As the Iron Age matures throughout the Great Lands, societies everywhere have begun to transform themselves. This will not be an era of tiny tribal states, leavened with the occasional “Great Kingdom” that is still small in territorial extent. New military technologies and social organizations are clearly giving rise to an age of empire.

The superpower of the day is the Anshan Empire, the largest and most populous single state in world history up to this point. The Anshani have conquered the entire core of the Kurani zone, along with most of the old Nesali heartland and all of the upper Mereti lands. By Krava’s time they are pressing down on the Korsanari city-states of the coast, and are in a constant state of low-level war with the resurgent Mereti Kingdom in the far east. No one is quite sure what further ambitions the Anshani hold, but their kings and their jealous god show no sign of slowing down.

With the Tukhari homeland under Anshani rule, many of the colonies in the east have banded together for mutual support and defense. The core of the alliance is the city of Tukhar Nakh (“New Tukhar”), which has grown to significant size on the basis of its prosperous trade links. The allies are nominally independent of Anshani rule, and would fight Anshan if the Empire ever forced them to it. In the meantime, their interests align with Anshan more often than not, especially when it comes to holding the other great sea-faring powers at bay.

The Sea Kingdom remains relatively peaceful in strategy and intent . . . although in recent generations it has developed a truly formidable capacity for self-defense against the various “barbarians” it finds across the world. Sea Kingdom ships go wherever they choose and trade with whoever is willing, and not even Anshan has quite mustered the courage to try to oppose them. As a result, the lords of Dar-ul-Hakum have become fabulously wealthy, trading in all the luxury goods of the world. With wealth comes great power, which the Sea Kingdom has not yet decided how to use . . .

One unique facet of the Sea Kingdom’s holdings is the appearance of the Island-folk, finally reunited with all their distant cousins after tens of thousands of years. The Island-folk embraced the arrival of the Sea-Kingdom’s first ships in their distant homeland, and enthusiastically volunteered to serve aboard Sea-Kingdom ships. Over the last few generations, they have set up small communities in almost every port town in the world. Their clever minds and nimble hands make them valuable in a variety of professions: sailors, craftsmen, messengers and thieves.

The third of the great sea-faring powers is the Korsanari city-states. Like a shadow of the ancient Kavrian Matriarchy, the Korsanari have begun to build a sophisticated urban civilization of their own. The Korsanari are not venturesome sailors like the Tukhari or the Sea-Kingdom, rarely willing to sail out of sight of land. Even so, they have set up their own trade networks throughout the Sailor’s Sea and beyond. These networks are supported by a plethora of small colonies, established wherever a decent harbor and a sheltered hinterland can be found, and the local barbarians are not too hostile.

The Korsanari have also begun to trade well inland on the northern continent, seeking markets where the Tukhari and even the Sea Kingdom do not bother to go. Korsanari merchants have penetrated as far as the Lake Country and beyond, bringing the Tremara and even some of the skatoi tribes into their trade network.

As for the Tremara, Krava’s people? They are thoroughly established between the Blue Mountains and the skatoi lands across the Black River, with the pale Mervirai tribes to the north and the prosperous Lake Country to the south. Compared to the vibrant cultures around the Sailor’s Sea, they are certainly barbarians – but sophisticated barbarians, with superb visual art, even better poetry and music, and the beginnings of a literary tradition. Most of the peoples of the Great Lands know little about them and care less, but (in the persons of Krava the Swift and her friends) they are about to shake the world . . .