The world of Nook is a small one, meant to have more of a video game feeling scope to its actual size. Much inspiration was drawn from the Legend of Zelda and Final Fanatasy games. There is only a hanful of kingdoms and just as few towns.
The West
Westhaven is the greatest kingdom of the West. Westhaven stretched from the Wyrmspine mountains in the East, the Blue Mountains in the West. North to the White Peaks and south to the the Twylight Woods. Westhaven is made up of three main towns: Westhaven City, Kirk, and Gaille.
The town of Kirk sits closest to the Wyrmspine Mountains, near the Dragonmaw Canyon. Kirk serves as the first line of defense against many of the raids into Westhaven from the Wyrmspine Mountains. Kirklanders are known for their fighting prowess. Some of the greatest warriors of Westhaven have come from Kirk
The town of Gaille sits farthest west on the Erewhyne in the edge of the Hill Country. Gaille is a quiet farming community. The Gaillanders tend to keep to themselves but are an amicable people. Though they speak Westish well, they prefer to use their ancestral Gaillic language. These factors lead the rest of Westhaven to considered the Gaillanders backwards.
Westhaven City is located between Gaille and Kirk and on the River Calduin. It is the newest town in Westhaven, new construction is going on constantly. It is also by far the wealthiest in Westhaven and perhaps in Nook. The King's Castle sits just north of the city. The city is also home to the main garrison of the Royal Guard, port for the sky navy, and the primary campus for the Academy of Wizardry.
Needless to say the city is always bustling with merchants, nobles, soldiers, and wizards.
Westhaven is not just a kingdom of humans. In the White Peaks is the gnomish settlement of Widget. The gnomes have a great love of any sort of machine, gadget, or clockwork. They enjoy creating them, using them, and studying them. Widget is full of mechanical devices some very useful, others treacherous even to their creators. The gnomes have lived in peace with Westhaven since its conception. The gnomes even helped the Westhaveners reinvent the Elyaerian airship technology. Gnomes can be found in Westhaven City and even serve in the Royal Guard and more frequently in the Sky Navy. The shipyard for Westhaven is located in Widget.
In the Hill Country live the diminutive, hair footed, jovial halflings. Like the Gaillanders they usually keep to themselves but have been known to have dealings with Westhaveners, especially the Gaillanders. In recent weeks both the halflings, and the Gaillanders have suffered raids from greenskins in the Blue Mountains. Greenskins in the mountains is nothing new, but their increasing numbers have seemed to have emboldend them.
The Blue Mountains run north to south. They are named so because of the bluish appearance they have at a distance. They are not very tall and are full of vegetation and wildlife. The only real dangers in the Blue Mountains have been a few elusive greenskin tribes. The land beyond the range is wild, mainly unexplored, and unsettled by Westhaven.
North of the Blue Mountains is the Greymor Forest. It is a vast tract of of huge trees, dense vines, and brambles. The forest is also more infamously called the Thieve's Den. The difficult nature of the forest makes it hard for anyone to enter and easy for someone to hide within it. The worst thieves bands of Westhaven use the Greymor Forest as a hideout from the Royal Guard. The bandits add to the natural defense of the Greymor with a variety of traps, making pursuit impossible.
The Wyrmspine Mountains are the great divide between the West and East. The high mountains run from the White Peaks in the north to the Southern Sea. They are the tallest mountains in Nook and the most treacherous. High passes and deep ravines threaten travellers But many other dangers lurk there as well. Monsters as numerous as they are varied wait in the dark corners of the Wyrmspine awaiting their next victim.
Just beyond the Wymspine Mountains is vast gorge known as the Dragonmaw Canyon. The Dragonmaw was cut by the River Dragha- Ahdrul that runs at the bottom of it. Mocklingly the Westhaveners refer to this river as the River Dragondrool.
