Post by warwick on Apr 3, 2023 18:26:09 GMT
Dev-blog 1 - Lore & Context
Hello everyone,
A couple of days late, here's our lore and setting dev-blog. Below is included all the details you need to know about Calradia, Swadia, Tilbaut and the Elain Valley. This means you guys can all start officially working on and posting your biographies here on the forums. For the time being, avoid including your equipment - we'll be updating the list at some stage in the coming days. Work on the map and between the factions is proceeding well, and we're well on course with everything. The next dev-blog will concern a major rule overhaul, and details on the economics and crafting systems - both of which we're planning on revamping to fit the aesthetics and balance of the server. Furthermore, we're also looking for more staff members, so if you're interested in lending a hand - be it as a lore-writer, event manager or admin - please reach out to either me or Tristen . Please don't be shy!
The year is 1275. The Swadian Kingdom is in crisis. For ten years in a row the great grass plains of Swadia have run red with blood. It began when friends and relatives of the dead King Esterich rose up in rebellion against his successor, King Harlaus, who they denounced as a self-serving usurper. The war cleaved the realm in two, and Swadia’s barbarian neighbors, the Vaegirs and Khergits, wasted no time in exploiting the disorder to settle old scores and reclaim some of their ancestral lands. After four years of fighting, the so-called Estericher Party had finally put Harlaus to the sword and installed their old liege’s daughter, Isolla, as queen of Swadia. But in the meantime Khergit hordes had thundered out of their steppes and conquered the County of Reindi, and a determined Vaegir invasion pushed as far south as Amere - nearly a third of the kingdom was lost to foreigners while Swadian fought Swadian.
Nobody suffered worse than the County of Tilbaut. Once the shining gem of Swadia’s eastern frontier, barbarian invasions were ground to a halt under ancient Tilbaut’s walls for a thousand years. But with the rest of the kingdom entangled in vicious civil war, the County had to withstand the full might of Yaroglek’s army completely alone. Without warning, throngs of raiders from the frigid taiga poured into Tilbaut from all sides, and in only a week’s time they’d slain the Count alongside all his most imminent vassals, entirely shattering the County as a political unit. And then the Vaegirs left, to press their claims further afield, and suddenly the whole expanse was mired in anarchy and confusion. No one in any of Tilbaut’s baronies knew who ruled them, and in the face of bandits, Vaegir stragglers and worse, the commonfolk of these lands had to shift for themselves.
But men used to civilization can only tolerate anarchy for so long. Eventually new kinds of political order took hold in Tilbaut. One kind is perhaps best represented by Ruderholz, an infamous sellsword captain, who with his marauders had seized a tumbledown fort in the former County and, in addition to “baron” of that selfsame fort, declared himself subject to neither Swadia nor Yaroglek. After a small expedition tried and failed to retake Ruderholz’s prize, Tilbaut’s new Vaegir masters decided that it was not worth the trouble to deal with this puffed up brigand, who was indeed a much bigger problem for the Swadian natives than them. Ever since then Ruderholz has been able to pillage and extort the surrounding villages with total impunity, although a recent lull in his predations might suggest that he’s conserving his strength for greater aspirations.
But it’s not only all the Ruderholzes of the world who are trying to govern lawless Tilbaut. A wealthy trader, Gasterbitz, has taken an interest in the wider Tilbaut region, and began funding out of his own pocket the resettlement of various depopulated valleys and basins along the border-marches. Much of his attention has been set aside for the resource-rich Elain Valley, in the eastern corner of the former County, whose mines, wheatfields, and lumber-yards had at one time made this forgotten backwater a local economic powerhouse. Gasterbitz’s long-term plans are unknown. What’s certain is that many aspiring lords, enterprising merchants, and intrepid pioneers have him to thank for realizing the first steps of their own grand ambitions. The trader’s scheme has enabled many of these trailblazers to start fresh in the Elain Valley, rejuvenating struggling old communities or forming brand new ones on its verdant plains and between its rolling hills. And with no Count of Tilbaut looming over them, ready to intervene at the first moment a threat to law and order crops up, this next generation of Tilbaut “nobility” have a free hand to plot and scheme and war together as if there never lived such a man as the Count.
