Pathfinder Chronicles - Gazetteer - Asamnet

several ancient Osirian texts and visited by at least one early
Gebbite adventuring hero—end in tragic failure, and only
a few explorers have returned to tell tales of vast stretching
ramps spanning impossible towers, shattered ampitheaters
of green glass, and enormous engines the size of granaries
still thrumming with ancient energy. Without exception,
even the most successful plunderers of Kho meet with
unforseen bad luck. Most of them manage to die from it
after a few years of treading carefully. Such is the legend of
Shory artifice, however, that not even certain death deters
the desperate from trying to discover it.
South of Lake Ocota, across the spirit-haunted Bandu
Hills, the Screaming Jungle looms like a wave of verdant
terror on the horizon. The confounding tangle of towering
trees and sentient man-killing plants gets its name from
the constant screeching of millions of monkeys that inhabit
the canopy. The cacophony can be heard several miles in
all directions from the forest, and most travelers notice
the screaming before the woodland itself comes into view.
The most significant community within the Screaming
Jungle is Osibu, site of the world-spanning Nemesis Well
into which the Pathfinder Durvin Gest famously thrust
the Lens of Galundari.
At the southwest edge of the jungle lies Mzali, oldest
of the ruined cities of the Mwangi Expanse and the most
heavily populated by far. About a century ago, the population
of the great overgrown city exploded when pilgrims from
all over the Expanse came to see for themselves a bizarre
phenomenon. The witch-doctors of a strange religion
both enticingly new and unthinkably old produced the
mumified remains of Walkena, a boy prince of the nearmythical
original Mwangi society. Within the last 30 years,
the mannikin mummy sprung to cruel life, issuing orders
to its prosperous cult that whipped his followers into rage
against the colonists of Sargava and all outside influences in
the Expanse, and open warfare has been the rule ever since.
Nex
MONUMENT TO A LOST WIZARD-KING
Alignment: N
Capital: Quantium (60,000)
Notable Settlements: Ecanus (23,400), Oenopion (8,900)
Ruler: The Council of Three and Nine
Government: Bureaucracy led by a council of representatives
from various political factions and arcane traditions
Languages: Osirian, Kelish, Common, Vudrani
Religion: Nethys, Abadar, Pharasma, Lamashtu, Irori,
Norgorber
The Age of Destiny spawned countless luminaries who
left indelible marks on history, from Azghaad, the first
pharaoh of ancient Osirion, to the orc hero Belkzen, who
conquered the great dwarven citadel of Koldukar. Aroden
Gazetteer: Nations
himself walked Avistan as a mortal in those distant days,
when each new century seemed to spawn a legend of its
own. One of the greatest of these legends emerged on the
east coast of Garund in the ancient city-state of Quantium,
a wizard-king of peerless arcane skill possessed of
unheralded creativity and eldritch genius. That conqueror
was the archmage Nex, whose arcane legacy survives to the
modern day in the form of a nation that bears his name.
Nex boasts the most cosmopolitan and refined cities of
Garund’s east coast, with the capital at Quantium rivaling
the extravagance of Oppara in Taldor or Sothis in the
era of the legendary God-Kings of Osirion. Monumental
palaces and impossible spires crowd the city’s chaotic
streets, which wind past hanging gardens, open-air
mazes, and bustling souks. The crumbling statues of Nex
and the ancient heroes who traveled with him and forged
his kingdom look out upon the city’s roofs and balconies,
a constant reminder of the man who made Quantium and
the surrounding land his own.
In his time, Nex traveled the world and the Great Beyond,
established important tenets of magical theory that remain
inf luential today, and vastly enriched his private nation
through his adventures and the judicious application
of wish-level magics. Territorial ambitions in the south
eventually brought Nex into conf lict with another arcane
warlord, the calculating genius Geb, inheritor of a rich
magic tradition tied to a lost colony of ancient Osirion.
Nex’s conf lict with Geb spanned centuries, with each
wizard-king extending his life through the application
of certain poultices and the imbibing of arcane elixirs.
During these struggles, a series of foul workings by Geb
blighted the land of Nex beyond the cities, which benefitted
from impervious magical protection. After the disastrous
touch of Geb, plants refused to thrive in the wildlands of
Nex. Ever since, the wastelands have lain barren, inhabited
by outlaws and the descendents of great magical beasts
summoned during the years of conf lict with the south.
As their war dragged on, Nex finally achieved true
immortality when he created a personal demiplane at a
fluxpoint of multiversal energy, a domain the wizard-king
dubbed the Crux of Nex. The immortal archmage carved a
shard of the Crux to erect the impossible spire from which he
launched an unsuccessful siege of Absalom, and again at his
palace in Quantium to form the mysterious Refuge of Nex, a
last-resort bunker to shelter himself from his enemies.
Nex vanished after a disastrous Gebbite attack bathed
the capital in a cloying, poisonous fog in 576. Some claim
he died in the assault, while others say he simply withdrew
to his refuge, abandoning his followers and the kingdom
that bore his name to their fate. Somehow, the confused
remnants of his authority managed to keep Geb at bay, and
in the centuries since, the nation has fallen into the hands
of a succession of arcane fraternities and cults of personality
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