Mercy, Furnace, and the North
No merchant or explorer has gone farther north than Mercy, a cursed ruin that seems to form an impermeable border between this south side of the continent and the hitherto unknown north. Mercy itself is a craggy, crated ruin of steel and earth, constantly overcast with green-grey clouds. Miles from the city's broken skeleton travellers can feel the distinct scratch of Salt on their skin and its acrid taste on their lips. Before the danger of the Salt was more fully understood some tried to venture beyond, but they were swallowed up by the creeping fog and never returned.
Those who returned all recalled a spirit haunting the place, the voice of a woman imploring them to turn back. Known as the Angel of Mercy, her sorrowful tones filter across the barren air to warn all those approach, as she has done for at least a century now, perhaps since time immemorial. Other ghostlike figures have been seen in the ruins beyond by sailors who were blown too far north by a wayward wind, wispy white human shapes on the docks, staring out at the sea as though waiting for someone to rescue. Some have been tempted by the angel of mercy in their own hearts, but all crashed upon the rocks and survived only by incredible fortune.
Mercy is believed to be the origin of the Salt, as the withering phenomenon has blown south on the wind first into the Dales, and then as far into Andover as the Seven Towns. Carlia, seemingly, has been unaffected. If anyone were to venture deep into Mercy and find the source of this affliction, they may also find the origin of the Conflagration and the reasons behind the end of the last universe.
Very little is known about the lands north of Mercy, but caravaner's tales speak of a great, industrial city clouded over with black smoke which has earned the nickname "Furnace" for its fiery appearance. Most in Andover disbelieve such rumours, however, as it is scientifically improbable that such an isolated city-state, if it is even inhabited, achieved industrial power on its own.
Beyond even the territory engulfed in smoke and legends there is even more mystery, but scholars studying the weather patterns of this continent have theorised that past Mercy to the farthest north is a frigid land of gargantuan mountains, wracked with ice all year round. From here the south wind brings deep chills to Andover and Carlia, and at times is enough to make the Salt storm of Mercy abate, flushing its aura of fog out to the sea. Others believe that the far north is the edge of this continent, where water runs around the boreal mountains and even gives a coastline to the Withern Sea. None of these hypothesis have much conclusive evidence, and some academic institutions in Carlia are so preoccupied with the "Northern Question" that they are offering princely sums to anyone who would head beyond Mercy and the Umbrian plateau and chart what they find in the unknown, untouched reaches of the world.