Geography

Summary
(from the Game World Index) In the dry, rugged heart of the Hegemony lies Karagon, smaller than its four subject provinces but far richer both economically and culturally. You've never been to the capital city, Aekos, but you've heard stories about its wonders, especially the Floating Palace of the Thaumatarch—a hovering mountain of marble connected to Aekos below it by a dozen gossamer stairways.

You were born and raised in the southern province of Shayard, a temperate country of rolling, forested hills and rich farmland. To the north is frigid Nereal, to the east craggy Errets, and to the west the imposing mountains of Whendery (which you can see from your town on a clear day). At least, those are the good solid Shayardene names you grew up using. You're aware that to their natives, the other provinces are known as Nyryal, Erezza, and Wiendrj—but to most Shayardenes, those names sound and look ridiculous.

There are even stranger realms beyond the Hegemony's Border Wards. Past Shayard to the south is the Abhuman Federation, a land of deserts and dense jungles inhabited by tribes of nomadic werebeasts who can adopt half-animal forms. There's an uneasy peace between the Karagonds and the Abhumans. You've heard about them visiting the Merchant's Pale in Shayard City, the small quarter where outsiders are allowed to come and trade.

The Halassurq Empire in the far east, by contrast, has spent much of the past three centuries at war with Karagon. Even in times of truce, as in your childhood, there were frequent Theurgic clashes across the hotly disputed Errets-Halassur border.

Elsewhere, the Wards hold back nightmares. To the west, cradling Shayard and Whendery, are the Xaos-Lands, where devastating wild magic Storms perpetually wrack the land. Anyone crossing that Ward would have their soul stripped away even before their body was destroyed. And you've heard whispers of even worse in the distant north—a kingdom of the unquiet dead.

Map Scale
The map is basically Mercator-esque, so Nyryal is not as big as it appears. Rim Square to Aegre is roughly 1,000 miles. The Aegre Strait isn’t Bosphorus-narrow, but it would still be pretty tough to get ships through it if a hostile power held Aegre or its sister cleruchy of Sescia. (source)

Natural Disasters
As for natural disasters, I don’t expect them to feature in the story – they’d distract from the human-caused disasters that are at its heart – so I’ve not put a lot of work into extrapolations from the winds, currents, and plates I came up with while drafting the world. Wiendrj and the Rim are on fault lines, and thus quake-prone, but not volcanic. With regard to wildfires, I expect the Hegemony would only intervene to protect major settlements, rather than trying quixotically to stamp out all wildfires. (source)

Xaos-storms
Xaos-storms dissipate very quickly over water. (source)

The Equator
The equator would not show up on the world map – it’s well to the south. The continent is in the northern hemisphere. (source)

Rotation
The Sun rises in the east in the gameworld. (source)