Refuge Map [https://i.imgur.com/a8NXel0.png]
THE ALLIANCE:
The different colors in the map show different countries, with similar colors roughly indicating culturally similar countries. All the planet’s countries, however, are part of the One World Alliance, a confederation founded to address the threat of mages after the Moonbreaking.
The OWA directly controls the Council of Mages, the Agency for Thaumological Control and most of the world’s armed forces, and has partial control on other issues (for example, there’s a world-wide police force, but most countries also have their own police).
Beside security matters, however, the countries making up the Alliance are mostly independent, and the OWA can try to coordinate efforts but doesn’t have the final say - for example, OWA government has been trying for some time to set up a worldwide identity certification system, but some countries are outright refusing or dragging their feet.
THE CONTINENTS:
Most of Refuge’s landmass is divided in three continents - from west to east in this map, Karesia, Zelenia and Great Taer.
KARESIA (on the west) is the largest, most populous, and the seat of the One World Alliance government. Art of the Veil is set in the city of Rakavdon, in the Vorokan republic, a country in the extreme north of the continent (light purple).
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The city of Landfall, in the Riverland Confederation (orange), is the world’s largest city and the capital of the OWA. Its culture is extremely influential over the whole continent and the world at large.
The country of Kalester (deep purple) borders Vorok in the East. It used to be a wealthy country, made rich by trade with Zelenia, but it was devastated in a revolt backed by mages, and never recovered.
Andvor (blue) used to be the main political rival to the Riverland Confederation, but in modern times fell to a secondary importance. In ancient times, it used to be the core territory of the Thaumocracy, a magical empire which left ruins all over the continent.
ZELENIA, the middle continent, is divided in two parts by a mountain range, impassable by land.
South Zelenia used to be dominated by the Kingdom of Saevin, which ruled the Zelenian Sea for most of recorded history, and was the seat of the industrial revolution on Refuge. Saevin used to rival Landfall for importance, but gradually lost ground after the Moonbreaking, and twenty years before the story began, was devastated by another Mage Revolt. Recovery is very difficult, due to political factors, magical fallout, and climatic changes causing severe drought.
North Zelenia is less populous and used to be a comparatively backward region, but being less touched by war and climate change, has been growing in wealth and importance.
GREAT TAER, the continent in the east, was unified by a single empire at the very beginning of recorded history, and except brief periods of fragmentation, mostly remained a united polity. Due to isolationism, it was late to industrialize, and it was forcibly conquered by the Alliance after the Moonbreaking.
It used to be considered politically marginal, but as Karesia and Zelenia struggle with wars and natural disasters, Great Taer finally caught up in technological terms, and is now by far the single largest and most populous member state of the Alliance.