Barram

Barram ("Bah-rahm;" the origin of the landmass' name is generally unknown, but see below) is a large continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere of the world called Arc Arjet by the continent's inhabitants. It is the largest known continent in the world.

Barram
Home to diverse environments and a wide range of races, flora and fauna, Barram is well-suited to hosting great nations.

The known history of the continent stretches back a little more than twenty millennia. Fragmentary records – ancient stone tablets – indicate that, approximately 16,820 years ago, the races of humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings came to Barram from other continents and islands. The continent was already home to some intelligent races, but as most of these – such as the orcs – are amongst Arc Arjet's most intractable peoples, little is known about their very ancient history.

Barram is approximately 1,100 orta (roughly 4,400 miles) from its widest point west to its eastern-most point on the peninsula called the ''Spear of Hano. The great and sprawling Greensun Forest stretches from the northern edge of the Shattered Marshes in the south, all the way north to the foothills of the misty Brightcloud Mountains, ''which make up the northern point of the continent. At the continent's southern end is the mysterious and gigantic Great Hoop, a sort of immense bay closed at one end by the Breathless Islands. The entire coast of the Great Hoop is occupied by the deadly Black Sands of Silence. This terrible desert is said to be able to drain the very life from anyone foolish enough to enter it unprepared. North of the Black Sands, the center of the continent is a seemingly endless plain with its tall grass bending in a ceaseless wind. This is the Sea of Grass.

The western edge of Barram is home to famous beaches of singing sand, rocky crags and ancient dwarven outposts, eternally watching for invasions from distant, foreign lands. Further inland from the Singing Coast is another giant span of trees, the ''Forest of Maur. Further beyond that, one may find a shining inland sea, Hata'Prasata ''(Shevrandi for "Waters of Jade") and at its center, an extinct volcano surrounded by the many layers of a city built on a heroic scale. This is the former capital, Angkor Arjet (Shevrandi for "The Great Capital") of an empire that once spanned nearly the entire width and breadth of the continent.

Along the coast of Barram are scattered small islands, and two whose sheer size and curious composition make them noteworthy.

Off the western coast is Titan's Bastion, which appears to be nothing less than an impossibly large shield of some indestructible material, covered in stones and plant-life from lying at rest in the water for unknown ages. It is believed to be matched to Titan's Hilt, an equally-immense sword left thrust into the Dragon's Spine mountains by some unknown being of mind-boggling size.

Within view of the northern Seawillow region of the Greensun Forest and east-southeast of the massive volcanic valley called Abir'Ven Hollow, a traveler can find the ''Suspended Isles. In ages past, this strange island was once many islands, but they have been stitched together into a cohesive mass by the Slumbering Wood'', which scholars believe to be not a true forest, but actually a single enormous tree which has sprouted countless trunks from its web of roots.

From east to west, north to south, nearly every orta of Barram was once under the banner of a single Empire, led for all its existence by a single powerful figure, the Amaranthine Empress.

The Sovereign Dragon
Unknown to most scholars and adventurers, the continent's name actually seems to be derived from that of a massively ancient and powerful being. While it is generally referred to in obscure texts as the Sovereign Dragon of Barram, it is believed by a very small number of people that the continent is actually named for her, not the other way around. Though she answers to many names and takes many forms for her own means, she has on occasion insisted upon being addressed as "Barram," though it is unclear if this is something of a title (like a land-owning noble could be addressed by the name of their estate) or actually her name.

The Sovereign Dragon of Barram made a deal over nine hundred years ago with the Amaranthine Empress, binding their powers together for reasons that neither has ever revealed. As part of this pact, however, the Empress made her own personal emblem, and that of her family, a jade representation of the Sovereign Dragon. However, those who were unfamiliar with the symbol's origin associated it with her star-sign and began to refer to the Empress as "the Dragon of the Vales." It eventually was accepted one of her formal styles by the imperial monarch, as "the Radiant and Merciful Dragon of the Vales."