* Restricted Information: denizens of Kargen only
Kargen is a vast, sparsely-populated Human Land in the North-Eastern Underworld.
The land has few natural resources, but its people make up for that by being great traders. They are the only people in the Underworld with wooden-hulled ocean-going sailing ships, which ply between the Dwarves of Flerrig, the Orcs of the Great Orcish Empire, and even the Kayani Nation in the Overworld via the hazardous passage of the Edge of the Sea. Their wooden and steel sailing and rowing barges ply the river routes of Kargen, especially the great River Vclo, whose tributaries the Sarif and Har connect to the Orcish lands of Trikāf and Harrig respectively. In turn, Harrig controls the most direct trade route through to Hell. Although many of these peoples dislike the Men of Kargen, they are all prepared to do business with them, and so the humans of Kargen manage to do very nicely out of acting as intermediaries between their various neighbours who would sooner hack each other up than trade direct.
Kargen itself is divided by deserts, hills and mountains into a number of separate fertile areas, where its people are settled around the trade routes. In the North East the ports of the White Coast control the sea route to Flerrig. In the centre the Heath of Kargen is reached by the Vale of Karg. Beyond the Heath in the West is the Upper Vclo Enclave, where a lone trading post provides to the prospectors and trappers of the Far Hills. In the South is the Vale of Vclo where the city of Port Vclo, the only sizeable town in Kargen, controls the key trading route of the mighty River Vclo and its access to the sea.
Kargen has no overall ruler. The individual towns and villages are self-governing, but with a network of mutual defence treaties to protect against the occasional Warlord or foreign incursion. The real power is in the hands of the Mercantile Brotherhood of Kargen. This powerful Guild has Lodges in every town in Kargen and the main entry points to its trading partners, and a number of tollhouses along the rivers and roads. The tolls are mostly spent on maintaining the trade routes and financing adventurer missions to take out predatory monsters.
All the major Underworld Gods are represented, each being strongest in different areas and towns. But the Men of Kargen are by inclination Neutral/Neutral, and the Temple of KOROS is the most represented across the Land. Animal Cultism is widespread (especially Snake Cultism), and the Druids of Kargen are of various Beastmaster Cults appropriate to their local totem animals.
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