Eyely

The land of Woe is a strange place. The air in most places is toxic, and said toxicity is for most part, one that inflicts humans in strange ways. The only known (so far, and by it's own inhabitants) safe place, that would not instantly afflict living beings is the island of Eyely.

The place is mostly peaceful, large, with a hill located at the center, atop which Fortress is built.

More on it here: https://pastebin.com/i4if7sL2

However, if it was JUST Fortress that existed in Eyely, things would be fairly fine. Eyely is full of shallow lakes, from which large, cuboid shaped stone structures, lined with glowing blue gylphs protruding from the bottom. They are unexplained, for most part, but researchers from Fortress are still looking into them. Eyely is covered in a thin layer of mist at almost all times, and as a result, it is usually difficult to navigate.

The land is partially rocky, and is marked by a lot of hills, inclines and even small ravines, most of which being quite steep. Aside from these factors, there are forests, and even a few fields outside of Fortress, which have crops planted on them regularly. The weather is temperate, the winters aren't too cold, the summers not too hot and so on.

There are giant, petrified statues of human-shaped machines, often with 'injuries; in their bodies, weapons sticking through or gaping holes in their torsos, missing limbs, heads etc. These machines are everywhere, and they seem to be quite numerous too. The above mentioned fields have a few, stuck in the middle. As a matter of fact, the only place that the machines DON'T exist in, is inside Fortress.

They are called Voices, and are often taken in, harvested and broken down into parts, by Central, to create weapons they use to fight off enemies of various forms.

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The Turtle

A floating island, or more accurately, a gigantic turtle. Numerous survivors, adventurers, abandoned and forsaken wanderers from all over the world have come to gather here. Pirates as well, not to mention, bandits of various sorts. However, due to there not really being much to plunder or steal once one makes it here, everybody just settled for a shelter and tries to help around. Whenever the turtle swims near Eyely Island, the occasional individual sails to it, and decides to seek their fortune in Fortress. It occasionally works out too.

The turtle's Shell is partially hollow, and filled with water, forming a lake of sorts... it is an old injury that hurts it to this day. However, it has made possible the existence of the above mentioned cities, on the shores of said lake.

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The Confederate States of Awras

A massive 'state' of sorts, although it is definitely not in good shape, located in a continent, distant from Eyely. Most people that travel through are usually people that came from the Turtle. The latest information on Awras is that it's a lawless bandit state, where armed factions form 'city-states', which are little more than large, shoddy fortresses that support the population of a village of a small town within them.

The states are further divided into Outer States, which are more numerous, but also poorer and living in areas with higher amount of pollution than the rest, whereas the Inner States are fewer, have better technology, but also less population that is still, decidedly human. Nevertheless, travel is difficult, and only carried out through specialized trains and railways, that have been slightly re-purposed from the time of the Stone-Birds, and seem to be able to be insulated against the harmful practices in the air.

It is likely that a civil war has erupted in there. Perhaps more than one.

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Zerua

Allegedly, a smaller continent up north. It is allegedly very cold , compared to it's outright tropical surroundings. What makes it noteworthy is the fact that, it is, again allegedly the location of a city spanning the entire continent, and sharing the name Zerua, built by the Stone-Birds for some unknown purpose. While they lived in areas that were significantly elevated, they seemed to have considered Zerua some sort of impermissible holy land, a forbidden city that must never be entered or exited, and it's builders were, rumored to be automata, which were wholly obliterated once their work was finished.

A well propagated belief is that the secret of immortality is hidden in Zerua, as references to the Stone-Birds as immortal all date after the believed building of the city. Thus a lot of people seek it out. It does often not go too well for any  of them.

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The Hole

A giant hole, visible from hundreds of miles away, in the other side of the world. It, somehow has plants growing on the sides, and the air inside of it is actually clean. However, the area around the Hole is the exact opposite and most humans who approach it die almost instantly. Even  Afflicted species, on their own suffer an almost immediate death. Attempts to look into it have largely failed. There are very few known facts in regards to the nature of the Hole, however.

It seems to have crystalline structures protruding out of the ground around it, and on it's sides. Some of the merge into the trees, others, disturbingly, seem to resemble the shapes of Voices. Not just that, but there are actual Voices in the area as well, larger than the ones on Eyely and also of bizarre shapes, less human, often with two heads, four arms, wings or bird-parts.

It is believed that above the Hole, the final battle between the Stone-Birds and the traitor happened, and sunk an especially  massive Stone-Bird city (called a Nest), which then formed the Hole.