A high-detail map of the entirety of the Known World; the Far East takes up most of the major eastern continental landmass.
The Far East (adj. Far Eastern) is the name given by the scholars of the Empire to the eastern half of the great continent of the Known World of which the Old World is the northwestern region and the Southlands the southwestern portion.
It represents the largest section of the continental landmass and is home to the most populous realms of Men in the entire world, such as Grand Cathay, Ind, Khuresh and Nippon.
Far Eastern Lands
The Far Eastern lands are listed below, moving eastwards from the perspective of a resident of the Old World.
Dark Lands
The Dark Lands is a stark and cheerless place, where the forces of nature have rent the ground and burst the mountains that encircle the region apart. Amongst those peaks, volcanoes spew black smoke into the filthy sky. In the plains the stench of tar pits and oil pools hangs heavily in the air.[2a]
Steaming lava from beneath the earth's crust covers the ash wastes with a blanket of bubbling magma. The Chaos Dwarf empire lies in the eastern region of this place as well as claiming territory in the adjoining Mountains of Mourn.[2a]
Almost nothing can grow in the Dark Lands. The dim light and choking air combine to ensure that the land remains devoid of vegetation except for a few straggly black thorns. The volcanoes and gaping pits that dot the ground unleash all kinds of minerals and gems from beneath the earth: gold and silver, iron and copper, diamonds and sapphires, as well as sulpher, oil and tar. It is a land rich in the kinds of raw materials Dwarfs especially covet.[2a]
Mountains of Mourn (Ogre Kingdoms)
To the east of the Dark Lands are the Mountains of Mourn. It is here that the massive race of ravenous humanoids known as the Ogres make their home among the Ogre Kingdoms of the mountains; hunting, eating, and sometimes riding to war upon the cavebeasts that dwell there -- shaggy Rhinox and Mammoths being the most common.[1a]
In the foothills of these towering mountains live the Gnoblars, a snivelling, big-nosed species of Goblin too weak to protect themselves from the predators of the Dark Lands. They do all the fetching, carrying and dirty work of Ogre society, and in return the Gnoblars receive a measure of safety, hardly ever ending up as a light snack![1a]
Ind
Many are the tales of wonder told by the spice merchants returned from the lands to the east of the Old World, but few such yarns can be as bizarre as the accounts of the creatures said to reside in the verdant rainforests of central Ind.[3a]
The lands of Ind are rich and fertile, and ruled by aristocratic overlords from their gorgeous palaces. Yet the people are poor and superstitious, and revere a staggering array of different gods and spirits, leaving offerings and saying prayers to them ceaselessly as they go about their day.[3a]
One such spirit dwells within the rainforests, and is said to be a strange crossbreed of man and giant cat, combining the worst traits of each. These creatures are rarely seen, yet cautionary tales are told up and down the Kingdoms of Ind, and offerings to keep them at bay are made at roadside shrines wherever the path passes through, or near the shadowy forest.[3a]
Grand Cathay
The travellers that return to the Old World from Grand Cathay tell tales of great golden pagodas and the inexhaustible armies of the eastern despots. They bring exotic spices and the finest silks, gleaming gold, luxurious porcelain vases, and all manner of strange and wonderful items from the Celestial Empire of the Dragon Emperor, glimpses of the mysterious glory of the distant and rich Far East.[4a]
They also bring tales of jade cities and high temples where mystics probe the movements of the heavenly bodies and the positions of the stars, and of the scholars who inscribe every word ever uttered by their divine Dragon Emperor. Many strange creatures are said to live in the land of Grand Cathay, from serpentine Dragons to gigantic living stone dogs which guard the temples of the multitudinous gods of Cathay.[4a]
Khuresh
There are many night-haunted legends emanating from the fetid jungles and deadly wastes of the far Hinterlands of Khuresh, which lies directly to the south of the lands of Grand Cathay.[5a]
Stories abound of the dread Snake Men and the foul and nightmarish Blood Naga queens who rule there -- the frightful serpent-Naga of dim Khuresh whose lives are said to be counted as the ages of the world, and their appetite for blood shames even the ancient queens of thrice-cursed Lahmia in the days of ancient Nehekhara.[5a]
Khuresh is a realm where Men are no more than hunted prey, and blood and souls are the only coin in trade.[5a]
Nippon
The isolated Far Eastern island empire to the east of Grand Cathay known as Nippon is ruled in name by a reclusive, semi-divine emperor, but real power lies in the hands of the many feudal warlords who govern their own domains, known as "samurai" in the Nipponese tongue. These warrior nobles govern large domains and command retinues of subservient household samurai with which they frequently indulge in private wars among themselves.[6a]
Nippon is an island realm and a notable sea power. As such, it sometimes happens that a samurai war fleet is dispersed by a typhoon, scattering the ships far and wide. Should an isolated war junk fetch up on a foreign shore the samurai lord will gather his warriors and march straight for the nearest representative of authority to offer his service in return for food and shelter.[6a]
Sometimes samurai lords deliberately embark their followers into Nipponese war junks and set sail eastwards across the sea towards the rising sun in search of adventure, especially if the other feudal clans back home in Nippon are interfering with attempts at their political advancement.[6a]
Sources
- 1: Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles: Rulebook (8th Edition)
- 1a: pg. 183
- 2: Warhammer Armies: Chaos Dwarfs (4th Edition)
- 2a: pg. 4
- 3: Warhammer: Lustria (6th Edition)
- 3a: pg. 41
- 4: Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles: Rulebook (6th Edition)
- 4a: pg. 176
- 5: Monstrous Arcanum (Forge World Supplement)
- 5a: pp. 5, 19
- 6: Warhammer Armies: Official Warhammer Fantasy Battles Army Lists (3rd Edition)
- 6a: pg. 156