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.
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.
Here is a map of Anhault west of Hollin. Three areas are interesting: the Tolland Wood, the Kirsi Domain, and Shear Pass.
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 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 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.
Note: Kelly introduced the Caliphate as part of Ord Redding's background.
The Caliphate is a desert empire on the continent of Luhne, straddling the equator far south of Hollin and the other Bellem Sea city states. The Caliphate is aggressively expansionist, and enslaves and forcibly converts conquered subjects.
The Caliphate worships ninety-nine gods, collectively called just "the Ninety-Nine." The Caliphs, a council of the Ninety-Nines' descendants, have historically ruled the empire as a theocracy. Recently the Malik ("king"), a son of the Ninety-Nines' Malik, has risen to challenge the Caliphs. The Malik's armies have conquered the empire except for the capital al-Watan, which resists alone. The Malik's assassins have killed most of the Caliphs and the Ninety-Nines' other heirs, while the Malik personally hunts the Ninety-Nine themselves.
The capital al-Watan is on the turbulent Bay of Nasir, at the mouth of the Jahara River. al-Watan's two most prominent features are the three-story-high coliseum and the walled citadel, which commands the city's highest point. Hundreds of churches in the city are devoted to the individual Ninety-Nine gods, and their domes and minarets clutter the skyline.
A shop near al-Watan's docks, the Grotesquery, sells curiosities from the four corners of the earth - withered monkey paws, erotic charcoal sketches, and masks made from long beaks and mystery creatures' hair. But among the many quaint and off-putting items, a few ancient treasures with forgotten histories sell for a few copper pieces.
The Jahara River's annual flood renews a narrow ribbon of fertile soil that gives the Caliphate life. But away from the Jahara, the Caliphate is a desert country, hostile to human life.
The Caliphate desert's original inhabitants are the Djinn, demons of fire. Djinn society is multifaceted, with the same aspects as human society. In particular, Djinn society is feudal, and the Djinn high court is at the worst part of the deep desert, the Sun's Anvil.
The portal where the Ninety-Nine entered Balaal is also in the deep desert, at the Well of Life. The Ninety-Nine entered Balaal with their own angelic servants, the Annur. With the Annurs' help, the Ninety-Nine subjugated the Djinn and put themselves at the top of the Djinn feudal order.
The Caliphate usurper Malik is also Krohn, who rules the city-state Blackwells. Krohn's armies fight on Hilde to monopolize the salt that produces Greencake, which sorcerers use for summoning. Krohn believes that Greencake can be further refined to make the Philosopher's Stone, which would convert lead to gold and give immortality.
Hilde is the continent at Balaal's north pole. Hilde's periphery is cold but habitable, while the interior is an icy, uninhabitable waste. The interior is home to unspeakable things and attracts only the most hardened or desperate explorers.
The Bellem Sea city-states trade peacefully outside Hilde, but hold Hilde to be lawless, and war savagely on each others' settlements on its periphery. They struggle over Hilde's resources, like guano, needed to make gunpowder; and quinine, the best defense against malaria.
Hilde is the only source of the salt that produces Greencake, which sorcerers use to summon, and the Blackwells emperor Krohn has largely monopolized Hilde's Greencake mines.
The Inkeri are Hilde's native barbarians. Inkeri clans are ruled by the strong, determined by single combat. The Inkeri religious leaders are shaman, and Inkeri warriors coming of age are expected to seek out an animal spirit through an intense physical trial.
Highpyre was the Inkeri's great capital, 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.
Hereward is the restful plane, and there is a portal to Hereward on Apogee, a summit above Lofton Castle in Hollin. In contrast, the hellish Murnen is the plane of souls who died haplessly and the vampire-like necaratu that prey on them. Murnen touches Balaal at Shear Pass in the west of Anhault.
Kairos is a plane without time, and there is an unmanned, little-noticed carriage in Braddock's hectic meat market with service to Kairos.
The Caliphate's Ninety-Nine gods came from their own plane, a planet irradiated by a recently created neutron star. There is a portal to the Ninety-Nine's plane at the Well of Life in the Caliphate's deep desert.
The party encountered two planes of "nonexistence": the spirit Deva told the party at the Hollin Grimoire that he was from an "unnamed plane of nonexistence"; and Aeris's spirit visited Bardo, the place betweeen existences.
