An Adventurer’s Guide to Golarion’s Inner Sea – Part 2
The Inner Sea is as familiar to Pathfinders as the Sword Coast is to Faerunians. Here’s everything else you need to know.
Golarion’s Inner Sea region has shaped the fate of the world. Of gods and monsters. It’s been the place where demons from the abyss have launched invasions. Where stars have fallen to the earth. From there, lich kings have risen, and ancient evils have been sealed away forever.
The turmoil that grips one nation spills out into the rest of the world. As the Inner Sea goes, so goes Golarion. And the best way to read the winds of the Inner Sea is to look at the regions that it comprised.
Inner Sea – Regions and Cultures
Infinite opportunities for adventure existed within the Inner Sea Region. It was home to dozens of nations, frontiers, wildlands, and more. The region was home to heroism and villainy, exploration and adventure alike!
Most of the modern Inner Sea was defined by ten distinct “regions” which encapsulate one or more kingdoms.
- Old Cheliax
- Saga Lands
- Eye of Dread
- Broken Lands
- Shining Kingdom
- Golden Road
- Impossible Lands
- Mwangi Expanse
- Absalom and Starstone Isle
- The High Seas
Distinct styles and cultures grew within each of these regions, leading to a life that could differ even across arbitrary borders.
The Impossible Lands
The Impossible Lands were often hailed as a perfect example of what becomes possible with magic. Scattered across its varying landscape, were feats that would be all but impossible wonders elsewhere. Though these impossibilities were not always beneficial to all. In the nation of Geb, for instance, the living were a minority, and undeath reigned. Ruled by a violent, malevolent ghost, who gave the nation its name, the people of Geb have seen cruelty, violence, and sadism a-plenty.
To the north, the people of Nex carved out a more cosmopolitan realm. Nex, which was also named for its ruler, was a place of pure magic. Arcane wonders like golems patrolled the streets as though they were commonplace. And the Arclords, who ruled the nation in the absence of its founders, only drove the need for more arcane magic higher.
This is why the other most commonplace feature in the Impossible Lands was a blighted landscape known as the Mana Wastes. The Mana Wastes were formed over centuries of warfare between the people of Geb and Nex. And only recently, in other neighboring nations like Alkenstar, have people started embracing technological innovations instead.
The Mwangi Expanse
The Mwangi Expanse was home to a wide array of civilizations, both past and present. Here was where one could find the largest stretch of wilderness in the Inner Sea regions. And it was said that here, one of the first civilizations rose from the ashes of Earthfall—a cataclysmic event that all but wiped out civilizations on the surface of Golarion.
But the Mwangi Expanse was also home to more recent cataclysmic disasters. Just over a century ago, the Eye of Abendego, a vicious, permanent hurricane formed in the wake of the death of Aroden. The hurricane’s massive winds and waves led to two nations being flooded. Lirgen and Yamasa have since become the Sodden Lands. A swath of swampland and saltmarshes inhospitable to most life have taken over.
But it wasn’t all ruin and destruction. The Mwangi expanse was home to a wealth of diverse and powerful city-states. From the Bloodcove, ruled by the mercantile league f the Aspis Consortium, to the port of Senghor, which was a bastion against piracy and other depredation on the open seas, to the city-state of Nantambu whose citizens carry on one of the most ancient traditions of magic in Golarion. They practiced the traditions of Old-Mage Jatembe, combining both arcane and primal magic, to great effect.
Old Cheliax
If ever there was a heel of the Inner Sea Regions, it was Old Cheliax. Proud, aristocratic, the sort of fallen from its heights empire you can really love to hate. Cheliax was full of decadent grandeur given way to hedonistic excess and the ruin that inevitably follows in its wake. After a civil war led to the House of Thrune emerging as the new house in power, Cheliax became a nation of devilry. Literally, the Church of Asmodeus was the primary religion of the empire.
In Cheliax, despite the House of Thrune claiming that it merely made a deal with the infernals for power, the devils rule. But evil can only hold sway for so long. In recent history, uprisings have started sprouting up. Like weeds in an untended garden. As the corruption of Cheliax grew, so did the ineffectiveness of its rule. And on the outskirts, rebellions have been fomented. And fomented hard. The Iomedaean rebellion, called the Glorious Reclamation threatened House Thrune’s rule. And though they were ultimately defeated, a new nation was formed in the wake by another group of rebels: the Silver Ravens, who formed the new nation of Ravounel.
It was only a matter of time to see who breaks first. The fiery spirit of rebellion or the decadence of a devilish empire.
The Saga Lands
The Saga Lands were a nation of legendary heroes. Of sprawling northern reaches with vast mountains and icy waters. Home to Vikings and witches and other figures that had a mythic sort of import, the Saga Lands were a region of tall tales given life and physical form. All of which stemmed from an ancient legacy from a long-dead empire: Thassilon.
Millennia ago Thassilon was the empire of the tyrannical Runelords, a cadre of wizards who sought to dominate all of Golarion. They fell, most of them, during Earthfall. Though a few managed to survive and hid away in extradimensional domains tied to tombs buried deep beneath the Saga Lands.
And not long ago, they started reawakening. Two surviving runelords decided to adjust their traditions to fit the strange new world they found themselves in, leading to the birth of New Thassilon alongside the nation of Varisia.
The Shining Kingdoms
Another home of history for the Inner Sea region, the Shining Kingdoms, were once the sight of the proud empire of Taldor. This colonial power has since fallen, and become nothing but a shadow of its former self. Grappling with its past, Taldor has recently come into a new empress, one more progressive and interested in building a brighter future. Meanwhile, to the west of the Shining Kingdoms, another nation has recently entered the world stage. Andoran, a new nation that seceded not long ago from the nation of Cheliax, has helped to be a beacon of inspiration for more egalitarian-minded folk.
And to the north of all of that, the dwarves made their home. Spread in the range known as the Mountains of Kings, the dwarven empires have helped bolster the Shining Kingdom’s wealth with minerals dug up from deep within the earth. West of that, was the powerful nation of Druma, a seafaring nation that was extremely strict. And whose trade influence helps connect the dwarven kingdoms with the elves in the forests of Kyonin.
All of this, is but a fraction of the expanse of Golarion’s Inner Sea, why not explore for yourself and learn more?
