Numeria

Numeria (pronounced new-MARE-ee-uh) is a barren, harsh land inhabited by tribes of savage barbarians and corrupted by the strange energies emitted by skymetals and other technological relics that fell throughout the land during the Age of Darkness

History

Abutting the northernmost banks of the Sellen River system, the harsh plains of Numeria possess a stark, majestic beauty. The greatest of the River Kingdoms, Numeria was a rising power in Avistan, a warlike nation poised to unite several of its neighbors under its rough banner. With the fall of Sarkoris and the coming of the demonic Worldwound, however, Numeria’s momentum was broken, and today it is a land of grim barbarians and dark magic, its fierce people ruled over by a cabal of tainted magicians devoted to artifacts they do not understand and secrets not of this world

Long before Numeria’s recorded history, perhaps even before the Age of Darkness, the local Kellid tribes witnessed one of the strangest events in Golarion’s history: a metal mountain falling from the sky in a great fireball. This strange mass, a colossal vessel from the darkest reaches of outer space, broke up in Golarion’s upper atmosphere and cascaded down to earth in what the tribes call the Rain of Stars. All across the plains of Numeria, chunks of strange materials as small as fists or as large as cities slammed down and buried themselves in the rocky earth, bathing the landscape in unknown energies that continue to cause weird mutations to this day. The largest of these fragments, known as the Silver Mount, looms over Numeria’s capital city of Starfall, and the bizarre knowledge and technology gained from its honeycomb of intact chambers is the basis for the Black Sovereign’s firm control of the region.

While its barren landscape leaves little for trade, Numeria is famous in the more civilized southern lands as the primary source of skymetals, seven rare metallic alloys sheared from the hull of the crashing starship, all useful in the creation of unique weapons and artifacts and each with its own distinct properties. Of these, adamantine is the most common, and word of the wonders of “Numerian steel” has long since spread to the farthest corners of Avistan and Garund.

Since the sudden emergence of the demonic hosts in the region now known as the Worldwound, Numeria has found its ranks swelled by large numbers of holy warriors from southern lands bound for Mendev to join the crusades. These travelers often make their way up the River Road— the route up the Sellen from the Inner Sea to Chesed—and thence onward into Mendev, to join their brothers and sisters on the front lines. Although their influence is somewhat disruptive, bringing strange faces and even stranger ideas to the barbaric Kellids of the region, the Black Sovereign and his allies, the Technic League, happily welcome the pilgrims for the coin they bring, making sure to relieve them of as much of it as possible before sending them north to their inevitable glorious deaths

Of all the strange artifacts to come from the wreckage of the crashed cosmic vessel, from the oddly etched silverdisks that tribesmen trade like currency to the hallucinogenic ichors seeping from the broken walls of Silver Mount, the most famous are the Gearsmen of the Technic League. Brought forth a generation ago from a previously undiscovered chamber, the strange automatons are human-shaped constructs of steel and other unknown materials that seem unnervingly disproportionate in minor ways, as if sculpted by someone seeing a humanoid for the first time. The Gearsmen speak with shrill voices that all seem strangely similar, but rarely do so save to issue orders or warnings to would-be troublemakers. Other rumors speak of even larger constructs, including strange insectoid behemoths capable of spitting fire and metal from their bodies with devastating power.

While the automatons are capable of speech, few outside the Technic League have ever heard their strange voices. For reasons of their own, the constructs serve the League as shock troops and guards, conducting their business with ruthless and mechanical efficiency. This efficiency makes it all the more unnerving to the League when one of the automatons willfully disobeys a seemingly random order—letting a convict go free or failing to protect its master—and meeting the League’s furious questions with inscrutable, alien silence.