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The land, peoples, and sacred history
This chapter orients your table in the world of Warriors of the Covenant: a historical Levant at the hinge of the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages. It is lore with a game’s heartbeat—enough to ground your choices in place, time, and covenant without drowning you in minutiae. A deeper gazetteer will live in World of the Covenant; here we give you a playable atlas and a moral compass.
Regular NPCs (GM-Run, Not Primarily Hostile) (1)
Hostile Adversaries (by Location) (1)
Beasts of the Land (by Region) (1)
Supernatural NPCs (Heavenly Host) (1)
The covenant is more than backdrop. It frames what choices cost and why they matter. Faithfulness, justice, mercy, and holiness are not abstractions but pressures the world exerts on your characters. At the gate where disputes are heard, in a house where bread and salt bind guest and host, on a hill where an old altar smokes again—these are the places where truth and compromise wrestle. When your party tears down a high place, gives shelter to a stranger, or refuses an easy lie, the fiction shifts: Aspects surface, Conscience is tested, Grace flows. You needn’t settle every scholarly question to play honestly; ask, instead, “What does covenant faithfulness look like here, and what will it cost us today?”
Imagine terraced hills rising from dry wadis, a coastal plain where chariots run, and a rift valley heavy with heat and dates. The high country holds clan towns, cisterns, and watchtowers; foot and mule rule the switchbacks, and a city gate can be the most dangerous courtroom you’ll ever stand in. Down on the flats, grain moves in carts and soldiers drill in bronze; a few blades of iron gleam where wealth pools. The Jordan cuts through the land like a living boundary, fickle fords deciding who meets and who misses.
Across the frontiers, powers lean in. Egyptian officials keep tallies in a handful of fortified cities and expect the roads to stay quiet. Northern kings traffic in cedar and treaties; their letters travel faster than caravans. To the east, hill strongholds and toll roads rise and fall with raiding seasons and oaths kept—or broken. Along the Phoenician coast, purple dye and shipwrights pull wealth seaward. None of this is a static map; it is pressure you can feel in scenes: a patrol at the ford today, a tax demanded at harvest tomorrow, a rumor at the gate that was a letter on a desk last week.
graph LR
A["2000–1550 BCE Middle Bronze Age Canaanite city-states"]
B["1550–1200 BCE Egyptian New Kingdom in Canaan"]
C["1200–1150 BCE Late Bronze Collapse and Sea Peoples (Philistines)"]
D["1200–1050 BCE Settlement and Judges in hill-country"]
E["1050–931 BCE United Monarchy (Saul • David • Solomon)"]
F["931–722 BCE Northern Kingdom (Israel)"]
G["931–586 BCE Southern Kingdom (Judah)"]
H["1000–700 BCE Phoenician trade hegemony (Tyre • Sidon)"]
I["900–732 BCE Aram-Damascus ascendancy"]
J["900–612 BCE Neo-Assyrian expansion"]
K["722 BCE Fall of Samaria (Assyria)"]
L["701 BCE Sennacherib’s campaign vs Judah"]
M["612 BCE Fall of Nineveh (end Neo-Assyria)"]
N["586 BCE Fall of Jerusalem (Neo-Babylon)"]
A --> B --> C --> D --> E --> F --> G --> N
C --> H
D --> I
D --> J --> K --> L --> M --> N
classDef canaan fill:#e8f5e9,stroke:#1b5e20,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef egypt fill:#fff3e0,stroke:#e65100,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef collapse fill:#f3e5f5,stroke:#6a1b9a,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef israel fill:#e3f2fd,stroke:#1565c0,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef judah fill:#ede7f6,stroke:#4527a0,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef phoenicia fill:#e0f7fa,stroke:#006064,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef aram fill:#f1f8e9,stroke:#2e7d32,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef assyria fill:#ffebee,stroke:#b71c1c,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
classDef babylon fill:#fffde7,stroke:#f9a825,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
class A canaan;
class B egypt;
class C collapse;
class D israel;
class E israel;
class F israel;
class G judah;
class H phoenicia;
class I aram;
class J assyria;
class K assyria;
class L assyria;
class M assyria;
class N babylon;
North of Judah’s ridge roads the land opens into plains and lake country, where wheat rolls across the Jezreel and the Kishon twists below Mount Carmel. The Via Maris drags caravans along the coast toward Egypt and Phoenicia, then inland through Megiddo and past Hazor toward Damascus. Samaria—newer than Jerusalem and proud of it—crowns a hill at the center of this web, looking down on royal estates, fortified towns, and threshing floors where news travels faster than any courier. In play, the North feels swift and expansive: chariots like thunder over flat ground, rumors that outrun riders, fortunes that turn in a single exchange.
