Beneath the continent, the Corrupted God lies bound, sealed in 2135 MR at the close of the Dark Era. The chains are anchored by the Seven Wardstones, all of them placed within the domain of Myrkono under Araphel's watch. They have held for four centuries.
In 2524 MR (eight years ago) the Nine Dungeons erupted from the earth, disgorging the first great corruption armies of the modern age. The kingdoms broke that first wave; the dungeons' entrances were sealed; one of the Nine Generals has fallen. Eight remain. The smaller leakage continues. This is the present condition of Talan. Read more in The Binding →.
Tyrnarra → Talan → Domains → Sub-Regions & Kingdoms → Settlements
Tyrnarra is the world entire: all three planar layers, the Cloud Sea, and everything within. Talan is the great continent of the Material Plane and the only place where the thirteen Bound Gods reside.
Talan is divided into thirteen Domains, one per bound god. These are ancient regions, named in tongues older than any living kingdom. Each Domain contains sub-regions: some of which are kingdoms, others tribal lands, others uninhabited wilderness, and a few unclaimed. Within those sit the settlements: city-states, free cities, towns, hamlets, and ruins.
Across all of it: Talanese. Each kingdom keeps its own tongue, but the common language of the continent is Talanese, an inheritance of the Golden Empire that braided Imperial Dwarvish through every local language during seven centuries of Imperial reach. On any Magitrain platform, in any market town, at any Branch Office of the Adventurers' Guild, you will find someone who understands you. The exceptions are real: certain remote tribal lands of Ehizahar, the deep clan-villages of the Basogur Jungle, and ritual-only languages preserved by druids and shamans across both. Off the Guild's map, fluency stops being a guarantee.
The thirteen Domains are listed below. Each links to its own page.
See the maps → · terrain, kingdoms, and god-domains in three views
Talan is stitched together by Magitrains. Scheduled passenger and freight service runs as common as roads in the regions the rails reach; most Talanese mortals have ridden a train at least once in their lives, and most kingdom merchants depend on the schedule for the goods that arrive on Monday. The rail network is not a luxury. It is the substrate of modern continental commerce, and the single most visible piece of Magitech in daily life.
The Magitrain itself is the Order of Steam's signature invention. Arcanotech as a craft is older: Elden-ruin reverse-engineering ran for centuries in the Lost Era, and the Golden Empire was very good at it; formula-driven enchantment and early airship engines all date to those centuries. What none of the Order's predecessors built was rail-bound mass acceleration at industrial scale. The Order rose at the end of the Dark Era around a single concentrated Elden-tech excavation in Sumendar's volcanic belt, and the engine designs the recoveries yielded became the modern Magitrain: the Order laid the first long lines out of the volcanic belt and remains the network's principal manufacturer. Most modern rolling stock comes from Order shops or its licensed derivatives.
The network is two interconnected halves, not one continental whole. The northern domains share one rail system; the southern domains share another; no through-rail crosses between them. Every Talanese merchant who needs to move goods north-to-south knows the seam intimately.
The two networks do not connect because no rail has ever been laid across Basogur Jungle, the deep jungle straddling Nashavel and Ehizahar that bisects the continent's east-central waist. Multiple Magitech engineering projects have attempted the crossing over the decades; every one has failed. The reasons are three, and they compound:
North-south travel is therefore done by other means. Each has its own economy attached, and the kingdoms astride each alternative draw real revenue from it.
The bulk-cargo route. Talan's freshwater inner sea is the preferred lane for the heavy stillships that haul tonnage no passenger schedule can take. The Twin Cities (the mobile pirate capital drifting through Midarra) draw real revenue from being a routine transit point. Toll, escort, or both.
The premium passenger and urgent-freight option. Arcanotech airships do this regularly but suffer turbulence and instrument drift in the chaos-magic uplift. Occultech airships fly through it cleanly and charge accordingly. Vindul and Sumendar airship guilds dominate the over-jungle route.
The long road that loops around Basogur: slow, monetised by toll-collecting kingdoms along the bypass. The poor route, the patient route, the route taken when the airship guilds are full or the season is bad on Midarra. Still used; still profitable for whoever holds the tolls.
Train Pirates are contemporary banditry active across both networks. They hit at the slow stretches: climbs, junctions, station approaches, the places where Arcanotech acceleration drops to walking pace. Langsam auf Land, schnell auf Schiene ("slow on land, fast on rail") is the train-piracy axiom. Most crews are ordinary mortal banditry in for the cargo; a minority are politically motivated. The Order of Steam fields its own Magitech-armed security on its licensed lines; smaller operators rely on Adventurers' Guild contracts.
Talan is one of several continents in Tyrnarra. Most are little known to Talanese scholars: Hafra is wide, the Cloud Sea wider, and active contact is rare. Two are named in canon. The rest exist but remain unmapped from this side of the water.
Cloudships are the only practical way for Talan to reach another continent. Every cloudship is dual-school Magitech (Arcanotech plus Occultech, almost always), which is the structural reason they are so rare. The Adventurers' Guild commissions Sortalde expeditions individually and pays survivor-tax rates; the Iron Tide has lost ships trying to reach Sortalde and the Empire's standing policy is don't bother. A voyage to either named continent is a campaign, not a trip.
For the eras that shaped this continent (Elden, Gods', the Week of Crimson Rain, the Dark Era), see History & Eras.
For the Seven Wardstones, the Nine Generals of Corruption, and the War of Seals, see The Binding.
For the four schools of magic, Magitech, the Mortal Ascent Ladder, and the domains beyond the Thirteen, see Magic & Faith.
For the Adventurers Guild, the Mercenary Guild, and the other independent organisations spanning the continent, see Factions.