Centuries ago, the channel between two great continents erupted in rushing sinks of water, drawn violently downward to fissures deep beneath the heaving ocean. History has now forgotten both the cause of the cataracts and the lands that lay on the other side. There is no passage across.

Today, the land is split into two major territories-- Bexton to the north, and Arridia to the south-- with smaller peripheral regions besides. The people of Bex and the Arrish desert dwellers, confined to the coast by the impenetrable Giants' Rise, unable to cross the Boiling Sea, and seldom willing to brave the boreal bears and biting cold of the Everwhite, have come to a deep and abiding tension. The tribes of Arridia are a quiet and independent people, while the Kingdom of Bexton reaches further north and south as it grows in power. Small skirmishes between the two factions have begun to spark at their shared border, but so far terse diplomacy has forestalled fullscale conflict... for now.