Historically, the Northern Kingdom formed around the House of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh anchor the hill country and central valleys, with early centers at Shechem and Tirzah before Samaria rises under Omri. To the north and west, Issachar watches the Jezreel’s grain roads, Zebulun sits between hills and lake paths, Asher holds the oil-rich coast above Carmel, and Naphtali guards the Upper Galilee up to the springs at Dan. Dan itself survives as a northern enclave at Laish/Dan after migrating from the south generations earlier. East of the Jordan, Gad and the eastern half of Manasseh pasture herds across Gilead and Bashan, tied to Israel but forever eyeing Aram-Damascus. (Levites are scattered; many drift south to the Temple, but plenty remain at northern shrines. Benjamin cleaves mostly to Judah; Simeon is already absorbed within Judah’s allotment.) Use these tribal footprints as living borders rather than static lines: a dispute over olive presses in Asher can ripple into customs delays in Issachar; a skirmish in Gilead can spook traders all the way to Acco.
Power rides on wheels. The “chariot lords” of the Jezreel wield clout out of proportion to their numbers because level ground is their battlefield. Royal policy leans toward whoever can field horses and hold the passes—one season it’s tax relief for breeders, the next a levy on upland shepherds. Samaria’s palace culture is newer and flashier than its southern neighbor’s—ivory inlays, Phoenician joinery, imported dyes—and dangerously comfortable with foreign styles. A feast can be all music and perfume while, in a side room, a scribe adjusts a ledger that decides whether a village eats. Let that sheen tempt and threaten at once: a scene scented with Ivory House Splendor and Royal Granary Accounts can turn on a single failed promise.
Faith is the North’s open wound. Golden calves gleam at Bethel in the south and Dan in the far north to hold worshipers close to home; high places freckle hilltops and groves from border to border. Priests argue legality; prophets shred the pretense; droughts arrive as arguments with the sky. Is the withered barley just weather, a neighbor’s canal upstream, or judgment for divided worship? Make it concrete. A harvest festival at Bethel’s Gate curdles when a traveling seer denounces the offerings; a rain procession on Carmel becomes a showdown between truth and spectacle; a village “first fruits” quietly diverted to a coastal shrine sparks a feud that needs more than swords to settle. These tensions aren’t set dressing—they justify compels, raise difficulties, and explain why speaking plainly can be as dangerous as any duel.
Borders never sit still. To the northeast, Aram-Damascus tests fords and loyalties with raids and hostage treaties; further north the Assyrian shadow lengthens by rumor long before it arrives by army. Along the coast, Tyre and Sidon smile as they count—Phoenician timbers for Israelite oil, purple dye for Samarian ivory—while inland clan judges curse contracts that undercut their presses. Even internal lines—between estate and village, guild and shrine—can be deadlier than a frontier. You don’t need massed battles to make the North feel precarious: a washed-out ford, a missing tribute foal, a beacon mis-lit at dusk can turn half the country in on itself before sunrise.
All of this makes the North a machine for stories. Lean into speed, surplus, and split loyalties. Victories can be decisive because the ground is open and news runs; compromises can be costly because every deal knots a village to a palace or a shrine to a guild. A single oath under an oak can steady a whole district—until a new feast, a new tax, or a new god’s parade unsteadies it again. For quick table texture, plant Aspects right in your narration and let players tag them without breaking flow: Chariot Ruts of Jezreel, Trumpet on the Ridge, Phoenician Timber Contract, Beacon Chain on the Heights, High Places on Every Hill.
Keep them historical, keep them human, and let the land do half your work:
Everyday life should interrupt heroics: a runaway cart on the mill road at exactly the wrong moment; a tithe flock clogging the pass; a press-stone rolling because someone pulled the wedge mid-argument. Those aren’t random events—they’re how the land reminds everyone that harvest and covenant are the same conversation. Let the Northern Kingdom feel like momentum—profitable, precarious, and one hard truth away from either renewal or ruin.
Along the cedar-dark ridges and bright harbors, Tyre and Sidon traffic in purple dye, fine timber, and contracts written sharper than daggers. Their temples crown trade with vows; their kings seal treaties with dowries and shipwrights. To the northern tribes, Phoenicia is the sea made law: wealth on the tide, influence in the marketplace, and altars that travel with the cargo. The Via Maris hugs their coast, and every quay collects a fee—coin, timber, or conscience.
