The fantasy world of Akeran is constituted by a huge continent, divided into 5 climatic zones known as Realms. An according number of Races has arisen and adapted its way of life to the surrounding nature. They each also developped specific habilities to exploit their environment.
The inhabitants of Akeran and the Mages (player's avatars) worship either Briac, God of Life, Source of Light, or Khorg, God of Evil, Aura of Darkness.
The last main character is Artagel, the Merchant Prince, who governs Greystar and every cities of the Guild of Merchants.
The 5 realms existing at the surface of the Akeran's Disc are, in alphabetical order:
Each realm is divided into about 10 Provinces. In a realm, there are inner provinces, surrounded by other provinces of the same realm, and frontier provinces that lay in contact with other realms' provinces. The amount and diversity of goods produced in a province depends on its location on the map. These characteristics are called the Province Profile.
In game terms, you first have to choose the race you want to first play with. Then you must select a province in the home realm of this race to found your first city. Selecting a frontier province will allow you to harvest as many varieties of goods as this province profile shows, providing you build the necessary buildings, whereas selecting an inner province restricts you to the harvest of a single variety, but in greater amount.
Looking at the Map, you surely noticed the central empty provinces. The ancient city of Greystar, an immense and silent city, lay at the center of the Akeran's Disc. The political center of the world is ruled by Artagel, the Merchant Prince, and is home to the Mages (players' avatars) where they struggle for power and magical knowledge. From there, the Mages issue orders to their city administrators and generals to develop their respective Empire. No armed force ever goes neither inside Greystar nor into the forbidden 6 provinces surrounding it, also known as the Greystar's Marches.
A player can keep on playing the game if its avatar owns at least one city of whichever race circumstances have decided. When the last city of a Mage is taken by the troops of another one, he's considered to have been killed and striped of all its possessions (yes, I mean gold !) by its conqueror. The player can however create another avatar by newplayering again.
Cities management is deeply linked with commercial contact with the Guild of Merchants, which is under the governance of Artagel. The Guild owns one city in every province, called the Market. The Market is immune to all attack attempt, due to deals between Artagel and the Gods, and only non fighting units are allowed inside its walls.
When you start a game, your City can only trade with the local Market. However, training Caravans will later allow you to trade with other players if you find the Guild's prices not fair enough.
Distance between 2 markets of adjacent provinces is 9 leagues on the main trade routes. Built by the Guild upon the time of its foundation, they are continuously maintained in good state by guild workers and are the best and fastest way to travel all around the world.
Inside a province, every city is linked to the local market by a secondary route, from one of the principal province route. Distance between a city and its central market is 4 leagues. The following figure describe the city positions and the associated names.