Continent of Galentya

The Northern Lands sit in the cold north, the former Crissen Empire's heartland in the centre, and the Trade Union's old territory along the south. The Grindya-era map shipped with this fixture covers most of the named cities and rivers in the story.

Galentya is the whole world of this story. On every map its heart is the Demon Dragon Ridge — a giant mountain system, source of the continent's three great waterways; north of it lies an uninhabited wilderness untrodden by man for nearly a thousand years. The second-largest river, the Silver River, feeds the Plain of Magic Hills in the south and empties into the sea west of Morant.

The north (despite the name 'Northern Lands' it is in fact the continent's centre) is cold and wild; the centre held the heartland of the Krissen Empire; the south, along the Plain of Magic Hills, is the domain of the Forde Trade Union with its sea access. Units of length are inherited from the magical civilisation: the grili (li) = a thousand gri-metres (metres).

The continent was once ruled by three great empires; one of them, the Krissen Empire, was foremost among them, while in the west the Roman Empire is known as the forbidden homeland of the rubber vine. Over a century ago Krissen invaded the Plain of Magic Hills against the young Forde Trade Union; the hundred-year war bled the empire dry, and the death of its sole Sword Saint tipped it into decline.

After the last emperor's death his three sons launched a civil war for the throne, and the Krissen Empire split into three kingdoms and seven principalities (across 29 provinces). The Eldest Prince holds the strongest, the Kingdom of Ridlis (Reiderlis); the Third Prince rules the small Kingdom of Andinak but owns the old capital and lawful succession; the Second Prince founded the north-eastern Kingdom of Iberia (five provinces, including the Northern Plateau) backed by his father-in-law, Grand Duke Fisabrun. Four rich central principalities (Faker, Forendo, Handr, Sabaj) keep a defensive league against Ridlis.

It is on this post-imperial stage that House Norton's rise plays out — from a disgraced barony on the cold North to a grand duchy. By the later volumes (ch 556, year 1783) Lorist is already Grand Duke Norton, a Sword Saint, and the continent lives under a 'Treaty of Twenty-One Nations'. House Norton wages a drawn-out trade-and-war campaign against the Trade Union, throttling it with the snow-salt monopoly and superior arms (steel crossbows, battering rams, cannon), while Grand Duke Peterson breaks from the union to found the Kingdom of Peterson — the continent's twenty-second nation.

Galentya was once ruled by a magical civilisation of elves and mages; from it remain the units of length, legends of parchment able to hold spells, and the rubber vine the mages carried from another half-world.

The name 'Minerva' does not appear in the text at all, and the single stray form 'Grindya' (EN, ch 13) is merely an incidental synonym for Galentea's academy rankings; canonically the continent is called Galentya. See mapNote.