Afterwar State of the Continent
PROPOSED TERM: [continent name] — the continent that contains the Zone of Valenar has no committed name yet; this file uses "the continent" or "the continent of Valenar" while treating "Valenar" as the Zone-and-region label that is already canon, not as the continent name.
Scope
This file owns the Game 1 specific Afterwar condition: the continent's shape, the blight-to-safer-side ratio, the surviving kingdoms' defensive lines, the fact that the prior Cycle peak's apex demons have been collapsed, and the player's starting degraded Shielded Zone on the abandoned side of the continent. It is the Game 1 instantiation of ul-demon-king-remains.md's Afterwar pattern and ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md's Shielded Zone fact, applied to this game's specific geography and political residue. Universe-scope mechanics (the Cycle structure, the Wardheart cosmology, the demon-origin layer) live in their ul-* files; this file describes only Game 1's local state.
Facts
Fact: The continent of Valenar is roughly Australia/South-America scale.
The continent that contains the Zone of Valenar is large but bounded — roughly Australia or South-America in scale. It is one continent of several in the super-world structure described in ul-cosmology.md; the specific name of the continent is deferred.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-cosmology.md
Fact: The continent is two-thirds to three-quarters blighted; the remainder is the safer side.
After the prior Cycle peak's defeat, taint, wound-fields, residual gates, and demon presence cover roughly 2/3 to 3/4 of the continent's land. The remaining safer side holds the surviving kingdoms and a thinning network of Shielded Zones. The continent is not split clean; the boundary between blighted and safer ground is a contested, shifting frontier rather than a hard line.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-demon-king-remains.md, ../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md
Fact: The prior Cycle peak's Demon King and major champions have been collapsed, shattered, or sealed.
The apex of the prior Cycle — the Demon King and the major Demon Knights of that peak — were defeated at the close of the prior era. The collapse is not the death of a single creature; it is the dissolution of the coherence condition described in ul-demon-cosmology.md. The remains are still active, distributed across the continent, and dangerous; the Cycle is arrested, not ended.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-demon-king-remains.md, ../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md, ../universe/ul-demon-cycle.md
Fact: Residual demons remain active across the continent; the Cycle is arrested, not ended.
The defeat of the prior peak did not clear the continent of demons. Lesser demons spawn from spawn pools, residual gates leak demon presence, Heartbound demons remain bound to surviving heart-fragments, and tainted beasts hunt the wound-fields. The Afterwar is the active state Game 1 is set in.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md, ../universe/ul-demon-cycle.md, gl-game1-demon-remains.md
Fact: The MC starts on the abandoned side of the continent.
The player's starting Zone is on the side of the continent that the surviving kingdoms have effectively abandoned to the blight. Surviving kingdoms hold their own defensive lines on the safer side and do not extend protection across the boundary. The MC arrives in territory that no political authority is currently defending.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md, gl-game1-surviving-nations.md
Fact: The starting Zone is the weakest surviving Shielded Zone.
The MC's starting Zone is small, degrading, and not under the political control of any surviving nation. Its Crown-Wardheart anchor is failing; the Ancient Shield protection it sustains is thinning. It is the worst surviving Shielded Zone on the continent — chosen as the start for that reason.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md, gl-mc-corebound.md
Exposure note: Surfaced as revealed per lh-game1-world-hooks.md — the safe-zone vs tainted-zone contrast is observable from Act 0.
Fact: Surviving safer-side kingdoms hold defensive lines and do not extend protection to the abandoned side.
Surviving kingdoms maintain their own Shielded Zones and ward-lines on the safer side of the continent. They do not project protection across the blighted boundary into the MC's Zone. Aid, envoys, and territorial claims arrive only at Province/Crown scale (Acts 5–6) per the surviving-nations timeline; in early acts the surviving kingdoms are a distant fact, not a present force.
Canonicity: soft canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: gl-game1-surviving-nations.md
Fact: The continent has no fully open Royal Gate; only residual gates and spawn pools remain.
A Royal Gate is the apex form of demon gate described in ul-demon-cosmology.md — the gate type that anchors a Demon King's manifestation in the mortal world. With the prior peak collapsed, no Royal Gate is currently active on the continent. What remains are lesser residual gates (degraded but still leaking), abandoned gate scars, and spawn pools that produce lesser demons from accumulated taint.
Canonicity: hard canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md, gl-game1-demon-remains.md
Fact: Spawn pools produce lesser demons from accumulated taint and corrupted local matter.
Spawn pools in the Zone and across the continent produce lesser demons from accumulated taint and locally corrupted matter rather than by direct gate-bridging from the demon-origin layer. They behave like recurring boil-overs: closing one does not require a full gate-closure ritual, but the pool reforms unless its taint source is cleansed. They are the most common demon-spawn site in the Afterwar.
Canonicity: soft canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md, gl-game1-demon-remains.md
Fact: Old maps in the Zone include partial coastlines of another continent.
A partial coastline appears on certain old maps recovered in the Zone — a pre-Cycle trade chart now mostly illegible, and trader rumours in the safer-side survivor communities reference distant landfalls that predate the Afterwar. The other continent is a hinted fact only; no Game 1 route reaches it, and the map fragments do not narrate cosmology, only that other lands exist.
Canonicity: soft canon for Game 1
Cross-refs: ../universe/ul-cosmology.md
Exposure note: Closes the lh-game1-cosmology-hooks.md promise for ul-cosmology.md — the mortal world has multiple continents at hinted tier.
Fact: The continent name is deferred.
PROPOSED TERM: [continent name] — the continent containing the Zone of Valenar has no committed name. It is referred to as "the continent" or "the continent of Valenar" in deferred terms; "Valenar" itself is the Zone/region label, not the continent name. A future content wave will commit the canonical continent name; until then, this term must not be invented in any Game 1 surface.
Canonicity: proposed
Cross-references
../universe/ul-demon-king-remains.md../universe/ul-demon-cycle.md../universe/ul-demon-cosmology.md../universe/ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md../universe/ul-cosmology.mdgl-mc-corebound.mdgl-game1-demon-remains.mdgl-game1-surviving-nations.md../hooks/lh-game1-world-hooks.md../hooks/lh-game1-cosmology-hooks.md