The Library
Worlds
Shop
The Continent

The Continent · the known world · until it wasn't

The Continent

Two kingdoms, four hundred years of war, one mountain spine dividing them — and for two whole books, everyone believes this is the entire world. It isn't.

The single landmass the Empyrean saga is fought across: Navarre's forests and Poromiel's grasslands, split by the warded Esben spine, scarred by the Barrens to the east — the whole war-board, right up until Onyx Storm sails past its edge.

The war-board

Less a place than the board the whole saga is played on.

The Continent isn't really a character — it's the board. Navarre's pine highlands and coastal cliffs on one side, Poromiel's arid grasslands and marshes on the other, a warded mountain spine down the middle, and four centuries of war traded across all of it. Every march, siege and rebellion sits somewhere on this map.

The edge of the map

The lie the whole geography was hiding.

For two books, this is the whole world — Navarre teaches it that way, and the maps agree. Then Onyx Storm sails south across the Arctile Ocean and finds the Isle Kingdoms sitting exactly where the maps went blank. The Continent was never the edge of everything. Someone just drew it that way.

What's on the map

The two kingdoms, the spine, and the scar.

Swipe to meet them all

The dragon kingdomNavarrethe western halfEnter Navarre →
The gryphon kingdomPoromielthe eastern halfEnter Poromiel →
The warded spineThe Esben Mountainsthe border down the middleEnter The Esben Mountains →
The dead landsThe Barrensthe scar on its eastern edgeEnter The Barrens →

The File

What it is
The central landmass of the Empyrean series — bordered by the Emerald Sea to the north and the Arctile Ocean to the south.
Who holds it
Two kingdoms: Navarre, mountain-and-forest realm of dragons; Poromiel, grasslands and marshes of gryphon fliers. Locked in over four hundred years of war.
The spine
The Esben and Tage ranges cleave it north to south — the natural, warded border between the two nations.
The scar
The Barrens sit to the east: a magic-drained wasteland where the venin have already been.
Also known as
Amaralys in Navarrian records, Amelekis in Poromish ones. To everyone living on it, just the Known World.
Status
Presented as the whole world — until Onyx Storm proves the maps were censored and the Isles were always out there.

We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — so we keep the notes here where everyone can use them. The pages are fan-made, not official; the licensed designs are in the shop.

Officially licensed

Become a member

Join the Library.

Caffeine & Curses LIBRARY CARD

Admit one obsessive reader.

For library updates and new releases.

Made by fans who never left.

These pages are fan-made. For officially licensed merch, see our shop.

← Fourth Wing

The Empyrean, ©2023-2025, Rebecca Yarros.