Hooks:
Damascus sits where desert becomes garden, a ring of canals and chariots guarding the steppe. Aram deals in sieges, skirmish treaties, and timed raids down the Bashan slopes and across the fords of the Jordan. They value leverage over slaughter: a hostage prince, a cut watercourse, a market shut by decree. To Israel’s northlands, Damascus is a patient vise—tightening with tribute demands, loosening when spies return good news.
Hooks:
Farther up the valleys, Hamath guards the bend of the Orontes and the passes toward Hatti. Not always foe, often broker, Hamath lives on road-tolls, cedar convoys, and letters sealed in bitumen. When great powers stir, they count wagons and wait. For the northern tribes, Hamath is the cautious neighbor whose neutrality you must purchase anew each season.
Hooks:
Small kingdoms straddling basalt hills and lake-fed valleys, Geshur and Maacah prize kin ties and sanctuary laws. Dolmens dot their fields; spears hang in family shrines. Their princes marry widely and remember debts longer than harvest cycles. To the Galilee tribes, these neighbors are kinsmen with sharp memories and steeper ridges.
Hooks:
Beyond the northern arcs rises the rumor of empire—roads paved with rule, iron ranked in files, scribes who bind kings with tablets. Assyria begins as a shadow in caravans and ends as a governor at your gate. They prefer tribute to ruin, until rebellion teaches otherwise. To Israel’s frontiers, Assyria is the storm you see days away and still cannot outrun.
Hooks:
South of the Jezreel’s open lanes, the land tightens into terraced hills and stair-stepped vineyards where every harvest is won from stone. The Shephelah—those rolling lowlands between ridge and sea—funnels trade and armies alike through valleys with names every shepherd knows: Aijalon, Sorek, Elah. Beyond the ridge the world drops to the Wilderness of Judah and the Dead Sea cliffs, where goat tracks cling to chalk and an ill-timed shout can bring a slope down. Farther still the Negev opens to caravans—myrrh and frankincense rising from the south, copper and salt from the Arabah—held together by a chain of cisterns and forts. In play, Judah feels close-quartered and deliberate: steep approaches, contested gates, and pilgrim roads where rumor walks with song.
Historically, the Southern Kingdom consolidates around Judah with Benjamin joined at the hip along Jerusalem’s northern approaches. Simeon fades into Judah’s southern towns, while Levites concentrate in Jerusalem and scattered priestly settlements. Jerusalem—older, steeper, and more stubborn than Samaria—anchors the realm with palace and Temple facing one another across a narrow city: scribes, gate-judges, and singers share walls and water. Hebron, Bethlehem, Lachish, Azekah, Beth-Shemesh, Arad, and Beersheba hold the flanks; En-Gedi glitters like a promise against the desert. These aren’t just dots on a map—each is a lever. A quiet bribe at Beth-Shemesh can open a Philistine road; a broken shaft in Lachish’s waterworks can doom a harvest; a single Benjamin Gate dispute can choke Jerusalem’s trade for a season.
Judah’s borders are arguments written in earth. To the west, Philistine cities test the valley roads with tolls and probes: grain for iron, or iron for grain, depending on the year. To the east, Moab watches across the Dead Sea, Ammon across the Jordan bend, and Edom taxes the southbound caravans toward Ezion-Geber. None of them need a full army to hurt Judah; a seized pass, a sabotaged well, or a festival spoiled by border skirmish may be enough. Set your scenes where geography bites: Valley Gate Under Watch, Negev Cistern Chain, Dead Sea Mist.
Faith is the South’s backbone and fault line. Temple worship draws pilgrims up the ridge on festival days; high places cling to outlying hills despite every reformer’s decree. Prophets walk the market courts calling for justice to widows and the poor while palace officials argue budgets under cedar beams. The result at the table is pressure: which vow takes precedence when the granaries are low, the border is hot, and a pilgrimage swells the city beyond its wells’ comfort? Drop Aspects that make choices tangible: Pilgrim Songs in the Streets, Temple Courts Crowded, Cisterns Running Low.
Power moves slowly here—by writ, road, and water. Engineers cover springs and cut tunnels; farmers rebuild terraces after every cloudburst; elders judge at the gate with ledgers open. That slowness is not weakness. In a siege, patience is armor; in a drought, accounting is mercy; in a scandal, silence buys time. Let Judah’s pace shape tension: a message that can travel by horse in the North must elbow through Jerusalem’s stepped lanes in the South; a charge on open plain becomes a stone-by-stone ascent up a valley spur.
For quick table texture, seed the landscape with ready tags and let players grab them: Walls of Lachish, Elah’s Sling Range, Benjamin Gate Levies, Wilderness of Tekoa, Terraced Hills of Judah, Pilgrim Road to Zion, Copper-smell of the Arabah.