Get familiar with the world of The Wheel of Time

The Aiel Waste

Far to the east of Tar Valon is a desert region known as the Aiel Waste. Located beyond a spine of mountains, the land is dry, barren and desolate, with hardly any water to be found. In fact, it is so inhospitable that only the hardy Aiel, a desert-dwelling warrior culture, is able to live here. They call it the Three-fold Land.

The Aiel have earned a reputation as exceptionally skilled warriors, but will only fight with spears, never the sword. They have a number of cultural practices that are quite strange to outsiders; for example, women frequently become soldiers and fight alongside men, and all of them follow a strict moral code focused on honor, duty and obligation. But little else is known about them in the wider world.

Physically, Aiel can be recognized by their unusually tall height, pale eyes, and light-colored, often reddish hair, as well as their distinctive clothing. But once someone begins to understand them, they are a fascinating people with a sense of a humor dryer than the lands they walk on.

The Borderlands

"“The creatures of Shadow were pushed back into the Blight at the end of the Trolloc Wars, but only the bravery and determination of the Borderland warriors have kept them there.” – from The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, Chapter 28."

The Borderlands are the nations which lie furthest north. The culture of the Borderlanders is the most martial of all the nations. If you want to find the best soldier in the land, you’ll likely start here. They believe all of humankind must stand together in the face of evil. For thousands of years, the Borderlanders have guarded the rest of the continent against the Shadow, minions of the Dark One who roam down from the Great Blight.

There are many nations in the Borderlands. In the beginning there were five prominent nations, each sovereign and independent, that shared a common bond as guardians against the Shadow. But as the struggle to hold the border took its toll, the nation of Malkier was broken. What remains are Shienar, Saldae, Arafel, and Kandor, and the remnants of a lost kingdom.

Malkier was ruined fighting off the Great Blight, a corruption of the land even further north than the Borderlands. It is rotten and bare, tainted by the Dark One’s influence over the world. All the earth that remains has turned to dust, and the waters are poisonous to drink and filled with unbearable monsters.

Worse still, if you go even further past the Blight, you’ll enter the Blasted Lands, dead and lifeless from war, that surround Shayol Ghul, a great black mountain that has become the focal point of the Dark One’s power. Enter at your own risk.