Gorgon
Deep in the marshlands of the west coast, the Kingdom of Gorgon sprawls its roots. These lands are harsh and near inhospitable. Man-eating gators stalk the swamps, witches practice their dark magic in the bayou, while disease and other supernatural forces thrive. Near all civilized settlements lay on the coastal regions where the harshness of the wild has bred a hardy breed of citizens. The economy of Gorgon is driven largely by fishing, shipwrights, lumber, and biodiversity prized for alchemical purposes. Faith in the All-Father, Euros, and Meros is the dominant religion but paganism holds strong roots among supernatural Gorgonites.
House Blackwater had been the royal family for centuries until recently usurped by House Briar. While the bulk of the king's forces were campaigning overseas the Briar's staged a coup, claiming the throne as their own. When the Blackwater forces returned, the armies of the two noble families met on a narrow stretch of land known as the King's Pass, a landbridge which provided dry access to the capital. There, the Blackwater banners fell and the corpses of the fallen soldiers were strung from the trees. The head of Arthur Blackwater, the once king, was paraded through the streets of Zola, the capital of Gorgon. Sympathizers of the Blackwaters have named the land bridge 'Traitor's Pass' in spite of the Briar's misdeeds, and they have taken to calling the surrounding marsh The Swamp of Sorrows.
There are whispers a few Blackwaters live on, and while the Briar's struggle to cement their rule over their fledgling kingdom there is rumors of rebellion. The noble houses are picking sides and the realm is engulfed in a cold war. Assassination and sabotage are rampant as the minor Houses quietly pick their sides, and no one trusts their neighbor. Gorgon is on the verge of civil war.
Valeal
The western reaches of these lands are characterized by lush green hills which flatten to green prairies the further inland. Farmland worked by slave labor sprawls the countryside which then gives way to a dense urban metropolis. The idyllic nature of these lands has attracted migrants from the world over, which has become a point of contention in the current political climate. Xenophobia has spread its wicked roots and militant zealots who persecute those of other faiths or cultures is becoming far more commonplace. Reigning in the Capital of Oslo, the crown has done little to nothing to stop the militant faithful, for the crown is currently engaged in a bitter civil war on the eastern edge of the kingdom.
To the east, where the green farmlands give way to dense temperate forests the people of this region have taken up arms against their King. Separated from the rule of the capital by many thousand miles of uninhabited land these people long cherished their relative independence and entertained the idea of self-rule. To further complicate things, the wealth of the kingdom seldom found its way this far east resulting in a grotesque imbalance of prosperity. Additionally, the cultures and religions in this region are ar more diverse because those immigrants shunned by Valean society find their ways here, where the vast swathes of empty forest allow them to live simple, albeit unperturbed lives. In recent years the Crown has increased its cultural pressure in attempts to bring these folk to heel, but those attempts only resulted in spotted resistance which surely gave way to a full-blown rebellion.
The rebels have taken to calling their nestling country Rhinefeld, named after the first Martyr to die to the crowns 'justice'. They've recently laid claim to the second largest trade port in the county, Vespar, and have since named it their capital.
Ferros
Northeast of Valeal and Rhinefeld, temperate forests transition to coniferous trees. High levels of yearly rainfall keep these lands soaked and the poor fertility keeps them wild. Deep in these forested lowlands, a mighty mountain range breaks the sky's horizon with snow-capped peaks which stretch to the heavens. Then beyond the first mountain range, there is a second, with a deep valley presiding between the two filled with a sea of purple-leafed crops. The people of Ferros named it the Violet Valley named after the purple leaves of a hardy food they grow in their terraced farms. Here is where a vast majority of Ferronians call home.
They live in homes on the face of the mountains or within the mountains themselves. Giants used to call these mountains home long before the first men ever set foot on this continent. They built their cities in the hearts of mountains and connected them with a network of colossal tunnels. The giants are long gone but the Ferronians have built their homes out of the ruins. Other than the tunnels, little remains of what the Giants had built. What does remain however are marvels of the modern world. First, an ancient and colossal bridge named Heaven's Pass spans the two mountain ranges. A bridge so wide it's rumored that it's width breaks the horizon, and constructed by some long forgotten means of magic and masonry it stands as pristine as the day the giants built it. Second, at the tallest mountain of either range, a mountain molded of blackened stone, the peak is sheared off and flattened. Here the Ferronians built their capital, Blackheart, around the ebony head of a titanic statue. Indeed of the statue, only the head remains. It is so large it can be spotted from the lowlands by a vigilant eye. Constructed by the same inexplicable means of magic and masonry Heaven's Pass, the magic of the statue's head wards the mountaintop from cold and snow, resulting in a rather odd display of greenery at such a high altitude.
To the North of Ferros the lands are cold and inhospitable. Wild barbaric tribes of monstrous beastfolk and primal men threaten to scale the cliffs and lay waste to the world. Only the mountains and the armies of Ferros stand between this inhuman horde and complete destruction of the realms of man, or so the Ferronians believe. Though, inexplicably, in recent years the number of beastfolk has grown rampant. Perhaps the Ferronians are right and they truly are all that stands between the civilized world and utter annihilation.
Kain
Far East of Gorgon, Valeal, Rhinefeld, and Ferros, far beyond the great plains where elephants and lions roam, beyond even the scorching desert, rests the kingdom of Kaine along the floodplains of a great river. Here giant crocodiles and hippos stalk the waters, and a host of animals found nowhere else in the world thrive. The people of Kaine thrive in trade of exotic goods such as dyes, slaves, sugars, drugs, fabrics, gems and other rarities. The wealthiest nation in the world they build giant monuments to rival that built by giants, pyramids and sphinxes line the river as trade barges sail the gentle waters. Bulwarked by the desert and ocean Kaine can only be invaded by sea, which that itself may be impossible for Kaine boasts the largest fleet of any known kingdom.
Religions and cultures from all walks of life here thrive, and living among humans there is an abundance of other races from the world over, the diversity of which is unrivaled anywhere else. The people here are ruled by a god-king, an immortal presiding in his forbidden court at the top of a golden pyramid in the capital of Able.
Kain has been blessed by a prolonged period of peace and prosperity under the eternal rule of their god-king, but recent events have appeared to put that at risk. People are are going missing at an alarming rate, corpses are sometimes found lying in the street drained of blood, and there are rumors that the dead are rising again to wander the desert sands.