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Far-called · World Guide

A field guide to Far-called

The Far-called series unfolds on Pellas — a world so vast that no single map of it is complete. At its heart is the Kingdom of Weyland, a constitutional nation drifting toward the modern age; on the far side of an ocean sits the Vandian Imperium, a slaver empire whose sky-mines run on captive labour. Between them lie mountain wind-republics, steppe hordes, forest seers and the deep-time powers the priesthoods can't agree about. This is a spoiler-light field guide.

Peoples, cultures & creatures

Weylanders
Common-pattern folk of the constitutional Kingdom of Weyland — the reader's window into Pellas, and the people whose political and theological argument is the trilogy's domestic drama.
Vandians
The caste-bound imperials of the slaver empire — the only Lancean-scale civilisation with the technology to make slavery industrial.
The Nijumeti
Blue-skinned, cold-resistant confederated nomads of the eastern steppes, who walk out into killing cold and call it a mild afternoon.
Rodalians
The altitude-adapted wind-pilots of the mountain republic, who read the wind — and, some say, summon it.
The gasks
Quilled, peaceful, mathematical forest people of Quehanna, whose “probability foresight” lets them see, just slightly, a step ahead.
The skels
Lizard-snouted air-nomad slavers — a properly other people with their own honour code, not humans in costume.

Factions & powers

◆
The Vandian Imperium
The slaver empire whose raid sets the trilogy in motion — and the engine behind the world's most dangerous war.
Slaver empireSky-mines
◈
The Kingdom of Weyland
A constitutional monarchy sliding from quarrel into open civil war — the home and political theatre of the western cast.
Civil warCrown vs Parliament
✦
Rodal — the wind-republic
A republic built into vertical cliffs, defended by a theological-military air force of wind-pilots — a critical ally and a critical battleground.
Wind-pilots
⬢
The Nijumeti horde
A confederated nomad polity of the eastern steppes whose oaths are older than the kingdoms about to feel their weight.
The horde
❖
The stealers
The ancient hostile power the frontier only whispers about — the deep-time antagonist the trilogy is named for.
Ancient powerSpoiler-light

Timeline & continuity

Deep history
The ethreaal & the stealers
Long before the kingdoms, ancient powers shaped Pellas and left it. The priesthoods still argue about what they were — and the stealers are the part of that history the world would rather forget.
Pre-series
A world drifting modern
Weyland edges toward parliament, rail and radio; Vandia perfects industrial slavery; and a frontier pastor named Jacob Carnehan buries the violent man he used to be.
Book 1
In Dark Service
Raiders fall on Northhaven and carry its children across the world to the Vandian sky-mines. A father sets out to bring his son home.
Book 2
Foul Tide's Turning
The Kingdom of Weyland tips into civil war, the wind-pilots of Rodal are drawn in, and a quietly terrifying courtier begins advising the wrong people.
Book 3
The Stealers' War
Open war breaks across continents — and the ancient power the trilogy is named for steps out from behind the curtain at last.

Characters

Pastor / father
Jacob Carnehan
Pastor of Northhaven, with a violent past he tried to bury. When raiders take his son, the man he spent twenty years burying comes back.
Son / slave
Carter Carnehan
Jacob's teenage son, taken to the Vandian sky-mines — growing up at the speed and unkindness that slavery permits.
Heir / rebel
Willow Landor
A wealthy merchant's daughter, taken in the opening raid, who carries a steel the early chapters never telegraph.
Vandian princess
Princess Cassandra Skar
A princess of a leading Vandian house, introduced under conditions that don't flatter her relatives — tougher, and more divided, than they know.
Great-house head
Helrena Skar
Cassandra's mother and head of her house; ambitious in ways that are neither entirely venal nor entirely safe.
Usurper king
King Marcus
Weyland's urbane, charming sovereign, whose constitutional carelessness becomes a war.
Nijumeti warrior
Alexamir Arinnbold
A young horde warrior — blue-skinned, romantic in the steppe way, forever crossing his clan's lines for the wrong reasons and being right anyway.
Sorcerer / trickster
Sariel
An impossibly old traveller who introduces himself as a sorcerer of some repute and is rarely as harmless as his patter suggests — the doorway into the trilogy's strangest material.

Glossary

Pellas
The endless world the series unfolds across — so vast that no single map of it is ever complete.
The Vandian Imperium
The slaver empire on the far side of the Lancean Ocean, whose sky-mines run on captive labour.
Rodal
The mountain wind-republic, built into vertical cliffs and defended by pilots who read — and summon — the wind.
The Nijumeti
The blue-skinned, cold-resistant confederated nomads of the eastern steppes.
The gasks
The quilled, peaceful, mathematical forest people of Quehanna, who can see a step ahead in probability.
The stealers
The ancient power the frontier only whispers about — the deep-time antagonist the trilogy is named for.

Good to know

🛈Content & sensitivity notes

The Far-called series is adult epic fantasy with a grimdark register — unflinching about its world without wallowing. The Vandian Imperium runs on industrial slavery, rendered as the obscenity it is; violence across raids, civil war and air-battles is competent and consequential; major characters die and grief is given its space; and religion appears both as real faith and as belief weaponised. There is no graphic sexual content used for shock. Best for thoughtful older-teen and adult readers.

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