Black Desert/Calpheon
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Calpheon
the Republic of Calpheon · once the Kingdom of Calpheon
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The city of Calpheon From the Adventurer's Guide, Pearl Abyss
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| Ruled by | Republic of Calpheon, through an elected council |
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| Capital | The city of Calpheon |
| Terrain | River valley, farmland, forest and cliff |
| Settlements | Keplan, Trent, Florin, Epheria |
| Landmarks | Hexe Sanctuary, Star's End |
| Subject territories | Balenos, Serendia |
| Former state | Kingdom of Calpheon |
| Faith | The Elionian church |
| Added | 2014, at launch |
Calpheon is the largest region of the western continent in Black Desert and the seat of the republic that governs most of it.
Its capital, the city of Calpheon, is the political and commercial center of the world, and the republic's writ runs over Balenos and Serendia as well as its own ground. The country around the city is prosperous and closely worked, with mining, timber and shipping towns feeding the capital.
Calpheon is also the power that started the war for the Great Valencian Desert. It lost that war, buried its king in the sand, and has spent the time since converting itself from a monarchy into a council.
1 Geography✎
The region occupies the center of the western continent, east of Balenos and north of Serendia, with a long mountain pass in the northeast leading to Mediah. Its heart is a broad river valley.
The city of Calpheon sits on that river, walled and built upward, and it is the densest settlement in the game. Around it the land is worked hard. Keplan mines the southern hills, Trent cuts timber in the east and Florin grows flowers in the valley, while Epheria handles nearly all of the western sea traffic.
The edges are wilder and much less settled. Dark forest covers the northwest, the ruins of Hexe Sanctuary sit above it, and the cliffs of Star's End break off into the sea at the far northern tip of the map.
2 History✎
A plague reached the western continent from desert merchants and killed more than half the people in Calpheon, Keplan, Heidel and Olvia. Victims' skin turned black before they died, and the sick were abandoned rather than treated.
The Elionian church answered the disaster with a lie. Its priests taught that Valencians had caused the plague through alchemy worked on black crystal, and the accusation gave Calpheon both a grievance and a reason to want the desert.
King Dahad took the country to war on that basis and kept it there for thirty years. The campaign ended when a sandstorm buried Dahad and his army in the Great Valencian Desert, and Calpheon came home without the stone fields it had gone for.
Guy Seric inherited a defeated kingdom and turned it inward. Unable to take black crystal from Valencia, he took Serendia instead, captured King Crucio at Heidel and imposed a tribute in crystal on the conquered country. Balenos surrendered without fighting and kept its towns intact.
Seric paid for all of it with higher taxes and hired soldiers, and his own citizens turned on him. The feudal order collapsed within a few years. A council seated representatives from every class in its place, and the Kingdom of Calpheon became the Republic of Calpheon.
3 The republic today✎
The council governs, but the arrangement is younger than most of the people living under it, and the region's quests return often to what it costs. Serendia has not forgiven the conquest. The church that supplied the case for the war still holds its position, and the families that lost power when the monarchy fell have not all accepted the loss.
Calpheon remains the richest and best-armed state in the world. Its reach over Balenos and Serendia is a matter of law rather than occupation, and no guild holding nodes in either region changes who rules them.
4 Settlements✎
| Place | What is there |
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| The city of Calpheon | The capital and the largest city in the game, holding the council, the main markets and the widest range of workshops anywhere. |
| Keplan | A mining town in the southern hills, and the source of much of the republic's ore and stone. |
| Trent | A timber town in the east, small and rough, supplying the lumber that the capital and the shipyards run on. |
| Florin | A flower-growing village in the valley, and the quietest place of any size in the region. |
| Epheria | The western port, where most sea traffic and nearly all shipbuilding on this side of the world happens. |
5 Hunting grounds✎
Calpheon carries the middle band of the game's difficulty, between the gentle ground of Balenos and the harder country of Mediah. Its forests hold the game's best-known mid-level zones, and most adventurers spend a considerable stretch of their progress here.
Hexe Sanctuary is the exception at the top end, and the cliffs of Star's End are harder still. Neither belongs to the ordinary progression through the region.