Middle Kingdom

This page is associated with Ephemeral Elephants adventure

The Land

The Middle Kingdom is a series of river valleys, mostly flowing west to east, on a large continent surrounded by Ocean.  The people live in the river valleys or on the lowland plains.  There are many mountain chains in & around the MK — some are impassable, especially as almost all flying magic does not work, even Gliding, Levitation, or Wind-walking ... although the previous party discovered a few exceptions such as transformation into a natural bird.  Falling upward was also possible.

The land beyond the sea (especially to the Burning South) is where dragons dwell, and where Saints & Gods are rumoured to adventure.

Bright & Day

The "Day" is about 14 & a half hours long: subjectively about 30 hours long including the Bright-time cycle.  During the day, the sky is illuminated by hundreds of thousands of stars: in Drow-form you see at least as well as a human on a bright day.  In the evening there is a period of too-light, as a fiery haze starts to light the South-east sky.  Too-light (both in the evening & morning) causes physical discomfort to those still awake whether under shelter or in the open.

The Bright itself is normally spent in deep sleep: it take expert meditation or special training (e.g., palace guards) to remain awake at this time.  The sun is so hot that only a well-prepared military unit or caravan is able to spend the Bright away from the shelter offered by thick rooves or deep caves.  The sun burns those exposed to in seconds or minutes (depending on the partial cover available).  It believed to cause madness & terror in those who glimpse it, even if they survive. Being mad already, the last party (under Rank-20 Protection from Light) beheld the sun as it filled a third of the sky: a disc of red-fire some 107 to 110 degrees across, so large that it never fully rose above the horizon.  Even the heart of the sun was over 250 times the size of the Aulsia's solar disc.

The party also noticed that ALL Drow bodies are slowed during the Bright-time, and that all lizards & Dragon-like being are quickened.  Hunting elephant eating serpents in the Bright-time is possible unwise.  Some animals can survive the Bright-time sun; but most seek the shadows.

Roads & Wilderness

Obviously, a town or city is seldom more than a day's walk or cart-ride from its closest neighbour.  In exceptional cases, there are systems of caves where travellers may rest uneasily before reaching civilisation further down the road.  The roads in MK beyond the rivers edges may be few, but they are well kept, and some village along the way are little more than Imperial way-stations to offer shelter to travellers and post-horses to imperial messengers. Much of the land is still vast tracts of wilderness or, especially in the high plateaus, arid desert.

To the East is the Eastern sea; some of the closer islands are inhabited by Fishing villages. To the North is waste, often stoney desert or scrub, once the home of brigands and dissident nomads. General DIRECT, asassinated a few years after the last party left, was able to seize the Imperial Capital & "accept" the post of Chancellor because he had a large army well-trained by centuries of active pacification in the North. To the Northwest is high desert plateau. To the West are high, impassable mountains. To the Southwest are high mountains, often with heavy jungle, and various tribes of talking animals. Fitting-Province is the nearest region (capital city: the City of Silk), and it even trades with some of the more quasi-civilised troops (or herds) of talking animals -- especially for tea. To the South lie swathes of mountainland, mostly uninhabitable, beyond which lies the Sea, and somewhere the Southern Sea becomes the Eastern Sea.

Towns & Cities

Even villages have stout walls and high-quality stonework, brick, & tiles.  Modern populations are clearly much less than they once were millennia ago when the current Empire was established, so even the cities have derelict areas where building have been torn down surreptitiously to repair or improve inhabited houses nearby.  Once such areas were public park or Common, but most have since been enclosed by corrupt administrators for themselves or those who could afford to bribe them.

A typically city is a couple of miles square and located beside a river, although cities in more turbulent areas are smaller & more crowded, for defensive reasons.  Every city has a sizable garrison and high walls. A city holds anything from 10,000 to well over a million people in the case of the once & current Imperial Capital Long-Peaceful in the North; the powerful city of Boast in the South-East, near the mouth of the Great River, is also well over a million-strong.