Kalladonia

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  Kalladonia—land of sweeping temperate forests, arid scrublands, and blackwater marshes—was once the heart of civilization on Acarus. Here, the first humans walked, and the elves sang the world into bloom. It was the seedbed of empire, magic, and invention; the birthplace of nations that now exist only in crumbled stone and fractured myth.   But those golden days are gone.   Today, the once-vibrant sprawl of Kalladonia has been reduced to a cursed husk known as The Forgotten Wastes—a broken landscape where ruins of old cities rot beneath monstrous shadows, and the fragments of lost technology lie half-buried in muck and bone. The land itself seems hostile to memory, as if even the soil conspires to erase what once was.   Kalladonia remains the largest continent on Acarus, with vast tracts of fertile land. But almost all of it has fallen into corruption. Malevolent beasts, eldritch horrors, and twisted magicks rule where man once walked proudly. Despite the iron will of the Red Banner and its relentless campaigns to reclaim and colonize beyond the bastions of Rhysii and Avalon, every outpost into the wastes has fallen—some overnight in torrents of blood, others slowly, strangled by isolation, starvation, and fear.   Now only Castillia remains, clinging to the edge of oblivion. The last light in a continent gone dark.

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The Isle of Man

Though commonly referred to as “The Isle of Man,” this title is a misnomer born of antiquity. In truth, Castillia lies upon a vast peninsula at the northernmost crown of Kalladonia—a jagged outcropping of land chosen not for beauty, but for its unparalleled defensibility and isolation. Bordered on nearly every side by treacherous peaks and cursed waters, it is a land where fetid swamps and gothic bramble-forests creep like scars across the soil.   Here, amid the decay of the world, the last glimmer of old empire clung to life. In time, these ragged remnants formed what is now known as Redcastle—an ever-swelling nation-state and the final redoubt of civilization upon the Kalladonian mainland. With its crimson walls, smog-choked foundries, and the hum of arcano-tech beneath its streets, Redcastle stands not merely as a city, but as a symbol of defiant survival.   Yet its gates are no longer open. Its population surges past what its infrastructure can bear, and the refugee caravans that once found succor now find only closed doors and turned blades.

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The Forgotten Wastes

Scavengers Pick at the Remains of the Old World

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  The Forgotten Wastes now cover the majority of Kalladonia’s immense landmass, stretching from the misted highlands of Rhysii to the jagged cliffs of the Cape of Kalladonia]. Once vibrant and varied, the land has succumbed to the silence of entropy—overrun by unnatural flora, monstrous fauna, and the creeping residue of a world unmade.   Very little of it has been charted.   Those who brave the Wastes are typically mad, desperate, or greedy—wanderers who believe they will find glory where armies have only found death. Creatures stalk those dead lands that do not merely kill, but delight in murder. Some say they are the remnants of failed experiments. Others whisper of things that predate man entirely.   And yet, they go.   The lure is power. Ancient artifacts—arcane, technological, or somewhere in between—still lie buried beneath the rot. Those recovered feed the engines of Redcastle’s industrial might, giving the city-state its edge in war and influence. For every dozen who vanish into the Waste, one may return with a relic that could change the course of a battalion, a doctrine, a war.   And so the cycle continues.   The deeper one ventures, the colder the air and the older the bones. But for some, death in the Wastes is worth the risk—because what lies in the ruins might be worth it.