based only on invitations of humans who are deemed suitable for the Endeavor, while those who fail to keep up with the standards of Mangkare are cast out.
- False Utopia: Life on Hermea seems idyllic at the first glance, with a peaceful, progressive and communal life, as well as merit-based advancement. But all of this is in service of a Super Breeding Program, with those that are deemed "insufficent" being ruthlessly cast out. And then it turns out all of its inhabitants were intended as Human Sacrifices.
- Super Breeding Program: "The Glorious Endeavor", Hermea's founding cause, is an attempt to “perfect” the human race. Other races are sometimes invited, if they possess skills that are deemed helpful or needed.
Mengkare
Lawful Neutral male great wyrm gold dragon
An ancient gold dragon who rules over the reclusive island-nation of Hermea, guiding it and its citizens towards a mysterious purpose.
- Engineered Heroics: Under the guise of Lamond Breachton, he helped a bunch of humanoids who lost their memories and stranded in the wilds of Isger build their society, when in reality he was the one who stranded them and erased their memories after a plan to gather the best humanoids to sacrifice them failed.
- Face–Heel Turn: His obsession with his mission has led him to losing sight of true goodness, and becoming one of the two gold dragons in history to tarnish. In the default setting he's slipped into neutrality, but by the time the party gets to him in Age of Ashes he's become fully Lawful Evil.
- Heel–Face Turn: While by the climax of Age of Ashes he's become a Lawful Evil Knight Templar, it's possible for the players to make him realize the harm that he's causing, changing his alignment back to Lawful Neutral and setting him back on the path to goodness.
- Knight Templar: Mengkare has been rearing an entire island's worth of humanoids as sacrifical victims for a summoning ritual, justifying his heinous actions by reasoning that he's doing it for the — in and of itself noble — goal of killing Dahak.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to kill the destructive dragon god Dahak, but in attempting so, he committed several atrocities such as memory modification, speech control and assassination, all to form a "perfect society" as part of his plan to sacrifice a bunch of humanoids to complete a ritual that could stop Dahak.
Mediogalti Island
Capital: None
Ruler: Blood Mistress Jakalyn
A jungle-covered island inhabited by savage goblin tribes, as well as the infamous Red Mantis Assassins.
- Murder, Inc.: The Red Mantis Assassins are a somewhere in between this and a Religion of Evil. The followers of Achaekek,the god of assassins, who offer their services to the highest bidder.
Jakalyn
Race: Human (possilbly Tian-Taldan-Nidalase)
Class: Cleric/Red Mantis Assassin/Trickster
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Blood Mistress Jakalyn leads the Red Mantis Assassins and has done so since the Death of Aroden. Simultaneously the High Priestess of Achaekek, she strictly observes her god's tenents.
- Been There, Shaped History: In-Universe. She has admitted to personally have carried out at least three significant assassinations:
- Halamendi Orrus: The first man to buy a gun from Alkenstar's Gunworks. He never made it out of the city, and his Super Prototype-Gun never reappeared.
- Irlyna Vosh: A prominent Galtan artist, whose death was a flashpoint for the Red Revolution.
- Chondru Marka: A professor from Magaambya, who claimed to have recovered lost Old Magic from the Shory Empire, but died shortly before his first demonstration.
- The Dreaded: With the Red Mantis Assassins being this in general, one can only imagine the infamy of their leader. note Her announcement that she was hired by Queen Abrogail II to target some prominent Hellknights was enough to keep Order of the Scourge from further investigating the Queen.
- Evil Versus Evil: Possibly. She was approached with a contract to kill the Whispering Tyrant. While the Red Mantisses have a strict policy of not targeting rightful rulers (which arguably applies to Tar-Baphon), Achakek's original task is to kill Godhood Seekers (which definitely applies to Tar-Baphon). Jakalyn has yet to announce a desicion on the matter. This was only worsened when her investigation linked the client to Razmir, who, in her eyes, is just as bad.
- Mysterious Past: Records of Jakalyn's life before she became the blood mistress, as well as records of the one she replaced, have proven all but impossible to track down, and those who have made it their mission to do so have invariably become the targets of assassinations themselves.
