There’s an ongoing sort of metaplot situation, where large swathes of the country have fallen under the sway of a mysterious princely proto-industrialist called Konrad of Kohlestadt, who, declared Emperor of Inferie unanimously by the Electors, schemes to centralise his power, and sweep all of Inferie into an Absolutist monarchy under his central control.
Here’s a map of Inferie - though, this is just my map, which I drew for fun, and if you dislike how much it sets down or lays out, I implore you - draw a competing map! With competing information!
Inferie is divided between creaking old cities built by the ancient Gothics, and the wildernesses, which are extensive, briarious and full of wolves, fairies, devils and witches. The symbol of Inferie is the bull, sometimes two-headed, and the crowns of the great are horned.
Northeast of Inferia is the Sea of Amber, where trade ships come from faraway lands, and northwest is the cold and icy Pleionic Ocean, where navies battle and die.
Lacking an internal sorcerous pedagogy, they send sorcerous scions to the Scholomance in Manteu, something many locals are defensive over. Here the national vegetable is the humble cabbage, we eat bread with too much butter, duelling is childish, and a man without practical skills is not fit to be part of society.
Here are some places from Inferie. If I left something out, or didn’t describe it much, it’s an encouragement for you, yes you, to decide what happens there.
The Empire is divided up into Circles, with one Elector each.
The Pleionic Circle, which consists of Lichtel, Low Knifeland, the island of Frisland and the small chains known as the Vile Islands and Sodden Islands. Battered by the miserable Pleionic Ocean, most think of this region as damp and charmless, which is true, but the locals like it that way. Life is dominated by the Maalstrom, an immense whirlpool big enough to consume any ship, which many say runs right down to Hell, or to some lightless sea from before God made the earth.
The Elector Pleione, who is also the Arch-Bannerbearer to the Emperor, is called Saintangel Zeelion. As a young man, he was a ship captain who tried to explore the farthest northern reaches of the world, but only found ice, torment and Grendelles. Now, he is a bristly old man with a terrible temper, sixteen squabbling sons, a hundred self-portraits and a great desire to die in the Maalstrom. He looks a bit like Andy Serkis.
Lichtel - A long stretch of sodden coast, dotted with fishing towns, marshes, polders, canals, winding rivers, overspilling deltas, sandpits, roadside shrines and raised roadways. Isletary monasteries dot the deep fens, producing various curious and amusing bespoke alcohols. In Lichtel, people are always complaining about the weather but never bringing an umbrella, and when the rare hot Summer comes along, they flee it for the shady indoors.
Isoler, where lies the great city of Nedde, (rich city-state of clothiers, windmills, and tolerant merchants) which controls the only safe shipping route past the Maalstrom. Isoler was raised from the sea by ancient wizardry. Isoler is an island of polders and black poplar forests. While in terms of ancient laws it is part of the Prince-Duchy of Lichtel, the Staadtholder of Nedde is in practice an independent ruler, and a very passionately anti-Konradic one, to the continual embarrassment of the Elector.
Low Knifeland - Downriver half of the great Knifish stem-duchy. The Knifish are named such for their habit of always carrying one, and this is the second-worst place in Inferie to get into an argument. Their cities favour islands in their wide rivers, and they grow shoulder-high spelt. Fairies come here from across the sea, occasionally, for games of chance. The people are very superstitious, fear the evil eye, and are stereotyped as eager to duel over matters of romance.
Frisland - This island is either lichenous crags or wet peatland barely above the sea. The people here devour a frightening amount of frightening seafood, hate mainlanders, and are cynical to the point of causing worry in the uninitiated. Sometimes overlaps with a fairytale island of flying water where the wrack grows up, like trees. The Frislanders are very suspicious of this island, whose natives call it Icaria, and they have often warred with them in the past.
Severand - In this great old port, they invented the mechanical clock, leading to its other name, the Severandine Mechanism. They also invented the hellebrander bomb-ship, the petard, and rifling. It is often joked and rumoured in Kohlestadt that the famous dockside workshops are staffed nocturnally by columns of hardworking gnomes that surface from the marshy undergrowth of the Frislandic interior. Picture them walking in long lines, tools in hand and red caps worn jaunty.
