The world beyond Hollin is called Balaal. Balaal is a world of metropolitan trading cities, fell barbarians in the arctic waste, and childlike fairies imprisoned by the West Wind.

Lay of the Land

Balaal's north pole is covered by the continent Hilde, which is surrounded by the Bellem Sea. In turn, the Bellem is surrounded by the continents Anhault, Kiln, Beiden, and Luhne, which are home to rival cities that trade on the Bellem: Hollin, Naumkaeg, Kravnik, Welkin, and Blackwells. Here is a map of Balaal's northern hemisphere.

Besides Hollin, three areas are interesting: Anhault west of Hollin, the Caliphate, and Hilde. Each is described below.

Anhault

Here is a map of Anhault west of Hollin. Three areas are interesting: the Tolland Wood, the Kirsi Domain, and Shear Pass.

Tolland Wood

The Tolland Wood is the last vestige of the great forest that once covered Anhault. The Tolland is dominated by warlike and cunning trolls, including the Eastmarch and Mound clans. Some of the clans are hundreds of years old, but are now organizing more widely, and have started to drive out the miners and admiralty lumberjacks who work the wood. In response, the mining companies and admiralty have escalated the conflict by hiring mercenaries to escort their teams.

The wood has two major landmarks. The Tolland Stone is two-thousand-foot-high granite pinnacle near the wood's center, and is visible from much of the wood. Embrun Grove is about half way between the Tolland Stone and the wood's western boundary. Many trails in the west half of the wood and a web of granite milestones lead to the grove.

The Kirsi Domain

The Kirsi are Anhault's fairies, immortal, subtle, and childlike. Their domain stretches from the Frohnleighten Mountains to Anhault's west coast. The Kirsi royal court is in the granite-cliff-lined valley of Renhannes in the east. The Kirsi god Boreas and the Kirsi Oracle are in mountaintop settlement Gaillard in the west.

The Kirsi are close to nature. They can speak with animals and birds bring news from all over the world to the Kirsi Oracle in Gaillard. They have been friends of the Nord black whale pod and the sea creature Aachen since before time. They are friends to plants, and some grow only in the Kirsi domain, including love-in-idleness, an aphrodisiac; and wormwood, used to make absinthe.

The Kirsi are fascinated by humans and human cities. They often visit Hollin unseen, and sometimes replace human children there with their own children, changelings, for their own queer purposes. Gregor the naturalist's friend Bruhl is a changeling, and brings him news of the natural world by going between Gregor and the Kirsi. The Kirsi settlements Balibana, Tulun, and Gaillard are abandoned human cities, and they relish exploring the endless ruins of Balibana, which was a trading metropolis on the same scale as Hollin or Naumkaeg.

The Kirsi are not builders, so they are fascinated by human inventions, including things that humans might consider junk. They treasure things with cranks and musical instruments like squeezebox accordions and hurdy gurdies. They envy the gear that humans' work animals get, like bridles and blinders, although they cannot wear them themselves.

The Kirsi are peaceful, and best attackers with powerful misdirection rather than force.

Shear Pass

Shear Pass in the Frohnleighten Mountains connects the Tolland Wood on the east to the Kirsi domain on the west. The pass's highest point, and the tower that guards it, exist in both Balaal and Murnen, the plane of hapless souls.

The Caliphate

The Caliphate is a theocratic empire on the continent of Luhne. A council of nobles each descended from one the Ninety-Nine Gods they worship governs the empire from their desert homeland of al-Watan. While the Caliphate once controlled a great number foreign territories, recent internal strife has allowed many of these conquered nations to secede. An ancient religious schism threatens to boil over into full civil war. This turmoil has created an influx of refugees and exiles leaving the Caliphate in recent years.

Hilde

Hilde is the continent at Balaal's north pole. Hilde's periphery is cold but habitable, and explorers and settlers are drawn by its resources. For example, Hilde is the best source of quinine, the main defense against malaria, and guano, needed to make gunpowder. But, the great trading cities hold Hilde to be lawless, and war savagely on each others' settlements there.

Hilde's interior is an icy, uninhabitable waste. It is home to unspeakable things and attacts only the most hardened or desperate explorers.

Highpyre

Highpyre was the great capital of the Inkeri, Hilde's barbarians, and their sentinel city on the edge of Hilde's waste. An unknown attacker burned the city seventeen years ago and killed everyone except the infant Beowolf, and the Inkeri fled their other cities.

The Inkeri were craftsmen as well as warriors. Highpyre's tower held their masterwork, Lethe's Star. Lethe's Star lit Highpyre through Hilde's sunless winter, but is now missing.

Here is a map of Hilde near Highpyre.

Other Planes

Hereward is the restful plane, and there is a portal to Hereward on Apogee, a summit above Lofton Castle in Hollin. Murnan is the plane of souls who died haplessly and the vampire-like necaratu that prey on them, and Murnan touches Balaal at Shear Pass in the west of Anhault.

Besides these, the spirit Deva told the party at the Hollin Grimoire that he was from an unnamed plane of "nonexistence."