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Geography
Ardun Valley is a verdant temperate river valley that stretches nearly a hundred miles in length. The Ardun river originates in Moon Lake far to the north in the Ardun Mts. and flows south, weaving between the Stoneback Hills before emptying out into the Hadrian Sea. The area is dotted with ruins of cities and forts dating back to Nerath and even farther back, thousands of years, to the last great dwarven empire (and origin of the area’s name): Arduun.
The dwarven city of Ironwall is carved out of the extinct caldera of a volcano and the human-dominated port of Cairnbridge stretches across the river at the edge of the sea.
Races
Humans dominate the southern side of the valley, living in their farming villages and the walled city of Cairnbridge while to the north, in the mountains, the Forgeheart dwarves guard their lands with the Seven Towers and live secure in their impregnable mountain fortress.
An insular tribe of elves, the Woodsingers, live in the vast Cloakwood and those who enter their territory have often never returned. Halflings exist in the valley in small numbers, though they have built a floating village in Moon Lake at the start of the Ardun River.
Dragonborn exist almost entirely in Cairnbridge, living in the orderly racial neighborhood of Scale Bend in Eastbridge. Those few dragonborn not of the city are travelers coming from distant Nentir Vale and sometimes even farther afield.
Eladrin are rarely seen and exist most often in myth and legend but every few decades they appear without explanation, go about their business and disappear again.
Survivors of fallen Bael Turath, the tieflings of Cairnbridge are mistrusted by most. Those who manage to make something of themselves often work hard to cultivate an image of civility to contrast the brutality of the stereotypical criminal image of modern tieflings. Beyond Cairnbridge’s borders tieflings exist much as everything else, existing more or less in harmony with their neighbors. None outside the city walls can risk alienating a potential friend.