Wild Arbors of Mahdihly Vale
Outlaws defied the local law, setting up a camp in the local baron’s private wood. On a sacred night for believers of the dominant religion in the area, the Baron Allain sent his men into the wood, attacking the outlaws while they were in prayer. The outlaw men were hanged from the trees overhead while their families watched. They wept and prayed out loud, finally shouting insults at the baron’s men.
One of the women shouted, “for many days have these men cared for your arbors! May these trees enact a tax on your bloodthirsty life!”. She was run through on the spot by the baron himself.
A week later, he passed through the scene of the crime on his way back from battle with a small retinue, including some of the men who carried out the hangings. The baron never made it home that night, nor did any of his men. When his castle guard returned to investigate, they noted that the roots of the trees had grown in a circular barrier and that the baron and his men’s bodies were found hacked to pieces in the corral, and there were no signs of his horses, nor the corpses of the outlaws that had been left to rot.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged history, proppian, rumors by Stephen Hilderbrand with no comments yet.
Llana d’Arth
This woman of the sea would sun herself on rocks a good deal off the coast of the Jæruel for those few summer weeks when the clouds would part and the light stream in sharp contrast to the grey clouds in the distance.
One summer, she was caught in the nets of a fishing trawler, and dragged up on deck. The men were frightened by her until she spoke in their tongue, asking to be set free. They complied, and she thanked them and swam off, back to her rocks to sun. They returned to the rocks the next day and she was gone.
Later that season, she swam up to their vessel and warned them of an approaching storm. Turning back to shore, they returned in time to warn the rest of the town, which boarded up and weathered the storm with minimal damage.
The fishermen were branded heroes by their fellow citizens.
Rumor has it that fishermen still see her in those sunny summer weeks out there on the rocks.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged history, Jæruel, rumors by Stephen Hilderbrand with no comments yet.
The Fall of Vandor’s Prominence and Rise of the Ten Princedoms
The autumn following Vandor’s death brought new peril to the land he left at death’s door. His ten princely heirs could not agree as to how they wanted to rule the land. His eldest son Hanik fell into an unknown illness, and could not keep the other brothers from squabbling over the remaining land. They argued, armwrestled, boxed, fenced, and displayed feats of archery to contend for the prize. The boys were at the edge of bringing their house down in complete war, when Djander, the trusted counsel to their father the king, suggested that they each have a turn at running their own region of the kingdom. He gave them each a year to prove their worthiness as king by ruling a single Princedom.
In the end, the islands were given self-governing status, and each son took control of one of the administrative regions of Vandor, in the hopes of proving their worth to each other and their people. This has proven a difficult challenge, as the people have begun to move away to the Republic of Esrun with its doctrine of individual freedom and merchant riches, the Kingdom of Altæa with its charismatic Queen Aeynn, and to the Phyloctæte, as it moves into a new era of promising peace under the half-elven mage Feryn Dyndle.
This exodus means that the once-kingdom’s power is being drained by these neighboring nations, either to fight their wars, colonize new lands, or to strengthen their markets at home. The next months will see a tenuous peace as the boys try to follow in their father’s footsteps as ruler of Vandor. Djander will be watching, trying to minimize the meddle while preventing all out war.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged event, history by Stephen Hilderbrand with no comments yet.
Vandor’s Memorial Service
All of Vandor’s seven thousand residents, peasants and knights alike, gathered for the memorial service for King Han Vandor. The service ran three days, the first of which was a fast, the second a feast, and the third the burial. The event took place just outside of Vandor Estate outside of Hanton, the capital of the present-day Vandorn province.
Under the towering castle, the festivities ran the full three days — even though the first day was one of fast, the butchers worked hard slaughtering pigs, and the prep-work was completed for the rich dough used in the gigantic savory pastry known as Vandor Pie. The second day saw many toasts, as all in attendance were asked to say a few words, if even within their local groups. On the third day, the prayers were said, his body was lowered into a site in the family mausoleum at the back end of the Vandor Estate.
Over each of the three days, his ten sons, the future rulers of their own provinces, gave speeches praising their father and honoring his memory. His daughter was nowhere to be seen at the festivities, and various rumors circulated as to her whereabouts, ranging from her being a vagabond living in the streets of the neighboring Phyloctæte to her being dead.
The following are excerpts from the Ballad of Vandor
(as sung by the bard Torsten Danattaway)
this land had never a leader
not of the kind of man before
a man who would drink a liter
then outwit invading hordes
han vandor, han vandor
van-dor, van-dor,
left his life at death’s door
tomorrow will never be more
happier than the days of
van-dor, van-dor
left his life at death’s door
yesterday will never be more
happier than the days of yore
with you, as goes our land
into the hands of squabbling sons
who in your wisdom know must stand
hand in hand brother in brother
van-dor, van-dor…
Torsten is still working on a version of the song for print, a new technology emerging out of the industrious merchant class of the Republic of Esrun to the southwest.
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged event, history by Stephen Hilderbrand with no comments yet.