Wednesday, July 9, 2014

On the realm of Arihmere

Arihmere is a varied country, and its terrain includes wild coastlines, valleys and moors, and rugged mountains. There are many manors and villages, watch-towers and castles, and a handful of villainous cities and deep ports.

The peoples of Arihmere, townsman and peasant alike, have long settled within stout walls and hedges. Under the manorial system, most commoners are protected by the arms of a nobleman and his knights. But the realm is divided, tugged in many directions. In the south, the impetuous King Martyn spends the campaign season mired on the Sundering Wars, draining his treasury while he clings to the ancient title of king in the city of Warrensworth. At odds with him, but scattered along the north marches, the great houses bicker over precedence and territory, in the shadow of the Withered Lands.

In truth, Arihmere, like most of the Harrowmarch, has never been under a single law, but a subject of incomplete rule, from the ramshackle empires of the Erduath and Kees, to the clannish realms of the Ellfolk, to the Reaver Thegns and the witch-realms of the Leaden Lords before their fall. Much of what is known or said of the history of Arihmere is mere guesswork, were it not for the old pits and works of these lost domains.

The only certainty is that the realm is known for its haphazard and unlikely collection of perilous beasts and strange folks, for its grimelocks and trillits, ourgarths and teamsprits, monstrous wyrms and shy fae, and countless other oddities.

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