Sigil:Gazetteer
The Sigil Lands are kingdoms and wild places, rivers and mountain fastnesses, haunted marches and crowded ports; lands divided by crowns, faiths, memory, and wars whose borders have never entirely stopped moving.
From the Travelers’ Book: Here are recorded the realms and roads of the Sigil Lands, their cities and rivers, their banners and quarrels, and those places where history has left its mark upon the earth.
Gazetteer
[edit]The Sigil Lands are not a single realm but a patchwork of kingdoms, city-states, tribal lands, hidden domains, islands, marches, and disputed territories.
The great Ais River cuts through their heart, carrying grain, armies, pilgrims, merchants, and news from kingdom to kingdom. To the west rise the Shadows of the Sun; to the east lie the waters of the Sunrise Sea. Between them stand some of the oldest surviving realms of the known world.
Borders here are rarely simple. A field may belong to one crown by treaty, another by ancient charter, and a third according to the people who actually live there. Rivers change course. Kingdoms rise and disappear. Old names stubbornly survive on maps long after the rulers who gave them meaning are gone.
This Gazetteer gathers the chief lands of the Sigil Lands as they stand in the Age of the Comet.
The Great Realms
[edit]The Dragon Kingdom. The largest of the central kingdoms, famed for armored lancers, powerful High Baronies, civil wars, and the creed of Strength and Honor.
The Blade of the South. Small, cultivated, skillful, and fiercely independent. Where Angharais is a broadsword, Calalais is a rapier.
The Wild Kingdom. The northern homeland of the Uragh: open plains, clan fires, warbands, ancient oaths, and a people who regard walls with suspicion.
The Gilded Kingdom. Once a Sarriveline city, now an independent realm governed through the office of its First Magistrate. Wealth, trade, intrigue, and corruption meet in its crowded streets.
The High Kingdom. A mountain realm of monasteries, sacred valleys, and pilgrimage roads where the Triadic Faith first took form.
The Free Kingdom. A land born in rebellion against slavery, famed for its riders, freeholders, fierce independence, and determination never again to bow to tyranny.
The Sea Kingdom. A wealthy maritime power of sailors, merchants, courtiers, and fleets; rival to Angharais and one of the great surviving Rhone kingdoms.
The Hermit Kingdom. The hidden homeland of the Seylandri, guarded by ancient forest, secrecy, song, and the workings of the Saël.
The Bastion of the North. A rugged mountain kingdom of old bloodlines, hearth-oaths, stone fortresses, and memories carved as deeply as its valleys.
The Shadow Kingdom. Once the greatest Rhone kingdom of its age. For more than a century it has lain beneath the dominion of the Vorghol and the unnatural darkness of the Shroud.
The Deep Kingdom. The mountain homeland of the Vulkah, whose fortress-cities, Septs, deep roads, and ancient traditions reach back into forgotten ages.
The Golden Isles. A fiercely independent maritime realm of free captains, merchants, sailors, and the greatest haven for pirates in the known world.
Lands Between Crowns
[edit]Not every important region belongs neatly to a single ruler.
The fertile and frequently contested country along the Ais. Armies come and go, banners change, toll-houses burn and are rebuilt, and the Rivermen endure.
A strategic wedge of fertile land where the interests of Angharais, Sarrivel, and Tael Neydra meet. Its towns have changed hands often enough that loyalty can be as seasonal as the harvest.
A rich basin of fields, waterways, towns, and trade routes lying between several competing powers. Its wealth has made it valuable enough to fight over for generations.
A scattered island refuge of Freefishers, exiles, smugglers, sailors, and independent ship-clans south of the Stormlands.
The drowned western approaches to Mazirin: black water, reeds, fog, illicit traffic, and the great causeway carrying trade above the mire.
The warm southern coast and its sea-roads, joining independent ports, merchant powers, corsair havens, islands, and kingdoms whose fortunes depend upon the water.
Rivers and Waters
[edit]The great river of the central Sigil Lands, broad, slow, fertile, dangerous, and commercially indispensable. Kingdoms rise along its banks because wealth travels upon its waters.
A colder and faster river rising near the Border Range and running through contested country toward Sarrick Bay.
One of the great maritime crossroads of the eastern Sigil Lands, crowded with warships, merchant fleets, privateers, islands, toll stations, and old grudges.
The great hidden lake at the heart of Seylannon, sacred to the Seylandri and rarely seen by outsiders.
The river flowing from the Aelfmere and forming one of the guarded boundaries of Seylannon.
The Sunrise Sea
[edit]The eastern waters beyond Sarrivel and the coastlands, carrying traders and travelers toward lands beyond the Sigil Lands.
The cold northern sea beyond Tael Brannoch, known for harsh weather, whales, seals, and dangerous coastal waters.
Mountains, Forests, and Wild Lands
[edit]The immense western mountain chain forming one of the great natural boundaries of the Sigil Lands. Vulkah strongholds, Meranti monasteries, forgotten ruins, and ancient passes lie among its peaks.
The high northern mountains of Tael Brannoch, snowbound for much of the year and broken by narrow valleys and defended passes.
The harsh coastal country of Tael Neydra, battered by violent weather and darkened further by its proximity to the Shroud.
The surviving remnant of the great ancient forests associated with the Seylandri, greatly diminished since the wars of elder days.
Great Cities and Strongholds
[edit]Many of the best-known places in the Sigil Lands are inseparable from the realms that surround them.
Ais Cambrai is the island capital of Angharais, standing upon the Ais beneath the Dragon Banner.
Jehan is the royal capital of Calalais, a city of courts, swordsmanship, sea winds, and carefully maintained independence.
Mazirin is both city and realm; the Maze is the political and commercial heart of Mazirin.
Celonna is the sacred capital of Merant, destination of pilgrims from across the Triadic lands.
Fort Winter is the royal seat of Rhess.
Corvessa, the City of Voices, is the capital and great maritime center of Sarrivel.
Tar Maelion, the City of Song, lies hidden within Seylannon.
Carn Cruach is the mountain seat of the High Kings of Tael Brannoch.
Camars was the ancient capital of Tael Neydra and the city most closely associated with the legacy of Brannais.
Dolgur is the dread seat of Vorghol power within Tael Neydra.
Karn Vuldar is one of the great fortress-cities of Vulk and a meeting place of the Vulkah Septs.
The Land Remembers
[edit]To travel through the Sigil Lands is to travel through history.
A road may follow the route of an army dead for a thousand years. A village may preserve the name of a kingdom otherwise forgotten. A bridge may stand because three kings died trying to possess the ford beneath it.
The land itself is therefore inseparable from the long history of those who have fought, settled, abandoned, reclaimed, and renamed it.
For that history, see:
- Chronicle of the Sigil Lands
- The Numberless Wars
- The Great Wrath
- The Warg Years
- The Age of the Comet
- The Crusade
The river flows for no man.
— Riverlands proverb
Beyond the Map
[edit]The Gazetteer describes places, but places cannot be understood without the people who inhabit them.
- Peoples and Cultures — The Rhone, Seylandri, Vulkah, Tobon, Uragh, Gholibin, and others.
- Kings and Realms — The crowns, rulers, lordships, and political powers of the present age.
- Wars and Catastrophes — The conflicts that drew and redrew the map.
- Orders, Faiths, and Powers — The beliefs, institutions, and supernatural powers shaping the lands.
- The Present Age — The political and military situation during the Age of the Comet.
Maps show where the borders lie. History explains why anyone still cares.