Seethen - Once part of Inferie, but overrun by witches and wolves. Now a jagged wilderness dotted with flooded ruins where there are absolutely no diverting social encounters to be had, unless you’re the type to spend time with a witch. A great old Grendelle called Hyldemoer lives deep in the island's elderwoods, teaching witches their arts and scowling at the sky. She’s older than the sea that surrounds her home, and twice as mean.
The Honest Circle, which consists of Verbrannt, High Knifeland, Kustern and Mittelfer. This is a land rich in resources, unchallenging to live in, and dominated by an old aristocracy who consider themselves noble warriors of righteousness (no matter who they actually serve). Much of the Circle is a great flat plain reaching out to the forests of Kustern, boxed in on all sides by mountains.
The Honest Elector is the Arch-Steward to the Emperor. He is called Helmut von Marder, and he is a coward, a genius, painfully honest, callous to the point of stupidity, and in league with the Devil in exchange for his position.
Verbrannt - Open pit mines, post-yards, walled factories, great gaols, poorhouses, feldmark, oatfields, oakwald and wide rivers. This is the heart of industry. They say ancient catacombs full of strange machines run under this region. It is also famous for armourers and mercenaries. The people here are famous for business, pride, education and scorn.
High Knifeland - Uprover half of the great Knifish stem-duchy. Grey moors, scouring rivers, white rapids, barley fields and firwald. Walled fortress-cities on sharp-sided hills, and a long history of stonemasonry and internecine conflict. Here, people are always crying out “it is imperative!” and plotting to kill the Elector, sometimes relatedly. This is the worst place in Inferie to get into an argument. Home of the Großmesser. Here the people tell tales of giants from the past, hated or perhaps beloved, and lie to outsiders when asked if all the giants are now dead.
Kustern - Home to an ancient paganism practiced in secret, and the darkest nights in Inferie (literally speaking, for the Moon is never seen here). The people keep huge fluffy dogs, and live in stout wooden houses. Hunting here is a great tradition, and a requirement for high status. Large regions of the mark are covered in relatively recent, extremely dense pine forests, grown by a cabal of industrious sorcerers in league with the Elector.
Mittelfer - Quite unremarkable in terms of terrain, combining the least notable features of neighbouring Auðern and High Knifeland. The wheat field is the most common sight. The woods and brush of Mittelfer are bedevilled by a bandit, or some say a fairy prince, called the King of Rabbits. This King uses coneys as conspirators and plots against the Elector constantly, daily recruiting more malcontents to his cause. The people here are known for piety, large families and wanderlust.
Gravel - The most boring city in the world, almost to the point of supernaturality. Square layout, square doors. Rumours of a raucous secretive nightlife not shown to outsiders are probably wishful thinking.
Manonburg - The City of Art, a free city within High Knifeland but not a part of it. The most beautiful city in Inferie, despite the best efforts of the competing colleges of painters, sculptors, tapestry weavers, printers, engravers, fireworkers, braziers, goldsmiths and gemcutters, who strive to adorn Manonburg in gaudier and gaudier manners. Somehow, though, it all works. Art and music are like the arts of magic - their close cousins, even if by marriage. If you aren’t careful in Manonburg, you could be spirited away to a painted world, set upon by some perfect marmoreal debutante, or encounter a piece of jewellery so perfect everything else you own seems somewhat pathetic in its wake.
The Westeben Circle, consists entirely of the huge princely state of the same name. Westeben is one great bowl valley, dipping deep down below the high mountains which ring it on all sides - except for the Windgap, a huge jagged crack in the northern mountain range that admits whirling storms all through winter and autumn. This is a land of emmer, strong lager, perfumers, cannon-makers and chamber music.
The Western Elector (and Arch-Cupbearer) is a reluctant supporter of Emperor Konrad, by the name of Hans Hochwind. He is a famous horse-rider, famously moral, secretly gay, a crack shot, the most interesting man on earth, and constantly bedevilled by a crushing dose of imposter syndrome.
Roarborg - Capital of Westeben, home of the Elector, ugly and charming much like a bulldog is. City of reliable people, so it is claimed, and famous for the stone it quarries to send around Inferie.
Domroschen - The city of roses, which lies on the edge of the fairytale land of Aifon. They say it’s easier here to fall in love than anywhere else in the world, but that might just be the strength of the local wine.
