Nepal

“The mountains do not answer to crowns.”

The Nepalese Freeholds are a nation only by the courtesy of maps. At the center of Central Asia’s wreckage lies a loose confederation of valleys, ridges, and city-states that have survived precisely because they never unified. Nepal has no army worth marching against, no capital worth conquering, and no ideology worth stamping out. Its strength lies in fragmentation, obscurity, and terrain that refuses to be ruled.

The Council of Freeholders convenes in Gorgon and claims authority over the region, but its influence fades within sight of the city’s walls. Beyond that, power belongs to whoever holds a valley, a pass, or a community’s loyalty. Clan elders, war-chiefs, monks, merchant families, and petty tyrants rule according to local custom and personal strength. Outsiders call it chaos. The Freeholds call it autonomy. Nepal is not a place of grand quests. It is a place of survival stories.

In Gorgon, adventurers negotiate contracts, broker peace, or spark wars with a poorly chosen word. In the jungles, they escort caravans, raid overgrown ruins, or bargain with city-states half-swallowed by green. In the deserts, they chase rumors of vaults exposed by shardstorms and vanish just as often as they return. In the vast tunnel networks of the Himalayas, adventuring becomes warfare. Alliances are temporary. Maps are lies. Victory is measured in corridors held and days survived.

The Nepalese Freeholds do not produce heroes. They produce survivors, guides, warlords, and legends whispered across mountain passes. The world forgets them easily. The mountains do not.

The Council of Freeholders exists to prevent war, not to govern. Representatives from dozens of valleys and settlements gather in Gorgon to negotiate disputes, recognize borders, and keep bloodshed from spilling into open conflict. No freeholder is compelled to obey the council’s rulings. They comply because the alternative is endless vendetta, and because Gorgon remains neutral ground.

Law in the Freeholds is local and absolute. Each valley keeps its own traditions, codes, and taboos. What is sacred in one pass may be a capital crime in the next. Justice is swift, personal, and rarely recorded.

Foreign powers recognize the Freeholds diplomatically, if only to preserve Gorgon as a buffer state and trade hub along the Caspian routes. No empire seriously attempts annexation. The cost would outweigh the gain, and occupation would never truly end.

Nepal sits at the crossroads of extremes. To the north, deserts stretch into wind-scoured oblivion, shardstorms erasing caravans and unearthing horrors best left buried. To the south, jungles choke ancient cities, vines splitting stone and beasts ruling streets where markets once thrived. To the west, colossal banyan forests rise into living skylines, entire villages suspended in their canopies. To the east, poisoned coasts rot beneath the ruins of abandoned shardisite extraction.

At the center looms Everest, less a mountain than a vertical kingdom turned inside-out. Its tunnels, shrines, and fortresses shift hands constantly, controlled by warbands, cults, mercenary companies, and things that no longer remember being mortal. Everest is not conquered. It is contested, endlessly. The Freeholds do not tame these lands. They survive among them.

Gorgon is the only place where the Freeholds pretend to be a nation. Built at the desert’s edge, it is a city of caravans, contracts, and quiet violence. Markets spill into streets. Councils argue over maps no one fully trusts. Deals are struck beneath prayer flags and gallows alike. The council chamber holds no throne, only a long table scarred by centuries of negotiation.

Gorgon’s authority extends only as far as its neutrality is respected. Its guards enforce peace within the city. Beyond that, every road belongs to someone else.

Religion in Nepal is deeply local and fiercely personal. Shrines rise at crossroads, cliff-faces, and jungle clearings. Spirits are bargained with, not worshipped. Monks guard passes and teachings that predate any council. Shamans speak to the land as if it listens. Often, it does. The Choir & The Legion have presence here of course, but their acolytes and servants are guests. Just like everyone else.

There is no unified doctrine, no central scripture. Belief here is practical. If a ritual keeps the storms away or the beasts at bay, it is preserved. If it fails, it is abandoned. Outsiders mistake this for superstition. Locals know better.