Antimone

"“They said that if you climb the highest peaks of the Aniton Mountains that you could view upon all of Antimone in your gaze. I climbed, and lo and behold I indeed saw a land of immense and irreplaceable beauty. The magnificent mountains ran for miles, completed by the wondrous world of wonder below. I didn’t want to descend.”""-Sarn Haust, Famous Explorer"

Geography/Environment
Antimone is to be described best as a land of opportunity. The continent is home to a massive and rich mountain range, rolling steppes and hills, seedy grasslands, gently flowing rivers, and small, albeit beautiful, forests. The climate zone is mainly temperate, with most of the land enjoying all four seasons of the year. The wildlife is diverse and unique, with some special creatures being found purely in Antimone that survive and live in the mountains. The land is fertile and healthy, able to provide not just game and sport but also provide rich soil of which various crops are grown. Livestock are common in these lands, and some herders will transport large groups of animals to various feeding grounds throughout the continent. In terms of politics, the land is quite strange. Due to the nature of the Aniton Mountains, which almost cut the continent in half with their size and vastness, the land is far too divided for vast and powerful kingdoms to grow and prosper healthily. As a result, many settlers instead chose to create smaller, more independent nations which would consist of a singular city and their claimed land. This concept would become unique to purely Antimone, a concept known as ‘The City-State.’

Culture
Over time, many of these tiny nations would rise and fall through the ages, the culture of the land changing and shifting as they rose and fell. New cities would be founded, while old ones were left as memoriam. If a village was not able to grow large enough to be a city-state, it would still remain its own independent self or even work side-by-side with a larger, more powerful city. So with this concept in mind, many would try to build their own hamlets and settle their own land. The results were that the continent would be filled with settlements of various sizes and shapes, some being large and strong enough to be recognized as independent nations while others were nothing more than visiting spots. The people of this land are considered friendly and open-minded, always seeming to be open to strange and new ideas. This general openness to strangers has caused trade to be a popular lifestyle here, with many traders transporting goods to and from the various city-states. Some of the city-states of the past even came together to form a coalition, a bond to work together to face any outside threats and help each other out. Some city-states remain completely independent, and some work side-by-side with this concept of diplomacy. War does happen between city-states, and when it does the results can be devastating. Regardless of whether war sparks between the varying independent bodies or not, the end result is always the same. When an old city-state falls, a new one takes it place in the world. For better or for worse.

Features
Antimone, next to M’alesi and Phadena, is extremely well adapted for settling and vast with unsettled lands. However, due to the large mountain range that cuts through the center of the land, it has no major kingdom and, thus, has no army that can compete with the other lands in battle. City-states and tribal peoples dot the land. With the Hinterlands to the north and Phadena to the south, the land sees many bandit raids near the two land bridges that connect the lands. However, bandits from Phadena don’t tend to travel far in fear of the lizardfolk that dwell near the bridge. Several scuffles between these two parties end in greatly reduced numbers for the bandits. The lizardfolk, however, are immensely territorial and will aggressively hunt those who intrude on their land uninvited. They are also known to raid nearby settlements when they are low on resources.