Geography
Less then seventy miles south of Rizen lies a chain of volcanic isles, their black rimmed, smoking craters giving way to tropical jungle below. These are the Kimeian Isles, an ecosystem that has been described as ‘Vini Tresolm in miniature’.

Thick jungles climb to the very edge of the volcanoes, occasionally giving way to a lake of heated water, or arid desert. Ancient lava tubes form caves deep into the hearts of the islands.

History
Less than a century after the failure of the Hailene War of Ascension, a number of the magical technologies the hailene had researched found their way into the hand of scholars from the Academy of the Arcane Arts in Te’raan. Secret arts, most engineered for war, many seen as abominations, were suddenly staring those who would have been their victims in the face.

A schism developed within the academy; one faction wishing to delve more deeply into the lost technologies, one wishing to seal them away for a time when the world may need them and one wishing simply to destroy them. Over the next two centuries, the opposing sides did secret war, replete with assassinations, betrayals and more than once – employing the very spells they fought over.

Eventually, a single group, dedicated to the development and employment of the hailene technologies was formed. Calling themselves the Reaping Brotherhood, they took the name and trappings of a mythical group of mages who fought oppression of their talents. The Brotherhood staged one final coup, stealing a great deal of research on the hailene arts from the main academy and fleeing to an Academy laboratory facility on the former Vishnari military outpost in the Kimeian Isles.

Once their positions were fortified, the Brotherhood established their own nation in the islands, dubbed Mon Sulus Kime, or in the Imperial tongue literally: Home of the Brotherhood on Kime.

Culture
Kimeian society is, on the outset, ideal. The natives live in well defended seaside villages or in decadent inland cities. Food is plentiful and life is far less stressful than on the mainland, even without the construct servitors that the citizens of other magically advanced nations, such as Te’raan or Mindeforme enjoy.

Or at least it would be, except for one, simple fact: the citizens of Mon Sulus Kime are experiments; the long term results of a eugenics program established by the Brotherhood (now called the Overlords of Kime) in the first decades after establishing their new nation.

Every coupling – in fact, every instance of personal contact is predetermined by agents of the Overlords. Children born outside the established plan are removed from their parents immediately. This is how, over the years, the people of Mon Sulus Kime have been bred to be obedient, strong and especially capable at magic. As new Overlords, specifically bred and raised under the direction of current Overlords, are products of this process, the cycle is self perpetuating.

As knowledge of the outside world is reserved only for the Overlords and their chosen agents, Kimeian art, music and literature are highly divergent and, thanks to the heavy reliance on magic in day to day life, in some cases alien to mainland societies. Many works require special spells or magic items to fully experience.

Industry
The lay people of Mon Sulus Kime are quite self sufficient; farming the fertile volcanic soil, harvesting the abundant fruits, and fishing the surrounding ocean for all their needs under the supervision of agents of the Overlords.

The government, however, is financed by selling the results of its experiments; including live demihuman (or formerly demihuman) subjects, spells, magic items, and alchemical reagents; to buyers on the mainland. While trucking with the Kimeians is a most taboo of dealings, they have as their clients people and organizations from all walks of life, from the powerful Kaydans and the Calderian government to lowly towns and cities on the southern coastline desperate for means of self defense.

Government
Mon Sulus Kime is ruled by a selectively reared and groomed council of Overlords, numbering between fifteen and thirty individuals who make the decisions for the people in their charge. Each Overlord overseers hand picked agents (people who were raised for grooming to be Overlords, but were found lacking), who hold direct control over individual villages.

The agents rule with varying degrees of brutality, though they are limited by the parameters of the experiments being performed in their village. Though they are beholden to the Overlords, agents have their own ambitions and individuality and try their best to manipulate events and experiments for their own purposes as well as sabotage other agents.

This is a dangerous game, however, as the penalty for being discovered compromising an experiment is becoming part of a brutal experiment oneself.

Organizations and Individuals of Note

Sarcadus Volfien
While not the founder of Mon Sulus Kime, this elf lich is the only survivor of the original renegade wizards that landed on the Kimeian Isles. He is responsible for the selective breeding of Overlords to ensure that they aren’t inclined to affect any real changes in the nation.

Volfien is a specialist in what he calls recombination; merging multiple species post birth into chimera. He uses the more successful results of these experiments to guard his offices while selling the passable, but uninteresting ones to buyers one the mainland.

Major Settlements

Dulcimer (Small town)
The former site of a Vishnari colony, Dulcimer is the effective capitol of Mon Sulus Kime. Two or three story buildings made of volcanic stone house the Overlords, their laboratories, and all their servants.

The center of the town is dominated by an arena call the Proving Grounds, where generational subjects from experiments are forced through obstacle courses or pitted against one another to determine worthiness.

The northern port of the city also houses and aquatic research center where captured sea life is altered, released and monitored.

Isolation Colony (Hamlet)
Damaged (physically, genetically, or psychologically) experiment subjects are sent to the small island in the southwestern tip of the archipelago known by the Overlords as Isolation Colony as a kind of stockpile of genetic material. Most who even survive transport to the island either die without medical attention, or are too violent and must be put down by the other inhabitants.

Those that have survived have formed their own rudimentary society, led by an ogre named Kilikash. Life on Isolation colony is harsh, not because of lack of food or shelter, but because less civilized reject experiments stalk the island.

Kilikash has formed an army of sorts to protect his followers, but knows that even with the rudimentary weapons and magic they are able to scrabble together, they can never challenge the Warden of Isolation Colony: Damonnuridan, a half black dragon kraken who serves the Overlords in exchange for their addictive serum that makes him half draconic.