Verdant Coast
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"A herd of cattle was grazing on the tracks. Again.
With much difficulty, I managed to find the leader of the herders. I explained to him the importance of the railroad - how, once completed, it would boost the local economy and bring riches to everyone in this region, and that it was thus of utmost important that the trains were able to move on schedule.
He was nonplussed and explained to me that the herd had its own schedule, and that they had always grazed in this region at this time of the year. He assured me that the herd would move elsewhere 'soon' ('soon', as I had already discovered, was a word with a highly variable meaning in these parts, but it usually meant 'longer than you can really afford'), but that the train just would have to wait until then.
I sighed, and tried to commit his tribal markings to memory so that I would know which tribal chieftain I would have to bribe next…"
- From the diary of Bartolo Gandobardi, negotiator for the Grand Road Rail Company of Alassia

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Once, most of the Verdant Coast was part of a vast elven empire, where pale-skinned elves ruled over enslaved dark-skinned natives. But four centuries ago, the humans rose up in rebellion, and though the war was lengthy and costly and the losses staggering, the humans eventually managed to defeat their elven overlords and assumed control of the land.

Since then, the Verdant Coast was mostly left to its own devices, ignored by anyone except for a few traders from the Gawaris Desert who built trading enclaves on islands off the coast. Small kingdoms and cities rose and fell, but the life of the inhabitants went on without many changes. A century ago, explorers emerged from a vast underground passageway that stretched all the way from the Parginian Rim, but even that didn't get much attention

Then, forty years ago, the Parginian city of Alassia, which was situated next to the entry to that passageway (now dubbed the Grand Road), decided build a railroad through it, which would speed up travel between the two corners of the continent immensely, as well as open up many new opportunities for trade. Almost overnight, a fortress town (dubbed Luciano, after the councilor who proposed the project) sprang up around the exit site, and the railroad continues to expand from both sides. These wealthy foreigners have upset the local power structures, as more and more young people move to Luciano in the hopes of earning high wages from the project, and traders, spies, and diplomats flock from afar to gain some advantage from the situation.

Verdant_Coast.png

Industries

Life and Society

Those elves that remain in the region remain on the lowest rung of society, and many humans can't resist the chance to remind them that they are a defeated people. They usually do the things that many humans consider to be beneath them, like collecting garbage, and are prohibited from wearing weapons and armor (though many will have daggers and other concealable weapons on them). Their homes look dirty and run-down from the outside, though many elves actually are quite wealthy thanks to long-hidden treasures and through deals with outlawed items and stolen goods (more than a few elves make their living by selling poisons). Elves have a reputation for being highly magical, and so many humans buy magical trinkets (more often fake than not) or ask them to tell their fortune.

Since elves are universally light-skinned, the locals generally consider lighter skin tones a sign of elven ancestry (which is true in many cases, since the elves fathered a large number of half-elves), and thus a sign of someone who is generally untrustworthy and deceitful. Many people also tend extend this to foreigners from more northern climates, and treat them accordingly.

Government and Politics

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Important NPCs

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Important Towns and Cities

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Regional History

See Also

Adventure Ideas

  • The Lions of Tsiaro: The railroad work crews maintaining and expanding the burgeoning rail network between Tsiaro and Nuovo Alassia are suffering increasingly bold and brutal attacks from a pair of very large lions. The railway company is offering increasingly large bounties for whoever can get rid of these menaces, but the lions have shown an uncanny knack of evading traps or ambushing their would-be hunters. Many locals whisper that these creatures are demons in lion form.

Designer's Notes & Resources

The Urbis equivalent of the East Coast of Africa, especially Kenya and the surrounding areas - complete with some former colonial history, even if the colonialism took a rather different shape in this setting.

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