The desolate east of the Amaran Empire is largely invisible on the world stage. It is a land scarred with great mountain ranges, scathing deserts, and deep forests. The only remnants of civilisation are a few lonely towns and villages that are slowly disappearing into the marginalia of Imperial paperwork and the half-remembered dreams of futures past. Very few realise that the glittering cities of the Imperial heartlands could only have been founded by the descendants of a people tempered in such a desolation.