Tarkhos Dominion

Tarkhos Dominion
Capital	Skarov's Spine
Located in	Eastern Continent
Population	4,100,000
Landmarks	Skarov's Spine; Ashroad Concourse; Inferno Canal; Ridge-Pass Emberway; Smoke-Loft Courier Lines; Steppe-Rail & Skyband Ways; Stonewail Rise
Settlements
Factions	The Echohunters (Type: Mercenary) The Glass Market Syndicates (Type: Criminal) The Luminous Archive (Type: Religious) The Pale Accord (Type: Religious) The Stormcall Circles (Type: Religious) The Unsealers (Type: Criminal) The Vigilant Concord (Type: Political)
Coordinates	22.0,132.0
Campaigns

Tarkhos Dominion

Tarkhos is a realm forged in fire and oath. Its people measure worth not by coin but by the temper of their steel and the endurance of their promises. Known across Velthuryn for embersteel, an alloy smelted in volcanic furnaces from ore veined through the Stonewail Rise, Tarkhos supplies half the continent with blades, ploughshares, and contracts etched into metal itself. Every caravan carries not just goods but law: scrolls engraved into embersteel sheets, untearable and fireproof, their clauses binding as long as the plate endures.

Tarkhos stretches across the northwestern corner of the eastern continent, bordered by Torral to the north, Nokhul Vale to the east, and Aeterron to the south. Its western shore opens onto the Bangrave Sea, dotted with shipyards and smelter-harbors that trade directly with Lexharrow across the gulf. To the east, Tarkhos shares a great interior lake with Nokhul Vale, its waters steaming in places where volcanic vents bubble beneath.

The land is a study in contrasts. The coastal areas have harbors and fishing villages that thrive where sea winds cool the ash plains. Salt caravans follow the shoreline, exchanging grain and embersteel for western goods. The Stonewail foothills are jagged ridges and glacier-fed valleys where ore is quarried and ember-furnaces roar. Its volcanic interior is a badlands of obsidian and ash basins, punctuated by nomadic camps. Sulfur geysers and fireglass fields make the land hazardous yet rich in resources. And the lakefront basin with its fertile soils rims the shared lake with Nokhul Vale, sustaining barley terraces, mushroom fields, and settlements that double as trade marts.

Solivar's longbright makes the ash plains shimmer red, while Tassaryn's glow reflects in the volcanic lakes during deepglow, a phenomenon called the Twin Ember, regarded as a sacred omen.

Capital – Skarov's Spine

Capital – Skarov's Spine: Rising from the fossilized ribs of a long-dead fire titan, Skarov's Spine crowns a caldera where the Stonewail foothills tumble toward the Bangrave Sea. Forge-terraces ring the volcanic basin, their chimneys breathing crimson by longbright, while rope-latticed towers sway above ash-savanna winds that funnel down from the Rise. Here the forge-clans and rope-bands entwine in rhythm: the Sunbellows drive molten ore with desert thermals by day, while the Moonquench temper blades and caravan axles in the caldera's black quench-pool beneath Tassaryn's light.

Simiah rope-runners are the city's lifeblood, sprinting across sky-bridges with contracts, ledgers, and embersteel ingots before a secret can cool enough to be stolen. Each leap between towers is a vow renewed, their movements binding trade as tightly as law. At the lake's rim, apprentices gather under Cyressel's arc to leap into the mirror-water, their sky-dances joining moonlight to steel; smiths say cooled blades do not only "remember the moon's courage," but also the balance of every dancer who risked the fall.

Skarov's Spine trades in embersteel blades, volcanic salt, and glass-veiled armor, but its greatest export is speed: the famed Skyband Couriers, rope-trained emissaries who can carry a treaty across Tarkhos faster than any rider. Revered and feared, a courier's mark is treated as binding as embersteel itself, for to carry the Band's seal is to carry the Dominion's will.

Interior Trade Routes of Tarkhos

The interior of Tarkhos is stitched together by roads, canals, and sky-lines that carry ore, contracts, and oaths from peak to harbor.

Route	Description	Goods	Hazards
Ashroad Concourse	A 400-mile obsidian highway running from Skarov's Spine on the Bangrave coast through the volcanic basins to the Stonewail foothills and shared lake towns with Nokhul Vale. Patrolled by Simiah rope-runners, the road is kept molten-straight by chained magma myrmidons. Crimson marker-pillars double as anchor poles for rope bridges linking caravan stops.	Obsidian ore, embersteel billets, geothermal crystals bound for Lexharrow via Bangrave ports.	Sudden fireglass storms (razor shards on hot wind); raiding bands of exiled Drakona oath-breakers testing caravans for weakness.
Inferno Canal	A series of lava-heated sluice tunnels and brine-fed channels that carry barges from Stonewail forges down to the Bangrave coast. Simiah divers leap between sluice locks, ferrying contracts faster than the current.	Saltglass ingots, bulk basalt, ceremonial obsidian idols destined for Sunlash collectors (via Bangrave shipping lanes).	Caustic steam geysers; fire-eiryn spirits demanding tolls in song or blood; rope-divers lost to sudden sluice surges.
Ridge-Pass Emberway	Switchback routes carved into the Stonewail Rise, guarded by Flameward Sentinels and Simiah Band arbiters who run ridges on tightropes. Tribute is often collected through sky-duel contests fought above the chasms.	Beacon-oil, Aurexian sun-gold exchanged for Dominion armaments.	Mandatory Trial-by-Ember duels for outsiders; lava-wyrms nesting beneath cantilever bridges; ambushes by oathless Orc reavers.
Smoke-Loft Courier Lines	Hot-air gliders and kite-harnessed rope-dancers ride volcanic updrafts between peaks and coast, carrying sealed runic tubes through aerial currents. Messages reach the Bangrave faster than any caravan.	Battle orders, clan treaties, jewel caches.	Turbulent updrafts; ash drake ambushes; rival Band sharpshooters testing balance with arrowfire.
Steppe-Rail & Skyband Ways	A new hybrid of embersteel rail and suspended ropeways, linking Skarov's Spine to Bangrave harbors. Simiah couriers dart between train cars mid-motion to exchange contracts, earning it the title "fastest road in Velthuryn." Goods continue across the sea to Fleaspark and Lexharrow.	Contract ledgers, patent-sealed goods, Ember-Ink Pact scrolls.	Band rivalries over route rights; sabotage by Goblin codemasters; Infernis arsonists setting rails alight under deepglow.

