First of these is actually named in-game as Gondo, and appears to comprise much of the eastern half of the continent. Gondo seems to be a rather inhospitable region, and NPCs warn you of its dangers. They're probably referring to the high-level enemies there, but even looking at the map, we can see that it'd be a place of great danger even if we leave game mechanics out of the equation. It's enclosed by high mountains and contains numerous volcanoes and caves, including the Pit of Giaga, which connects Erdland and Torland. However, what's most notable is that Gondo's castle is the residence of Baramos, the principle villain of the first two thirds of the game.
Clearly, then, we're dealing with the local equivalent of Mordor - a place of death and desolation, with craggy peaks, searing lava floes, and vast poisonous swamps, all ruled over by a malevolent overlord. However, it seems that Gondo wasn't always this way. There are guards stationed at the Pit of Giaga, and the castle has a second throne room where a skeleton is seated on the throne, evidently the original occupant. It seems, then, that Gondo was once a human kingdom, but was overthrown and conquered by Baramos.
This might seem incongruous with the terrain, but there's actually solid reasons to believe humans could thrive here. Volcanic soil is very fertile, and there's enough forests in the area to suggest that it isn't all a barren wasteland. As any Tolkien fanboy could tell you, the wastes we're familiar with are limited to the Plateau of Gorgoroth, and other regions of Mordor are quite fertile and capable of growing crops. Gondo is likely similar. Considering that the Pit of Giaga is noted as a place that monsters crawl from, it makes sense that the inhabitants would want to establish a garrison against any dangers, and this may have informed state-building in the name of assuring order. The people of Gondo were likely a grim and militaristic sort, tasked with constant vigilance in ensuring the beasts of Torland did not threaten them or the outside world.
A further note on Baramos, he's described by some NPCs as a "demon lord." This is a recurring theme in Japanese fantasy settings - often times you'll see a "demon king" that threatens the civilized world, dwelling on the physical plane, and sometimes commanding all monsters in the world as his foot soldiers. They're usually responsible for all misfortune that faces humankind. This is a stock character that seems to be directly based on the final bosses of the Dragon Quest games. Their armies consist of disparate monsters to cover the various enemy types you'd face in a video game, and they're the source of all conflict because once you've defeated them, the game is over. Most Dragon Quest-inspired stories take these tropes and run with them. I've seen more than one in which this idea was portrayed as a metaphysically mandated cyclical system, with demon kings rising to prominence and being stricken down every era as a means to keep the forces of good and evil in a constant balance.
However, The Saga of the Ortegids does not shackle its worldbuilding to game mechanics - and for what it's worth, Baramos doesn't really come across as an existential threat. Most NPCs seem more concerned about their more immediate problems, and the king in Aliahan even notes that most people aren't even aware that he exists. In my personal experience, your quest to defeat him always seemed more like it was grounded in vengeance - your father previously set out to stop him, but never returned. Maybe it was just me coming at this from a mindset of D&D, but as a kid, I never got the impression that every single monster you fight was directly affiliated with Baramos. They feel more like random encounters that come across you by chance; NPCs certainly don't act like they're an invading force. From what I understand, the idea that every enemy is working for Baramos is made more explicit in lore that was only published in Japan. But this project is specifically based on early western marketing of the series, and if western players had no access to this information, it doesn't apply for our purposes.
Thus, I'm interpreting Baramos as a Drokkar sorcerer-king who conquered Gondo and now rules over it. He's undoubtedly a powerful one, and may well have his eyes set on further conquests, but his domain doesn't extend beyond the Southlands. There are monsters elsewhere in the world, and some are powerful indeed, but they are not all the same class of being, and only those in his castle can be assumed to be his servants.
Anyway, all that aside, the western half of the Southlands doesn't seem to be under Baramos's sway. There's one village, Tedanki, located in the southern hills. The village is ruined and lifeless during the day, but is inhabited by ghosts at night, who don't seem to realize that they're dead and laugh the prospect off. They claim to be suffering attacks by monsters, but believe the town's guard has them handled. Aside from that, there's a temple further up the western coast that was established for the benefit of sailors, but has lost contact with Tedanki.
We don't see any castles or kings in this region, but the people of Tedanki must have been well-traveled and with access to sophisticated infrastructure if they were known at the temple up the coast. I feel it's likely that there are other kingdoms in the western Southlands, but we never visit their capitals. Most likely, these are smaller petty kingdoms if Tedanki could be wiped out without support or retaliation.
I might sound like I'm contradicting myself, but the fact that Tedanki sits on the edge of Gondo makes me suspect that it was in fact wiped out by Baramos's forces. Perhaps the sorcerer-king is exerting his authority and demanding fealty from the surrounding kingdoms, and Tedanki was destroyed as a warning when it did not comply with his demands. Baramos clearly isn't a pressing enough threat for the temple to be worried about him, but he might be more concerned with his direct borders. In any case, the history of the various African kingdoms during the Middle Ages is an interesting and underappreciated one, and would be ripe for inspiration here. Some of them even have mythologized histories involving evil sorceror-kings!
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