The main passage through the Wyrmspine ends at the canyon. The canyon is crossed by a gigantic bridge, built by the Elyaerians. It was designed to serve as a sort of trading post. The bridge is large enough to accomadate a lot of traffic, but you did not need to cross it to trade. The bridge itself was a town, Elyaerians lived and did business on the bridge. When Darom's hordes threatened Westhaven, the Westhaveners, built a fortress right on the bridge called Bridge Castle.
Now it still serves as the first line of defense for Westhaven. The Royal Guard and the Sky Navy man it and use it as a staging point for patrols of the Wyrmspine Mountains. Westhaven maintains a small but lucrative mine just past the Dragonmaw in the Eastwyldes. The miners depend on the Bridge Castle for protection from the horrors that roam about.
The Wyrmspine Mountains is also the ancestral home to the dwarves. The dwarves have two delves, Thoras and Ironwatch, deep beneath the slopes of the mountains. The dwarves are great miners and craftsmen, creating masterwork items of all kinds. Few humans have seen their delves, those who have, describe fabulously detailed carved halls and chambers, that can reach for miles below the surface. The dwarves are a stubborn fierce people, and well so, their lands for centuries have been infested by monsters of all types.
The Twylight Woods is located next to the Wyrmspine Mountains below Westhaven. They are thought to be the oldest forest on Nook. Some trees there are several hundred feet tall and so thick 4 men could not hold hands around them. Moss covered boulders and meandering brooks pass through the dappled sunlight beneath the great boughs. The sources for the Rivers Erewhyne and Calduin lie somewhere in its depths. The woods give a feeling of wonder and enchantment to all that enter. The Twylight Woods is home to many woodland creatures, fantastic animals, faeries, and the elves.
Somewhere within these enchanted woods is the hidden city of the elves, Illymyrs. None but the elves have ever seen the city and none but them are able to find it. Many have tried to find it and map the way to it, but all have failed.
The East
East of the Wyrmspine mountains is a land of darkness and savagery called the Eastwyldes. The Eastwyldes has an ominous, fearful feel to it. The sky always seems greyer and the land bleaker. Westhaven maps of this region are lacking with many assumption as to exact locations and dimensions of locales. What is known is that the Eastwyldes is home to many terrible things. Tribes of wildmen wander about. The greenskin races of orcs, ghoblins, and trolls, make war. The air is filled with the cries of dragons.
The Eastwyldes were not always so. It was once the seat of the Elyaerian Empire, which Westhaven scholars believe stretched to the four seas. But when the Blackstar corrupted its rulers and fostered the greed that was already rising, the Empire toppled. Darkness now reigns over the land. From the chaos many warlords have risen over time and have made war upon Westhaven. None so vile as Darom. Darom used the Blackstar with brutal effect in his war to control all of Nook. It was Eradius, the greatest hero of Westhaven, who ventured into the Eastwyldes to Dharm Tower, destroying both Darom and the Blackstar, removing their threat forever.
The northern edge of the Eastwyldes is flanked by the Red Mountains. They earned their name from the infertile red soil that make them up. Little vegetation grows there and what does is stunted and deformed. The Red Mountains is the longest range in Nook, reaching from the Wyrmspine almost to the Eastern Sea. It is believed that an Elyearian ruin, rich in treasure lies in a hidden valley near within it, near the Wyrmspines.
The Drakewood earned its name for being called home by countless dragons. Many dragons return here to lay their eggs and raise their brood. It is located just south of the Red Mountians. The forest is dark and nearly lifeless. The Drakewood is thought to be cursed and those who venture within and die are said to roam restlessly among the trees for all eternity.
Far to the east, up against the Red Mountains lies another forest. The Witherwood Forest is the largest forest of the east, and in all of Nook is only surpassed in size by the Twylight Woods. The forest's northerly location and altitude makes it colder and contributes to it mostly being comprised of giant conifers. The forest gives most who enter the feeling of being watched and malice towards them. Many twisted animals dwell there, thriving off the fearsome nature of the Witherwood. Dire wolves and ferocious bears hunt there.
