Zelidia stretches along the Sovia River from the edge of the Kameesi Jungle to the coast of the Agreben Sea. It is the only organized polity of the Zelle people: a theocracy governed by the High Priestesses, who sustain the jungle-spirits through blood sacrifice and maintain Zelidia's borders through isolation rather than armies.
The Sovia River is Zelidia's organizing geography. Five settlements—Katat, Yift, Sookap, Nox, and the capital Glezamos—sit along or near its banks, each contributing labor and captives to the cycle of offerings the Priestesses require. The river itself is treated as sacred ground; outsiders who attempt to navigate it without Zelle permission rarely return.
Glezamos, the current capital, was built by survivors fleeing the fall of the old capital Iirmos. The city sprawls across both banks of the Sovia, connected by bridges woven from living vines. Its center is the Temple of the Hungry Canopy, where the High Priestesses conduct sacrifices and commune with the jungle-spirits. Foreign delegations—the rare few permitted to enter—are received in the Bleeding Court, an open plaza where the stones are permanently stained rust-red.
Iirmos, the former capital, lies to the west of Glezamos—now ruins whose bone-white spires still rise above the jungle canopy. The High Priestesses do not speak of what ended it. What is known: a blood-working intended to permanently ward Zelidia from outsiders went catastrophically wrong, tearing open a passage to somewhere else. Survivors fled east and founded Glezamos. Iirmos was sealed, and the jungle around it has grown strange ever since.