Tyrla examines every sapient being's desire for conflict and self-realization, even when being provided with everything they need. It explores different sources for conflict, and how those conflicts might take shape when other conflicts such as food and living space are removed from the equation.

Tyrla is a very pleasant place. There is lush growth everywhere, and plenty of fruits and vegetables grow naturally in every season. There are two major known continents, separated by an ocean. In the middle of the ocean there is a group of islands inhabited by the vedalken. The eastern continent is covered in forests, which turn into mangrove swamps around the deltas of the many rivers. The western continent is mostly grassland, split apart by a chain of mountains. Here too there are many rivers, keeping the continent cool and green. The mountains are rich with metals and various valuable minerals, which the dwarves mine and use.

The elves are a proud race, with a long and rich history. Every elf can trace his lineage back through generations, and usually will waste no time before telling you exactly which prominent statesman they are related to. The elves live and breathe politics, and the most important mark of your identity is your party affiliation. An elf choosing to change to a party different than their parents is grounds for being disowned. As elves have such long natural lifespan, the only way to remove an especially skilled orator from an opposing party is often assassination. Because of this, the majority of elves who aren't directly involved in the courts are either poisonmakers, healers, assassins, or bodyguards.

The vedalken keep mostly to themselves in their small island nations. Their main goal is the pursuit of knowledge. Their different universities are in fierce competition, and it is not unusual for research teams to sabotage each other or falsify research to get ahead. It is also common for students to prove their progress in the magic arts by playing pranks on competing campuses. These pranks are naturally always performed methodically and carefully, just as anything the vedalken do, but that doesn't mean they are harmless. Although vedalken are not quick to anger, they are quite capable of letting conflicts escalate beyond control. In their defense, each reaction is arguably proportionate to the action which prompted it, with an error margin of 7%. They usually err close to the top of those 7%, but that isn't really a crime, now is it?

The dwarves strive towards perfection in all they do. However, they do not seek it for personal glory. Instead, each person involved in a successful project is equally respected. They know that a sword cannot be forged well without well-extracted ore, well-heated forges, and well-cooked, nutritious food for the smith. In the same way, a musical solo depends as much upon the composer, the background musicians, and the instrument makers as it does upon the soloist. However, this mentality also means that everyone involved in a failed project is disgraced. Thus, a dwarven craft-master always chooses his team very carefully, and if a dwarf cannot find a position in any crew, he or she will usually have no choice but willing exile into the mercenary army. This is a dwarf's final chance to prove that they can be part of something great. And as the honor of being part of a successful group is more important than anything else to a dwarf, dwarven mercenaries are always willing to give up their lives to help the group finish their mission.

While the dwarves value the group above else, the orcs focus instead on the glory of the individual. Some vedalken scholars have suggested that this stems from their millenia-long conflict with the dwarves, which have made them purposefully develop in an opposite direction from their rivals. While the details have been lost to history, it is known that the orcs used to live among the mountains until a conflict with the dwarves drove them away several centuries ago. Deciding to leave the place of their defeat behind, they built crude boats and crossed the sea, where they found the uninhabited mangrove swamps, and settled in isolation. Even now, they are the smallest in number of the sapient races on Tyrla, but they make up for it in personal strength. Once they had settled, the orcs decided that they would never lose another home. Ever since, it has been considered the duty of an orc to seek to excel at personal combat. Most orc fathers will not let their daughters marry unless the suitor brings him the body of a grown swamp snake, at least 9 feet long. Many will not even accept that, if the snake has any weapon marks on it, demanding that the suitor kill it with his bare hands.

While most of the inhabitants of Tyrla are religious to some extent, the leonin are the only ones who regularly makes faith a part of their everyday life. Unfortunately, they are notoriously incapable of agreeing about anything in their religion. Most everyone believes that Tyrla was formed by the All-Creating Couple, a divine pair which shaped the world and set guidelines for its inhabitants to follow. Among the leonin, however, there has been a schism over which of the two creators is the primary deity to be venerated. The Hach tribe worships the All-Mother, and is a matriarchy, while the Roch tribe follows the All-Father, and is a patriarchy. At least that is the basic division. However, each tribe is further split over various questions, and each of those factions is also further divided. For each division, they add another name to the tribe. The currently smallest tribe is the Hach-Tec-Fir-Bel-Noth-Lan-Zer-Koh-Den-Mar-Ten-Bar-Vid-Ehr, but they are having some intense debate over whether it is allowed to eat birds of prey or not...

Although the humans are one of the most numerous of the sapient races, they are also the least prolific, without any specific area to call their own. Many settle among the other races, becoming part of the culture they live in. Others are nomadic, making their living as traders or bandits. Many of the nomads are bitter about not having a proper home for their people, which is why they do everything they can to amass riches in order to buy land. However, for many of them, the riches have become a goal in itself, and even when they would be able to settle down and provide for their families, they find themselves unwilling to give up the life they know.