Age of Iron: Aswai

Now we head from the deep south of Tellus to the far east of our Asia analogue - Aswai! Aside from the Old World, the Far East is probably the 'best' detailed region of the Warhammer setting. Even then, that distinction has diminishing returns. Either way, medieval Asia is a pretty exciting and distinctive time period, so I of course had to include it.

The Great Steppe (name potentially changing) is my Eastern Steppe analogue, based partially around the Golden Horde Mongols. This is more Scythian than Mongolian, plus there will be hobgoblins a plenty.

Gurkani is my India/Ind region. Much of Gurkani was once under the control of Avalon but they've shaken off most of the shackles - now it's divided between a not-Delhi Sultanate and the southern not-Hindu kingdoms.

Kombuja is my Khuresh/SE Asia analogue. Khuresh is inhabited mainly by serpent people, and while those do exist in Kombuja they are not the main focus. Kombuja basically exists after the fall of the Khmer Empire, with many small successor states being led by god-kings trying to recover from disaster.

The Land of Darkness (name potentially changing) is my Darklands/Persia. Instead of basing it on Mesopotamian/Assyrian Persia, the Land of Darkness will be more like the Timurid Empire or Ihl-Khanate - where foreign invaders suppressed the native Persians and had basically a reign of terror over the region for around two centuries.

The Ogre Khans is my Ogre Kingdoms/Chagatai Khanate region. Ogres once ruled over all of Aswai much like Mongolia did, but the death of the Great Khan shattered the empire and drove the Ogres to inhabit the Mountains of Heaven, aka the Himalayas.

Yashimi is my Nippon/Japan analogue, and is fairly firmly entrenched in the Warring States/Shogunate era. Yashimi is also extremely isolationist, and mainly only Aquilla is able to trade with them in a reference to the Nanban trade (though that fudges the timeline a bit, which to me is fine).

Zhongguo is my China/Cathay region. I don't know if Cathay was ever based on a specific era of China, but Zhongguo is mainly influenced by the fairly short-lived Yuan dynasty (which immediately followed the dissolution of the Mongol Empire). Yuan China was probably the largest China has ever been, having conquered Mongolia, large parts of Tibet and even Korea. They even attempted to invade Japan once or twice, but subsequently failed.

Now for the maybes: I definitely want a region based on Austronesia, but I'm divided on whether it should be the location of the Fomorians, another human nation, or perhaps the realm of the 'sea elves', spun off from the high elves and given their own civilization.

I've also considered divorcing Korea from China but I think its kind of too minor of a country at this point in history to get highlighted as such. Korea really comes into its own when Sejong ascends to power, but that's not for a few 'real world' centuries. 

I've also considered doing Australia as kind of a southern Chaos Wastes, but I think that can be lumped into my regular Chaos Wastes analogue.

But anyway, there's Aswai. Next time we'll head west to Anahuac (aka the Americas) and get into a lot of debate on what to include. It's probably the 'roughest' continent content wise by far.