Dangers to Outsiders

Ash Serpents (fauna)

Heat-born drakes that coil in volcanic vents and strike with molten breath. Their scales shimmer like glass, and smiths sometimes risk their lives harvesting the creatures' obsidian fangs for ritual blades.

Glassstorms (geography)

Razor winds whip across the badlands, hurling shards of obsidian into caravans. Survivors carry lifelong scars called "ember-etchings," treated as both mark of honor and omen of ill-fate.

Lake Fumaroles (geography)

Along the shared lake with Nokhul Vale, hidden vents belch sulfurous gas. Entire fishing villages have vanished overnight in what locals call the "Silent Suffocations."

Oath-Breaker's Brand (cultural)

When an embersteel contract is broken, the warped plate sears molten glyphs into the oathbreaker's skin. The branded become pariahs, hunted across caravans as untrustworthy and cursed.

Skyband Duels (cultural)

Rope-bands that dominate Skarov's Spine sometimes turn feuds into high-wire duels fought between towers. Losing is often fatal, and even victors may fall if the rope snaps. Outsiders caught in band rivalries can be forced into combat.

Ashfang Boars (fauna)

Hulking, tusked beasts adapted to volcanic plains. They root through ember-cooled slag for minerals, and their charge can shatter caravan wagons. Nomads wear their tusks as crests of survival.

Stonewail Quakes (geography)

The Stonewail Rise occasionally convulses in resonance-quakes, opening fissures of molten ore or collapsing entire caravan roads. Local lore claims each quake is the "oath-shudder" of the fire titan whose fossil bones formed Skarov's Spine.

Hospitality & Custom

Travelers who respect Tarkhos custom, presenting an iron-etched sigil of peaceful purpose, then offering a symbolic bead of cooled slag upon entering a Band's territory, are granted rope-escorts and fierce hospitality. Those who try to pass bandless or cheat the Ember-Bound Realm find the ropeways cut from under them, the land itself siding with the Bands to drive intruders back to the sea.

Ancestry Distribution in Tarkhos

Concentrated Ancestry (Predominant)

• Simiah – Tarkhos is their heartland. Agile climbers and acrobats, Simiah culture has infused the state's architecture and politics: buildings are strung with rope bridges and towers designed for aerial passage; caravan guards train in "sky-dance" martial forms; merchants trust Simiah roof-runners to carry contracts faster than any horse. Their kinship groups (called Bands) dominate trade, espionage, and festival pageantry.

Integrated but Minority Groups

• Humans – Present across merchant guilds, many have intermarried into Simiah Bands, adopting some of their acrobatic customs.
• Dwarves – Found in trade outposts and mining enclaves, valued for secure transport of ores and weaponry.
• Orcs – Revered as caravan enforcers; their oath-signed protection sigils guarantee the safety of Simiah caravans.
• Goblins – Serve as tinkers, locksmiths, and code-writers for trade maps, often in competition with Simiah for control of secret routes.

Marginalized / Outsider Groups

• Fungril – Often seen as unsettling in a land obsessed with open sky; they are pushed to the fringes of ruins, where they trade rare alchemical spores.
• Infernis – Suspected of arson in caravan disputes; rarely tolerated in cities, sometimes hired covertly as saboteurs.

Tarkhos Dominion is a nation that treats oaths as metal and roads as living tests. Those who can balance on its ropes, endure its ash, and keep their word under fire may find the Dominion a fierce but loyal ally.

Culture and Law

Tarkhos has no written code. Law is remembered through precedent trials. When a dispute arises, elders recall similar trials and the outcomes endured. Judgment is not about fairness. It is about whether the involved parties can bear the consequence they demand.

Leadership in Tarkhos is temporary by design. Every leader must periodically reaffirm authority through open challenge. These challenges do not require death. They require demonstration. Endurance. Composure. Refusal to break.

This makes Tarkhos stable but never comfortable.

Major Conflict

Strength Has Become the Only Language

Tarkhos resolves all disputes through endurance and trial, but some problems cannot be carried on one back or solved by personal resilience. External pressures, resource scarcity, and generational fatigue demand cooperation and compromise that Tarkhos culture struggles to value. No one knows how to change without proving weakness first.

This problem cannot be solved by conquest, reform, or tradition alone.

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Potential Campaign Hooks

1. A leader survives a challenge but clearly should not have
2. A trial kills someone it was never meant to endanger
3. The Quiet Hands threaten to withdraw support from future trials
4. Outsiders demand arbitration using Tarkhos methods and cannot endure them
5. A sacred path begins collapsing and no one agrees who must climb it