Cascadia

“Order was not inherited in Cascadia. It was engineered.”

Once a remote frontier at the western edge of a shattered continent, Cascadia rose from ruin through invention rather than conquest. Where the world tilt drowned plains into inland seas and burned fields into desert, Cascadia turned inward, fortifying forests and mountains into a green bastion of glass, brass, and shardlight. Redwood canopies climb into stormlit skies, rivers still run clear, and cities rise not from bloodlines, but from patents, guild charters, and ruthless efficiency.

Cascadia sits at the edge of a broken continent. To the east lies Lake Deseret and the American heartland bogs. To the north, Quebec seals itself behind stone and silence. Cascadia survives by controlling what crosses its borders. Goods, weapons, airships, and ideas flow through Cascadian hands or not at all.

In Cascadia, ambition is expected. Talent is cultivated, measured, and rewarded. Those who fail are not executed or exiled. They are outcompeted, absorbed, or quietly erased from relevance. The nation does not glorify cruelty, but it does not waste resources on weakness. To live in Cascadia is to be measured constantly. Education is rigorous. Competition is expected. Failure carries no shame, but it carries consequences. Advancement is real and possible, but never secure.

Adventurers find steady work here as hired muscle, troubleshooters, saboteurs, and specialists. Some guard convoys through the eastern lines. Others test experimental weapons to be used in the foreverwars of the Americas. The pay is reliable. The expectations are exacting.

Cascadia does not promise safety or justice. It promises function. In a continent broken sideways, that has been enough to make it one of the most powerful nations left standing.

Cascadia is governed by the Cascadian Union, a meritocratic assembly known as the Council of Houses. Power is held by families, guilds, and institutions whose influence is earned through innovation, production, or control of critical infrastructure. Titles mean little without results. Wealth alone is insufficient without contribution.

The Iron Charter codified this system centuries ago, establishing that any individual, regardless of birth, could rise through invention or service. In practice, hereditary advantage still matters, but stagnation is punished. Houses that fail to innovate lose contracts, votes, and protection.

Politics in Cascadia is precise and ruthless. Assassinations are rare, but industrial accidents, patent challenges, and regulatory collapses are common tools. Decisions are made quietly and enforced efficiently.

While the great cities of Cascadia pump out innovation after discovery, they also poison and fortify the land with their refuse. Beyond the glass towers and evergreen harbors lie miles of pollution-choked wasteland, industrial runoff and arcane byproducts forming a buffer as deliberate as any wall. The nation’s beauty is not unguarded. It is insulated.

Lake Deseret churns with industrial waste and magical residue, its drowned silos and arcane mysteries drawing scavengers and worse. Dixie’s collapse spills refugees, warbands, and contraband westward. Quebec’s silence is more unnerving than open hostility, its patrols marching clockwork routes as leylines weaken near its borders. Cascadia answers every pressure with infrastructure. Rails are warded. Borders are layered. Forests are thinned into kill corridors, and mountain passes are carved into choke points guarded by steel and spell.

Cascadia is not without danger.

• Shard Reactors: Vast power cores hum beneath cities, fueling industry and risk in equal measure.
• Border Lines: Rail corridors and sky-towers bristle with detectors, wards, and guns. Bribes work until they do not.
• Industrial Espionage: Guild rivalries spill into sabotage, theft, and quiet violence.
• The Deseret Storms: Magnetic anomalies and shard interference make eastern expeditions unpredictable and lethal.