A couple of days late, here's our lore and setting dev-blog. Below is included all the details you need to know about Calradia, Swadia, Tilbaut and the Elain Valley. This means you guys can all start officially working on and posting your biographies here on the forums. For the time being, avoid including your equipment - we'll be updating the list at some stage in the coming days. Work on the map and between the factions is proceeding well, and we're well on course with everything. The next dev-blog will concern a major rule overhaul, and details on the economics and crafting systems - both of which we're planning on revamping to fit the aesthetics and balance of the server. Furthermore, we're also looking for more staff members, so if you're interested in lending a hand - be it as a lore-writer, event manager or admin - please reach out to either me or Tristen . Please don't be shy!
The year is 1275. The Swadian Kingdom is in crisis. For ten years in a row the great grass plains of Swadia have run red with blood. It began when friends and relatives of the dead King Esterich rose up in rebellion against his successor, King Harlaus, who they denounced as a self-serving usurper. The war cleaved the realm in two, and Swadia’s barbarian neighbors, the Vaegirs and Khergits, wasted no time in exploiting the disorder to settle old scores and reclaim some of their ancestral lands. After four years of fighting, the so-called Estericher Party had finally put Harlaus to the sword and installed their old liege’s daughter, Isolla, as queen of Swadia. But in the meantime Khergit hordes had thundered out of their steppes and conquered the County of Reindi, and a determined Vaegir invasion pushed as far south as Amere - nearly a third of the kingdom was lost to foreigners while Swadian fought Swadian.
Nobody suffered worse than the County of Tilbaut. Once the shining gem of Swadia’s eastern frontier, barbarian invasions were ground to a halt under ancient Tilbaut’s walls for a thousand years. But with the rest of the kingdom entangled in vicious civil war, the County had to withstand the full might of Yaroglek’s army completely alone. Without warning, throngs of raiders from the frigid taiga poured into Tilbaut from all sides, and in only a week’s time they’d slain the Count alongside all his most imminent vassals, entirely shattering the County as a political unit. And then the Vaegirs left, to press their claims further afield, and suddenly the whole expanse was mired in anarchy and confusion. No one in any of Tilbaut’s baronies knew who ruled them, and in the face of bandits, Vaegir stragglers and worse, the commonfolk of these lands had to shift for themselves.
But men used to civilization can only tolerate anarchy for so long. Eventually new kinds of political order took hold in Tilbaut. One kind is perhaps best represented by Ruderholz, an infamous sellsword captain, who with his marauders had seized a tumbledown fort in the former County and, in addition to “baron” of that selfsame fort, declared himself subject to neither Swadia nor Yaroglek. After a small expedition tried and failed to retake Ruderholz’s prize, Tilbaut’s new Vaegir masters decided that it was not worth the trouble to deal with this puffed up brigand, who was indeed a much bigger problem for the Swadian natives than them. Ever since then Ruderholz has been able to pillage and extort the surrounding villages with total impunity, although a recent lull in his predations might suggest that he’s conserving his strength for greater aspirations.
But it’s not only all the Ruderholzes of the world who are trying to govern lawless Tilbaut. A wealthy trader, Gasterbitz, has taken an interest in the wider Tilbaut region, and began funding out of his own pocket the resettlement of various depopulated valleys and basins along the border-marches. Much of his attention has been set aside for the resource-rich Elain Valley, in the eastern corner of the former County, whose mines, wheatfields, and lumber-yards had at one time made this forgotten backwater a local economic powerhouse. Gasterbitz’s long-term plans are unknown. What’s certain is that many aspiring lords, enterprising merchants, and intrepid pioneers have him to thank for realizing the first steps of their own grand ambitions. The trader’s scheme has enabled many of these trailblazers to start fresh in the Elain Valley, rejuvenating struggling old communities or forming brand new ones on its verdant plains and between its rolling hills. And with no Count of Tilbaut looming over them, ready to intervene at the first moment a threat to law and order crops up, this next generation of Tilbaut “nobility” have a free hand to plot and scheme and war together as if there never lived such a man as the Count.
