Divide

The House of Commons

  Representatives from each region of the Frontier gather at Ambition to make laws and rule the country. Many are minor nobles or experienced administrators hailing from Vaelgard or Calum. One is even an outcast from Oarn. Twenty years ago, they and their predeccessors first laid down the codes of law which would come to have sway across all the Frontierlands.   Since then, the laws have seen much debate and addendum. No little amount of pressure has been applied by the patrons of the state on this front. A young nation is one that is prone to breaking apart into several smaller ones, and thus does the Senate do all in their power to foster unity between the scattered towns and outposts of the Frontier.   The Outriders are their primary method of exerting control and fostering unity. None who live within the Frontier can forgot those who patrol their roads and keep the wilderness safe. Currently 21 members strong. The leader of this congregation is called the Governess or Governor of Divide, currently a human woman named Dranj Daughter-Traij.  

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Outriders

    The Law of the Frontier. Men and women who have the impossible task of imposing order on the Ancient Wastes. Must be highly, and be able to traverse canyons and gouges with ease. For this reason, outriders have begun to train wyverns. Chasm Wyverns, as they are called, distant descendents of dragons who are reduced to living in the shadows of the gouges, feasting on whatever life travels nearby.   Taming them and training them is no easy feat, so many outriders still travel by horse and rope. Though progress is slow in developing this crazed scheme, around two dozen outriders have already begun to take to the skies.  

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Gougehoppers

  Those who lived upon these lands before the foundation of the frontier republic. Wanderers, mostly, who stay on the move in ordrer to chase the herds of Leaping Staffs that they hunted for food. They have explored and charted much of the Frontier, though as a rule they do not write down these details, merely holding them in their heads. Gougehoppers were among those that first founded the Frontier government, but many others are reluctant to submit to their laws and way of life. While they may battle the land on a day to day basis, they see imposing any kind of order on these wastes as a futile and dangerous idea, like to lead to the death of yet another civilization.   "More bones for the bonepile."  

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Liestic Druids

  A circle of druids devoted to the memory of the Lieshui, the nature spirits of old who inhabited the world before the rise of humanoid races. They seek to heal the world, and in doing so, return life and harmony to the fragile Saheim. For the past 70 years, their order has labored to bring life back to the frontier. Now, they are beginning to see the results. Pockets of habitable land are springing up across plains, helped along by the discovery of the Woading method. Gouges are slowly healing, the earth becoming whole once again.   The druids are torn on how they should respond to the Frontier people settling these lands. On one hand: "We did not spend our lives healing this land so you could subjugate it." One the other hand, this is an opportunity to teach them how to be better stewards of the lands that they will inevitably settle. How to maintain the soil, how and when to hunt, how to sow forests… This division has all but paralyzed the Liestic druids, and driven them into internal conflict.    

Coincounters/ Patrons of the State

  "Investors" some call them, "Vultures" others call them. Though they provided the necessary financial push to get the Frontier government off the ground, they are keen to see returns on their investments. Thus far, the results have not been good. Trade is difficult on the Frontier, and the explosion of expansion did not yield the profits they were hoping for.   Now they threaten to step in and take control of the country, so they can "Restore order" and "protect their investments". It cannot be denied that their resources would be able to fix many of the problems that are plagueing the besieged Frontier.   Could some of them be exacerbating of these problems…?

The history of Divide could fit neatly within a single volume, as the nation is hardly twenty years old. The idea of Divide (and Frontier)  is much older. For many decades, the dream of a nation free from the yolk of Aertas has germinated in the minds of the conquered Midlands nations. It was an Oarnish exile, a human man by the name of Traij, who brought these dreams under a solidified banner. With a ragged caravan of people composed of outcasts, misfits, and nomadic caravaneers, he set out into the southern wastes and christened it with a new name: Frontier.   Their journey was long and arduous, as the land was fraught with dangers and setbacks. Only though the assistance of the Gougehoppers were any in Traij's caravan able to survive. Their destination, however, was not the end of their troubles. The ruins that would someday come to be called Divide was home to roving tribes of ogres and ruled by a mad wizard. The battle for Ambition was the first real test for Traij's pioneers, the brief but bloody battle that saw the ogres subjugated and brought to heel by an unlikely ally: one of their own.   The hero of the battle was none other than an ogre by the name of Yoo Tu Ook, more commonly called Tuok, who was granted intelligence by the wizard as a kind of cruel joke. Tuok repaid his jest by killing the wizard and destroying his research. He used his newfound mental prowess to rally the ogres and surrender to the pioneers, offering to join their cause in return for the safety and fair treatment of his people. So it came to be that the ogre tribes of big-gouge came to be citizens of Divide.   Since the establishment of Divide, and the house of commons at Ambition, the nation has seen its fair share of growing pains. Expansion has proved difficult, as viable patches of land are few and far between. Despite the best efforts of the Liestic druids and the breakthroughs of the Woading process, the land is still barren of life. Outcrops of civilization can be miles apart, separated by angry spirits and hungry monsters. Divide was kept afloat by the continued support of "Patrons of the State", wealthy investors who lent their financial backing to the young nation in return for titles and land, as well as the export of artifacts from the massive complex of ruins underneath Divide. When word of these treasures reached Aertas, the empire began to take notice of the slowly growing republic to the south. The young nation faced a choice: submit to that they sought to escape, or openly rebel against overwhelming odds. Predictably, they chose the latter.   Secession from Vaelgard did not come without its price. Scars left by the conflict known as the Autumn War remain fresh and open in the Midlands. The full history of the conflict will be detailed elsewhere, but suffice to say that Frontier won an unexpected victory, and secured themselves a place among the Midland Sovreignties.

