Beyond the southern hills of the Kingdom of Bilin, where the air grows warm and the land sinks into wet plains, lies a small rice-farming village known as Fernstead.
It isn't marked on most maps a quiet place tucked between gentle rivers and the soft shimmer of the southern paddies. The soil there is dark and kind, the water clear enough to mirror the sky.
Only thirty-some souls live in Fernstead.
Three family homes, two older couples, a handful of children, and a few wandering laborers who come when the planting begins and leave when the harvest ends. There is no lord's hall, no market square, no guards. Just a shrine by the river bend, and the sound of water wheels turning through the day.
Life in Fernstead moves like the rhythm of the wind slow, patient, and shared. Every meal is a table for all. Every problem, a voice for all. They live not as neighbors, but as one large family, tending to the same fields, praying to the same small god of rain and soil.
When travelers pass through if they ever do they say Fernstead smells of wet earth and cooked rice, and that its people smile as though they've never known war.
World Map Overview (Verbal)
The Kingdom of Bilin stretches across a vast land divided into four great regions:
The Northern Marches cold and mountainous, home to iron mines and warriors.
The Western Highlands rugged hills and pine forests, known for hunters and traders.
The Eastern Front a place of scholars, sword schools, and ancient temples.
The Southern Plains fertile, endless fields of green and gold where Fernstead lies.
At the center stands Bilin City, the royal capital, surrounded by five great towns and seven smaller villages, all bound under one crown.
Farther beyond its borders lie four lesser kingdoms once rivals, now sworn under Bilin's rule. Together, they form the Fivefold Reign, a realm of uneasy peace and shared ambition.
Fernstead, however, remains untouched a place so small and content that even the wind forgets to bring it news of kings and wars.