Embyr: World of Two Moons Ever Sundered and Remade
Known in ancient times as Athas, Athea is located in Southern Aurodei northeast of the Talian Peninsula. Athea is surrounded on the north by Mohstov, to the west by Calabria and Talia, and to the south and east by the Sea of Steel. The kingdom consists of a large mainland and over 1200 islands scattered throughout the Athacean Archipelago including Asos, Delphia, Bydia, and Brechtur.
More than half of Athea is mountainous. The Eumun and Calabrian Mountians hedge the kingdom away from the mainstream of Talian Civilization with an elevation as high as 6,200 feet. In the center of Athea stands Mount Zenia, rising 8,700 feet above sea level. On the Talian border is the great Gorge of Tytheus which plunges vertically for more than 3,300 feet. Much of southern Athea is covered in vast, thick forests, lakes and wetlands.
The climate in Athea is typical of Southern Aurodei: mild and rainy winters, relatively warm and dry summers and in general, extended periods of sunshine throughout most of the year.
Athea is one of the most established, ancient civilizations in the western world and is covered in ruins from The First Age that are still standing. There is a very deep connection to the traditions of magic in Athea, and in some places here arcane energies can be warped and shaped like nowhere else in all of Embyr.
Like much of Aurodei, Ancient Athas was nearly overrun by the First Empire of Asham in the second age. The sovereign of Athas, King Ursia along with his longtime rival in Theed, King Jakan, made use of the land’s unique topography and wellsprings of magic to keep the southern hoards at bay long enough for Talia and Calabria to rally an army great enough to force the Ashamie back to the shores of Eddra Kha. Later at the end of The Third Age, the principality of Athea, now a part of the second Empire of Talia was one of the few to resist the diabolic forces of Talia’s Fallen. Athea, like many kingdoms in Aurodei achieved its independence from Talia at war’s end and has remained so since the dawn of The Fourth Age.
The Athean people are generally olive skinned with dark hair and can have eyes of nearly any color. There is an interesting and unique tendency however for an Athean to be born as an Alabaster; a person of absolute white features, or as an Onyx; a person of jet black. Though they are flesh and blood like any other, these offshoots appear as living statues, and while they are revered by the Athean people as touched by the divine, they often encounter scorn when they travel abroad.
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