The Towered Circle, which consists of Quarre, Aifon and the Bathmark. Rocky lands, torn by many wars, and dotted by towers. The people here have operated on the assumption that Manteu will invade tomorrow for about three hundred years, and it seems to have served them well.
The Towered Elector (and Arch-Marshal) is a normal, ordinary human man called Gunther Schmerz, who was exiled from Aifon at age ten for being too mean (or so he says). He is a veteran of six real wars and two fairytale ones, has two metal hands and a ridiculous moustache, is hilariously dangerous, is hilariously evil when he’s drunk or hungry, has heels as hard as horn and a ten foot vertical leap.
Quarre - Conquered from the landbound colonies of the sky-land of Magonia. Due to this, the weather in Quarre is always fucking mental, and rarely matches the season. The people are hardy and considered madly brave. This land of rushing rapids and great old craters is the home of the umbrella, the greenhouse and the ice-cellar. Below these rust-coloured hills where iron bleeds into the rivers, roads wind around thick-walled chapels home to famously humble priests.
Felle - Largest, and by some measures only, city in Quarre. Atop the honey-coloured walls sit captured Magonian flying ships, inoperable by the locals, but proud trophies nonetheless. There are no pretty towers in the city, for all must be built ugly and strong like old giants against the weather. Three abbeys jostle for space and prestige within the city walls, and the rivalries of the red-robed Nobleians, the yellow-robed Barbarans, and the blue-robed Pluvians are legendary.
Aifon - A fairytale land, with perfect white castles and beautiful rosy forests sunlight-dappled all year round. This is so even in winter, when Jack Frost and his lot compete to put the prettiest frost on the trees, and the smoothest and best-woven blankets of snow on the ground. Aifon is pretty in this way because of Frau Perchta, who is a Princess, and nothing else. She is not a fairy, not a Grendelle, not a demon, and no matter how many Kohlestadt corpses with degrees disagree, she is simply a fine, noble, upstanding woman of Inferian society. Every citizen of Aifon enjoys safe births, fine harvests, apple-cheeked innkeepers with frothing mugs, and the most loyal and slobber-free dogs on earth, but all of them know it all depends on Frau Perchta’s happiness. Thus, the people are famous for their loyalty and their striving.
Bathmark - The famous hot-springs of this region are used for health spas by all the wealthy and influential people of Ganymed. Their healing properties are not exaggerated in any way, and the finest mineral vintages can even cure gunshot wounds. As such, the other feature of the Bathmark are castles of especially massive size, and the roads of this sweet valley are often torn by the hooves of foreign cavalry. The people of the Bathmark are famed for their shooting skills, their patience, and their robust constitution (even the water in the wells is good for you).
The Callian Circle, which consists of Auðern, Kinland and the Glassmark. This is a very beautiful land of winding rivers, tall castles, mossy forests, sunny meadows, flowers upon flowers, glassmakers and lens-grinders. Here is the home of the Inferian opera.
The Callian Elector (and Arch-Chamberlain) is called Albrecht von Kreide, an elderly, frail, snow-pale alchemist and scholar, the best-read man in Ganymed, who spends all his time with a book (he sleeps with one under his pillow, to make his dreams educated). They call him the Sage of Callia, though what he gathers all that knowledge for remains quite unclear. He is literally unable to put things in a short manner, and will be loquacious even and especially to his own detriment.
Auðern - This is a land of mountains and clay valleys. They are deliberately reintroducing old Gothic influences, especially in their opera, which grows increasingly extravagant, grim and foreboding as the years go on. They have a strong alcohol culture here, and the people have a reputation for having proverbial hollow legs. Besides this, they are regarded by outsiders as well-read and often fat.
Kinland - Red grass, red maples, and rolling forested hills. Deep cold pools in deep cold woods are home to all sorts of cruel nixies, and woodsmen go about with nails in their pockets to grasp painfully in their hand, the better to interrupt an enchanting song. In Kinland, the symbols of rule are the double-helix braid and the copper sun-disc, ancient pagan icons from a long-ago time. Marble statues of forgotten gods sink in the leafmold. The people of Kinland are regarded by outsiders as clannish, superstitious, industrious and short.