- Red Right Hand: She has a Red Streak in her otherwise black hair, remembering both the blood of her victims and showing her devotion Achaekek.
- Older Than They Look: Despite her appearance as a young woman, Blood Mistress Jakalyn has ruled the Vernai for well over a century. The source of her apparent youth is an enigma.
Mordant Spire
Capital: None
Ruler: The Amaranthine Council
A strange, crooked spire within the Seaming Sea inhabited by mask-wearing elves calling themselves the spiresworn. They view themselves as the rightful inheritors of ancient Azlant, and closely guard its ancient secrets.
- Cool Mask: The spiresworn habitually wear strage-looking masks.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: Interestingly inverted: "Spireborn" half-elves hold valued posts as diplomats and spies for the Amaranthine Council.
- Hidden Elf Village: The elves of the Mordant Spire have become secretive and xenophobic, strange even to their former brethren. Outsiders are likely to interact with the elves only if they break the Mordant Spire's rules against exploring Azlanti ruins.
- Our Elves Are Different: The Spiresworn wear masks, all of them are Hearing Voices, they speak a virtually dead language and view themselves as the rightful inheritors of a fallen, human empire.
The Shackles
Capital: Port Peril
Ruler: Hurricane King Kerdak Bonefist (formerly), Hurricane Queen Tessa Fairwind
A loose conferation of Pirate Lords operating in the archipelago off of western Garund, ruled by the council of Free Captains.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of The Golden Age of Piracy in the Carribbean.
- Perpetual Storm: The "Eye of Abendego" is a giant, permanent hurricane. It destroyed what is now known as the Sodden Lands. The Free Captains hold an annual reggata among its outskirts, wth the winner being granted a seat on the council.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Free Captains are divided between those who engage in the slave trade, and those who vehemtly oppose it, such as Free Capatin Stella Fane.
- Wretched Hive: Naturally, most towns and cities in this area are run-down slums full of crime and poverty, and of course every last one of them is a nest of pirates.
Hurricane Queen Tessa Fairwind
Race: half-elf
Class: bard/duelist
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Kerdak Bonefist's successor as leader of the Free Captains, Tessa is popular with ordinary pirates, yet worries some other captains with her recklessness.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She already controlled a massive fleet and Quent, the Shackles' second-largest port, when Kerdak was toppled.
- Friendly Pirate: Downplayed: She is only
Chaotic Neutral, an improvement compared to her Neutral Evil predecessor. - Pirate Girl: She is still fairly young, and became a captain at the age of fifteen.
- Son of a Whore: She was born the daughter of a human merchant sailor and an elven sacred prostitute of Calistria.
- We Do the Impossible: She made a name for herself by succeeding at raids that seemed almost impossible.
Moxix, the Drinker of Human Hopes
An ancient demon summoned long ago by an empire of cyclopes, Moxix was trapped atop an island known as Yoha's Graveyard when they were destroyed by their rivals.- Breath Weapon: He can breath a cone of acidic fog laced with disease.
- Brought Down to Badass: He was once a demon lord, but so long without worship has caused much of his power to slip away from them. He's still a CR 20 creature, capable of decimating all but the highest level players.
- Driven to Madness: Failing a save against its eyebite spell invokes a second save as Moxix tries to unravel the target's mind.
- Hope Crusher: He's not called the Drinker of Human Hopes for nothing.
- Horns of Villainy: He has a twisted mess of horns.
- Multiarmed And Dangerous: Moxix has four arms and is an extremely dangerous demon.
- Rock Monster: He looks more like a statue than a flesh-and-blood creature, and, tellingly has Damage Reduction that requires adamantine weapons to penetrate (which, typically only creatures made of stone or metal such as golems have)
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He's trapped in a ziggurat.
Aashaq the Annihilator
Chaotic Evil female great wyrm red dragon cleric of Dahak 7
A red dragon who rules a cult on the island of Dahak's Fang.
- Badass in Distress: She's been captured twice in her life, once as a wyrmling and once 200 years later. She's had over five centuries of growth since then and now nurses a pathological hatred towards any who would try and capture her again.
- Cult: A small one started around her as an aspect of Dahak's will.
- Kaiju: She's the largest size category in the game and her illustration shows her to be about three stories tall at the shoulder.
