Thundain Thursday: The Western Nations — Corrillia, Vogornia & Eldynar

The western edge of Thundain tells three very different stories about how a civilization can be built — and what it chooses to value. An ancient elven homeland. A proud nation of cat-people. And just to the east, a republic that is not quite what it claims to be. Together they form one of the most politically and culturally complex corners of the continent.

Corrillia — The Elven Homeland

Corrillia is the largest elven nation in Thundain and the place every elf in the world, regardless of where they actually live, considers home. It is a land of extraordinary beauty, carefully maintained — the streets of its cities are lined with cats (holy animals, always fed, never harmed on pain of severe punishment), the architecture is elegant and ancient, and the culture is built around freedom, personal expression, and the communal ownership of prosperity.

It is also a land with a serious problem it refuses to fully acknowledge.

The Primusene elves who dominate Corrillian society are haughty, arrogant, and convinced of their own cultural superiority in ways that have calcified over millennia into something indistinguishable from institutional cruelty. The Drow — another elven subrace, surface-dwelling and not the subterranean villains of other settings — live in the southeastern corner of Corrillia in a region they refuse to abandon because it contains their most sacred sites. The Primusene want that land for its resources and strategic value. The result is a system of oppression that has lasted thousands of years: Drow forbidden from owning weapons or armor, searched at checkpoints, condemned to the most degrading work in society, their faith declared dangerous and their god Elistraee — the Dark Maiden — treated as evidence of their corruption rather than the center of a genuine spiritual tradition.

The Drow city of Erristreia is silent during the day — its people are nocturnal, meditating while the Primusene go about their business — and alive at night in ways that visitors find unsettling and beautiful in equal measure. The Drow are also Thundain's primary workers of adamantine, the hardest metal in the world, which gives them an economic importance the Primusene find inconvenient to admit.

Corrillia is a place of genuine wonder and genuine injustice existing side by side, which makes it one of the most interesting places in Thundain to set an adventure.

Vogornia — The Vogornian Nation

Neighboring Corrillia to the south lies Vogornia, home to the Vogornians — a civilization of anthropomorphic cat-people who are unmistakably feline in form but fully sapient, culturally sophisticated, and possessed of a dignity that makes most human visitors feel they have arrived underprepared.

The Vogornian population breaks along familiar feline lines. The great tiger and lion types are the largest and most physically imposing, forming the backbone of Vogornia's warrior traditions. The panther types are sleek, shadow-quick, and tend toward roles that reward stealth and precision. Smaller subtypes round out a society where physical form carries genuine cultural weight — not as a hierarchy, but as a natural expression of different strengths and temperaments.

The relationship between Vogornia and Corrillia is long, layered, and not easily summarized. Elves consider cats sacred. The streets of Corrillian cities are perpetually overrun with them. Whether the Primusene view their Vogornian neighbors with reverence, condescension, or something uncomfortably close to both depends entirely on which Primusene you ask — and how much they've had to drink. For their part, the Vogornians have their own opinions about a people who worship cats as holy while simultaneously oppressing an entire subrace of their own kind.

Vogornia's position on the continent gives it strategic importance that its neighbors are careful not to underestimate. A nation of warriors literally built for speed, stealth, and predatory instinct is not a neighbor you antagonize casually.

Eldynar

Further west, at the edge of the known world as most Thundain maps define it, lies Eldynar — remote, proud, and largely content to be left alone. Eldynar sits at the far western coast, separated from the main continent by enough geography that it has developed its own distinct character over centuries of relative isolation.

Eldynar is the kind of place that appears on maps as a destination rather than a waypoint. People do not pass through Eldynar on their way to somewhere else. They go to Eldynar specifically — for rare knowledge, unusual goods, or the particular kind of anonymity that comes from being very far from anywhere that knows your name.

The Thunder Rail does not reach Eldynar. This is either a significant disadvantage or the entire point, depending on who you ask.

The Shadow of the Republic

Just to the east of these western nations sits the Republic of Thrane — nominally a democratic republic, the most powerful nation on the continent, and in practice something considerably more complicated. Thrane calls itself a republic. It has institutions, elections, a legislature. It also has a single charismatic leader whose grip on power has a way of making those institutions feel decorative.

The western nations — Corrillia with its ancient pride, Vogornia with its warrior culture — exist in the long shadow of Thrane's ambitions. How each chooses to navigate that relationship says everything about who they are.

For Pathfinder players building characters from the western nations, Book of Beasts: Bestiary offers creatures that fit the Corrillian wilderness beautifully. And for characters drawn to Corrillia's deep natural magic traditions, A Necromancer's Grimoire: Paths of the Druid is well worth exploring.

Thundain is the personal campaign setting of John Reyst, creator of d20pfsrd.com — the world's most popular free Pathfinder 1e rules reference, used by millions of Pathfinder players worldwide. Support John's work and get exclusive early access to Thundain content on Patreon.