Places

This is a brief list of places found in The Thief of Law.

Contents:

Planets:

  • Drassel: This is the world on which most of the story takes place. It is a warm planet, with much of its land mass located in a wide tropical belt. The local flora and fauna appear to have escaped some of the mass extinction events which affected other worlds, resulting in an unusually primitive local ecology.

    Drassel contains a fair number of seed teleporters, and as a result is somewhat of a crossroads for traffic from other worlds. This traffic is well served by the extensive networks of conduit teleporters which criss-cross the planet. However, despite its economic potential, the planet has been in a state of gradual decay for some time.

    Culturally, Drassel is an eclectic mix reflecting its contact with many other worlds. However, it does contain remnants of some very ancient civilizations, such as the Irsidu, who reside in its sparsely inhabited backwaters.

  • Kirdana: This is a remote and desolate world. Most of its land mass is located near the poles, and is relatively lacking in mountains. This results in a cold and dry climate, with vast regions of tundra and desert, and few regions capable of producing enough food to support permanent settlements.

    The desolate character of this world made it ideal for remnants of the Srothi culture as they fled the collapse of their empire. These people brought with them their techniques for building mobile cities. In their isolation, these people have largely mellowed out compared to their warlike ancestors.

    In addition to the Srothi, Kirdana makes a good place for outsiders to hide. Those wishing to avoid attention can be sure that Kirdana is the last place anyone will look for them, simply because it is so difficult to find anything let alone anyone there. This is probably why Kiosa likes to meet potential clients there.

  • Medurosh: This is a fairly typical Locus planet. Its dominant culture is primarily influenced by the ancient Asryn empire. It is notable as being the place where we first find Laran.

  • Irmakuz: (Ear mah coots) This is a fairly similar world to Kirdana, and like Kirdana, is inhabited by a remnant of the Srothi empire. Unlike Kirdana, these Srothi retained their warlike ways, and are an integral part of the bloodthirsty Shaideth empire.

    Cities:

    The story makes mention of a significant number of major population centers.

  • Faludas: (Fah loo dahs) This is an ancient Irsidu settlement on Drassel. It is notable not only for its shapeshifting naga inhabitants, but also for its unusual style of architecture. Faludas is mainly a wood city, but also incorporates many ancient stone ruins into its morphed living timber buildings.

  • Khedelankaa: (Hed el on kah) This is a quintessential Srothic pod city, located on Kirdana. All of its buildings are levitated several stories off the ground, and are only accessible by televator; the approach to these televators is covered by sturdy circular tents which serve as makeshift lobbies. A network of levitated magical orbs allows hoverships to levitate an extra story in the air to avoid collisions with pedestrians. A vertical wall of shifting sand (held in place by magic of course) protects the city in the unlikely event of attack. Note that every part of this city except the wall can be easily relocated, and the wall can be reconstituted from locally available sand, which is quite abundant on Kirdana.

  • Gathran: A fairly normal city (by Locus standards) located on Medurosh, consisting of a lot of tall buildings and a transit system of conduit teleporters. It is a lot like Onasa-lim, but not as big.

  • Asralhankaa: (Os rosh on kah) This is another pod city, located on Irmakuz. Unlike Khedelankaa, Asralhankaa is a foreboding place, with blackened steel buildings, lots of sharp points, and a pillar of skulls outside its gates.

  • Jirgelen: (Jeer geh len) A town the delivery team passes through on their way to Onasa-lim. Most of its architecture is fairly small and normal.

  • Onasa-lim: The city of Onasa-lim takes the concept of the city-state to a whole new level; instead of limiting the nation to a single city, it instead integrates the entire nation into a single city. This results in a city of gargantuan size.

    This type of conurbation is possible because of an extensive network of conduit teleporters. While these are expensive to put into place, the amount of commerce they generate is sufficient to justify them. Once they are in place, any two points in the network are within walking distance of each other. As a result, the entire network behaves as if it were a single city, and can be governed like a single city.

    Unfortunately, this type of social organization turns out to be rather unwieldy. Onasa-lim has all of the problems of a large city multiplied many times over. Corruption is a particularly serious problem, due in part to the fact that its government isn't entirely unified.

  • Tilgemed: A frontier outpost of the Sernyan empire. It was once a small mining town, but its strategic location led to it being expanded and extensively fortified. The plain outside its front gates turns out to be a fine place for a pitched battle.

  • Nainar: (Nye nar) A small city built around a summonery. A dam to divert river water into the summonery has flooded much of its downtown area, thus forcing its buildings to be moved onto stilts.

  • Ioma''agan: (Ee oh mah *pause* ah gahn) This is an ancient Gomla stronghold which was once the capital of Drassel. It has managed to escape notice for thousands of years because it is entirely underground, serving as a hub for a vast network of tunnels and conduit teleporters. Its labyrinthine halls house the extant remnant of that empire, the Gomlati.

  • Genmaros: This is the Irsidu stronghold where the adventurers eventually end their journey. It is similar in overall structure to Faludas, but is larger and more modern, with a greater proportion of new construction.

    • Go to index.