The Glassmark, symbolised by the Grail, is a land of ancient knighthood and extremely fine glassware. Where it hasn’t been adapted to human habitation, it’s basically just one massive flower-meadow from end to end, and once, ancient magic and fairy princes happened here. Now, they worry at the idea of whoever laid this garden coming back to see all the roads, wheat and castles they’ve scattered about it like darts.
The Uncircled Lands each have a ruler who is not an Elector, and are each different in their own manner…
In Eucanea, they are Levolian in culture - they do not mix well with “Greater” Inferie, which they call the Northlands, or perhaps the Great Barbarism. This is a sunny land of painted hillsides, sucking bogs, huge inland lakes, boat races, fields of rice, shrines containing unusual and confusing relics, independent people, and riches rolling in from the Dragoman Empire. The sacred ship sigil is the symbol of the land and its capital, the floating canal-city of Lacuna, where they elect a Doge by a complex demos-kratios lottery, watched over always by a particularly mercantile and dissolute angel. The Doge’s identity is usually pseudonymous - the current one goes by “Prudence”, and is rumoured to be a vampire, a sorcerer, or a woman.
Kravhem, an independent crown in the Empire. Land of old-fashioned heroism, broadsword assassinations, troubadours, political turmoil, outdated clothing and proto-proto-feminism. Rumours that the Kravech king is a disguised Grendelle with a live python for a penis are considered mostly dubious, especially when you’re hearing it from one of his scheming counts. Famous for mines which stretch forty miles under the earth and produce the strangest gemstones, plucked from the chthonic courts above Hell. Kravhem’s wars with gnomes and other earthen elementals were once notorious, but since the great titanomachy began, they have become unexpected allies.
Helvetica, a comedic confederacy which resists Inferian politics in favour of their own bespoke inefficiencies. Towns here are steeply terraced, for there’s barely any flat land, and it's joked that they invented stairs before the road in Helvetica. This is a land of gigantic glaciers, alpine pastures, large goats, living storms, irrwurz, Magonian castles that occupy mountaintops, bands of barbegazi bandits, avalanches and expensive delicacies.
Finally, there is Infernal Circle, which consists of every soot-stained factory, every witch’s hut, every burning pit, the Glasslands, every trackless wald, every dark temple, and every court of law. The Elector of this Circle, and Arch-Treasurer to the Emperor, is the Devil.
Here’s a bonus - some especially Inferian Graces:
Loud Boasting - Temporarily increase your status by [sum] for [sum] hours, immediately after or before a heroic feat. If you do it before, then fail to accomplish what you boasted of, lose [sum] status for the duration instead.
Noble Stoicism - Dodge [sum] Status damage. If you show any emotion within [sum] days to anyone, you take the deferred Status damage.
Memorable Barb - Make a stinging comment. For [sum] days, whenever the target thinks of a person, you spring to mind first, for better or ill.
Last Gasp - Can only be cast as you die, or as you convincingly appear to die. [sum] people are geased to carry out some kind of request, else they’re struck with terrible guilt (terrible guilt weighs about six pounds). If they ever see you alive and healthy again, the Grace ends immediately.
Dragomanic Manners - Can only be cast once you have met someone from the Dragoman Empire, or if you’ve read a book about the place. For [sum] hours, people will assume you are from the Dragoman Empire, and treat you accordingly. People who actually are from there react to this Grace with, at best, fury.
Pleionic Gloom - Make a comment which instills the morbs in [sum] listeners for [sum] hours. If you are from Frisland, double [sum], since you’ve had a life of practice.
Hop to It! - When ordered to do something by someone with higher Status, create a pool of [sum] points, which you can add to any rolls in service of that goal. The goal can only be selfish, tyrannical or in pursuit of romance.
Drink with Me! - Target saves with a [sum] penalty or feels compelled by social graces to join you in drinking at the nearest bierkeller, wine tasting, roadside inn or festival. The [sum] penalty is doubled when used by or against someone from Auðern.
Translate the Classics Like a Maniac - Requires a classic to be used. Produce a new vernacular translation so bizarre that you must save vs. being put in an asylum for [sum] months. The translation attracts the eye of a curious angel of art. You may choose to act with such linguistic passion that you risk being put away for [sum] years to instead guarantee the presence of such an angel.
