The Land
The Ancient Empire of Tharicia rose in the First Age to make humanity the dominant race by the time of Great War Against the Shadow. The Tharicians were a fierce and robust people who subsumed other human communities as their borders expanded. They were known for wealth, arrogance, and an obsession with prophecy, but also for values of loyalty to nation and family, for great achievements in the arts and civilization, and for tireless courage in the war against the Most Foul.
At its height, Imperial Tharicia reached from the far western shores to its eastern border with Ophira. It claimed all of Druma as a client kingdom for a time, and its reach extended far northeast into what is now called Troll Country. Tharicia’s borders held chains of islands in the Bright Sea, trackless expanses of forest, fertile plains and valleys, silver-rich mountains, and dark swamps. In this vastness, it also had a population of millions. They lived in cities of marble and bronze, or towns of granite and brick. The greatest of these cities was shining Takresh, the capital of the Empire since time remembered only by the Firstborn.
Tharicia was divided into four unequal parts. The lands north of Takresh belonged to the Alemnet Tribe. The west belonged to the Gyla Tribe, as the east to the Strazha. The lands south of Takresh, the smallest of the domains, belonged to the Targovishte Tribe. Foreigners often crossed the empire's borders and settled on its frontiers. The Tharicians scorned these “barbarians,” and made them serfs, but over the centuries the newcomers became as Tharician as their predecessors.