World Of Skyreach

This factbook is an effort to describe the roleplay world Skyreach is a part of, detailing the geography, the properties of Arium, the wider world around Skyreach, the important nations that form a principal part of the area, and other tidbits of lore and worldbuilding.
Note: A lot of this world will be extremely illogical and make no sense. Skyreach is at its heart a fantasy world of adventure, political shenanigans, and flying warships, where a lot of tech progress has stalled, and a lot of its lore and world reflects that, from Arium itself to the design of our flying battleships. So don’t expect logic to play a huge part.

Geography
Skyreach is but a smaller part of the wider world it resides in, equivalent to the region of Europe and the Mediterranean in our world. Two continents, separated by a wide sea, come together in this region, and trade winds from the north and south bring their respective climates to each continent. On the northern continent, cold winds howl through ancient fir forests nestled between the tall and mighty mountains that dominate the continent; in the south, warm sunlight smiles upon the long rolling plains and sunny coasts, and further south, a majestic mountain range meets the endless dunes of a mighty desert. Extensive and deep rivers on all sides bring cultures from every corner of the globe to this fractious, squabbling region. In every way, Skyreach is a land where worlds collide.

Geopolitics & notable nations
In terms of the wider world, Skyreach is not only the meeting point of two continents, but the nexus that keeps two ancient and mighty empires apart. The central part of a wider region of badlands and marches in constant turmoil, Skyreach is the fractious and powerful barrier that separates the huge, monolithic Greytower Empire from the ancient and cruel Avroc Republic. Lying right in the path between the two empire’s recent expansions, Skyreach lives eternally under the threat of conquest, yet the reverses suffered by both empires on their attempts to conquer the area ensures Skyreach remains untroubled by these threats and free to continue its longstanding tradition of incessant petty squabbling between the various states occupying the area. The abundant resources and melting-pot nature of Skyreach ensure the politics of the region remain lively, and alliances and wars dance across the region seemingly at random as the dozens of micro-states uphold their time-honoured ritual of jousting for prevalence, lent extra weight by the abundant resources providing these relatively small states with a disproportionately huge amount of economical power.
However, this does not mean Skyreach is completely unnoticed. The area, the only point at which the two empires are within crossing distance, is a critical strategic point, and an eternal effort to secure this important chokepoint by other means continues apace. At any moment, nations can find themselves assisted or hindered by agents of these two empires, or even offered support against a rival!

The Greytower Empire

A modern, rapidly-expanding monolithic empire founded off the back of a massive wave of industrialism in the north, the Greytower Empire rules with a steely heart and an iron fist. Its strengths rely on its massive industrial base- fleets of aeronefs secure its iron grip on the skies while its legions of Greybacks sport modern rifles and artillery. The only place where its massive fleets of flying ships have not proven victorious has been Skyreach, where the battle-honed kingdoms have once again overthrown the Greytower Empire’s last attempt at total conquest of the fractious region.

The Avroc Republic

An immense, ancient and cruel state that operates under a semblance of true democracy, the Avroc Republic is as corrupt as it is old, a puppet ruler buried beneath waves and waves of creaking, self-serving bureaucracy. No-one knows who really runs the republic any more, and those who ask too much tend to disappear in the night, but it boasts an immense, utterly loyal army. Legends say that the full might of the Republic, its armies amassed in one place, would darken the ground for thousands of miles, devouring all that stood before its wake. However, the resource-starved south ensures it lacks aeronefs, and the sheer size of the Republic’s armies hamper their equipping of more modern weapons of war. Despite this, its support of various Skyreach states was critical in the latest uprising against the Greytower Empire.
Over the course of history, these two huge and powerful empires have surged and ebbed across the region like the great tides of Empire, but between these mighty pushes the fractious, squabbling, rapidly-shifting network of alliances and wars have forced their own mark on the shore-lines of history.

Recent History Of Skyreach
While Skyreach’s fractious past and tumultuous history, stretching across multiple nations (and multiple universes, some of which still express themselves in odd occurrences and little flashbacks in this current universe, and the relics of which can be seen on the RMB) is far too long-winded and complex to even begin to recount in any kind of short form, the more recent history, covering the most recent conquest by the Grey Empire and the subsequent rebellion and freedom from that conquest, is not quite so long.
(WIP, but basically Grey Empire barged in within the last century, conquered a lot of folks, then a mass rebellion by Skyreach nations assisted by the Avroc Republic forced them out)