It is rarely spoken of among the elves of the west but the Witherwood is home to group of wayward elves. The evil nature of the forest was not always so, it was once a pleasant place. A group of elves, feeling constrained by their kindred in Illymrys set out to create a new city in the east, during the time of the Elyaerian Empire. They called their new city Naghadriel. After the fall of Elyaeria, the Blackstar twisted the forest and the hearts of those within it. The decendants of those elves became dark elves, a malevolent, warlike group. The elves of the west almost never talk of their shameful cousins, and few in Westhaven know they exist.
The city, now simply called Nagha, is lead by the Black King of the Wood. They once were in league with Darom in his attempt to conquer Nook. Now the dark elves are the most formidable group within the Eastwyldes. They have been bidding their time avoiding open war with the barbarians and greenskins around then, as well as with Westhaven. They secretively move about Nook, causing discord and strife, to fulfill their master plan.
The Thunderspires splits off from the Wyrmspine Mountains just south of the Dragonmaw. Many active volcanoes exist within the range, giving them their name. The region gives the Eastwyldes its dark nature, as smoke and ash explode from the volcanoes it is carried over all of the east. Earthquakes and lava flows make everything very unstable, travel their is slow and dangerous. Orcs and the other greenskins call the Thunderspires home, if such a thing existed for them. They take full advantage of its difficult nature to hide from Westhaven forces, and move to and from the Wyrmspine on raids into the west.
At the eastern terminus of the Thunderspires is Urughazhad, or as it is sometimes called the Furnace. The emense black fortress was built by the greenskins in league with Darom. In appearance it has no symetry, only a horrid cachephony of materials, building styles, and layout. It was used to make the weapons of war and wicked warmachines, Darom used in his war on Nook. Even now, over a 150 years after his demise, the greenskins and wildmen there still churn out all sorts of cruel things to use against the west.
Angthul, the citadel, is another mosterous fortress built by Darom. Its was built purposely in front of the Dragonmaw Pass. Darom used it as a mounting point for invasion, and towards then end of his war, as a shield to protect the Eastwyldes from the advancing Westhaveners. Angthul towers high above the plain, made of stone and iron. It tall battlements and turrets can be seen for some distance and appears like a claw grasping at the darkened sky with the vile Eastwyldes as a backdrop.
Now varying wildmen tribes compete to control the citadel, the ones that succeed then turn their attention to the Dragonmaw Pass and the Bridge Castle.
Far to the south the River Dragha-Ahdrul flows into a great basin. The river turned the basin into the Grymmire Marshes. Its proximity to the Arid South keeps the Marshes warm, a fog hangs perpetually, rising from the warm water. The air smells foul from decomposition. There is hardly a dry place to stand, what is not under water, is thick, sticky, grey mud. It is home to aligators, buzzards, snakes, and countless posionious insects of all sizes. Trolls and dragons are known to lurk there, it is also believed that the dead cannot rest in the Grymmire and wander looking to ease their pain by adding to their numbers.
The swamp was once a fertile basin, and a great Ellyaerian city was built there. Most attribute the change to the evil curse of the Blackstar but none know for certain.
Far to the east lies the ruined stronghold of Darom, Dharm Tower. The structure at one point was the tallest in all of Nook. Dharm tower was carved, not built, from a lone spearlike spire, near the edge of the Thunderspires. Turrets and battlements cover its exterior of black rock. Darom and the evil Blackstar added their magic to the already formidable defenses of the tower, making it nearly indestructable. When Darom was slain by Eradius and the Blackstar shattered, the combined militaries of the west brought the tower down. Now it sits a stump of its former power amid a field of toppled walls and stones.
The North and South
The cold White Peaks mark the boundry between the rest of Nook and the Frozen North. The name states exactly what it is a huge tract of snow and ice. The only thing changing the landscape is some boulders and few evergreen trees. Little is known about it. A few expeditions have journeyed there but with little success before returning.
Beyond the southern end of the Wyrmspine mountains and the Twylight Woods Nook turns into a grassland and then quickly into a vast dry desert. Like with the Frozen North few have dared venture far out into its lifeless sands.