A wizarding nation south of Menboko, governed by a Conclave still measuring the distance between "not yet" and "never."
Home to Veil Vaust, the Seat of Glass, and, undetected within its own borders, the Ashkar.
Ithraval is a wizarding nation built around Veils, noble houses that each hold a voting seat on the ruling Conclave. Veil Vaust, the Seat of Glass, is the most prominent among them, controlling Ithraval's foreign policy and standing as first among equals in Conclave politics. It is not a kind culture to everyone inside its own borders, status runs on magical aptitude and birthright.
The nation is still recovering from a civil war fought within living memory, a conflict resolved, by more than one account, with the help of a single time-stop scroll that changed the outcome entirely.
Children of the Nexus Scar, a magic-immune desert people, undetected inside Ithraval's own territory.
The Ashkar live along a nexus line in the desert south of Menboko, entirely inside Ithraval's claimed territory and entirely off its maps. They are magic-immune, no spell, no enchanted gear, nothing arcane touches them, which makes them functionally invisible to a nation that measures worth in spellcraft. What they carry instead is the Knife Fighter tradition, stacked and re-stacked across a lifetime, and their bond to the Varkai.
Horse-sized fire ants, ridden rather than tamed, three types: Red, Sand, and Queen. An Ashkar child receives their first Varkai at thirteen. The bond grants a scaling +2 to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution that deepens with the rider's own level, and a Queen bond, the rarest and highest form, cannot be earned politically or through status. It simply happens, or it doesn't. Three phrases run through Ashkar life like scripture: "An Ashkar child receives their first Varkai at thirteen." "The Varkai tasted the mageblood." "No rider abandons their Varkai."
Leader of the Ashkar, bonded to a Queen Varkai, the rarest bond among his people. Vash ends fights by raising a single hand.