Old Divide

  "Old City" The ruins that Old Divide were built from are not even from the Pentarchy, but from another civilization that attempted to settle the Frontier some two hundred years ago. Few records of them remain, only that they had many resources and much hope. They had hoped to rekindle the proud kingdoms of the Pentarchy, but now all that remains is rubble. Their one enduring accomplishment is the rebuilding of the bridge called Lasting Resolve. It spans the canyon after which Divide was named, great marble buttresses sweeping out to support it, massive columns sinking into the chasm.   The Old City is where much of the residential areas are located. Not quite "poor", as little of Divide could be described as "high class", but certainly more modest than the district across the bridge. This is also where most of the ogres and other monstrous races who joined the settlers live.  

Greater Divide

    Even after an apocalypse and a thousand years of decay, the Pentarchy ruins that form the spine of Divide remain sturdy. Though their exteriors are scarred and crumbled, the foundations of the ancient city (especially it's palace) speak to the ingenuity of the ancient kingdoms.   Expeditions into the depths of the palace complex continue to this day, and the residents of divide doubt whether they will ever fully explore the city they inhabit. Greater Divide (often just Divide) is the seat of power on the Frontier. Atop the ruins have arisen sturdy, stout buildings of stone and wood. Streets are orderly and lined with stone, with highly visible lines between what areas of rubble has been cleared and developed and what has proven too onerous or too dangerous to lustrate.   Shops, stores, and offices of the government compose many of the larger structures on this side of the bridge. Several small hills are arranged around a central depression, and the city is beginning to sprawl out onto these surrounding hills.   Woads form incongruous patches of trees, a strange site against the bleak surroundings. These groves are signs that this land is slowly regaining its fertility, though the process is glacially slow.  

Ambition

  At the center of the city is the skeleton of an ancient masterwork. It emerges from the earth like a spike driven upwards through the stone. One either side of it, rock shelfs jut out an an angle, as though they were disturbed by it's sudden portrustion from underground. This is Ambition, the center of Divide government. One can see new constructions growing off the ancient spire like growths, mis-colored next to the slate gray of the millenia old stone.   Ambition is merely the tip of an Pentarchy-era palace, the top-most spire which portruted into the air. The rest of the building extends hundreds of feet undreground, in a network of hallways and rooms which baffle all but the most attentive explorere.  

The Bonepile

  Or, the Layers   The great divide splits the earth in twain for roughly 700 meters before meeting a rock shelf. A secondary gouge extends from this shelf for another 3200 meters before tapering off. Tertiary fissures extend even further below, though these have not been fully measured or explored. Along the sides of the canyon, shorn clean by whatever first made the great divide, is a cross section of history. Layer after layer of civilization that settled upon the plains of the Frontier, rose, then fell.   The largest and most well-preserved of these layers belongs to the Pentarchy. Their ruins dot the Frontier, and their influence is felt to this day though both their architecture and their restless specters. Historians, treasure hunters, and explorers have trickled through Divide, seeking riches and a peek into the past. With the founding of Frontier, they now come in greater numbers. The first few layers have been explored (and to some extent, settled), leading down to the late-era Pentarchy ruins. This was during the time of their decline, however, after the Scourging.   The remainder of the bonepile remains largely unexplored. Some explorers rappel down the sides, seeking entrance into deeper ruins, while others make their way through the dark tunnels seeking passageways deeper into the mountain of dead kingdoms. Gougehoppers shun those who explore past the reach of the light, as they believe the deep-dwellers could bring back a terrible curse t