Mirtistrav

Overview & History of the Kingdom of Mirtistrav

There is a land where the sun has forgotten its duty.

In Mirtistrav, light is a memory. The sky, choked with violet clouds and mournful fog, knows no dawn—only a dim grey that hangs like mourning cloth over the hills and vales. This is a kingdom carved from the broken bones of exile and ambition, ruled by bloodlines older than their own gravestones. Here, death does not end loyalty, and shadows are not always empty.

The Roitegians call this place “Veshtor Vrahn” in their native Vahdili tongue—the Hollow Vale. Once it was an elven stronghold, its groves sacred and untamed, until the Great Sundering drove the Roitegians and other rebel peoples from the dying Krythenic Empire. The Roitegians, war-weary and landless, claimed the twilight forest through iron and flame, cutting down the old spirits and seeding the black soil with their own dead. They built citadels of obsidian and ash-stone, strongholds that drank in the dusk and gave none back. Thus was born Mirtistrav.

In those early centuries, the land was still wild, its memory long. The elves' curses bled through roots and stone, and the soil whispered of revenge. But it was not until the coming of Rathos, the Pale Magus of Gostwyld, that true night fell.

Rathos, once a student of the wizards of Wyr turned traitor, poured the gifts of his master into the land like oil on fire. Atop the spire of Ebonglas, he enacted the Rite of Pale Sovereignty, blotting out the sun with a sorcerous veil of necrotic twilight. The fields blackened. The rivers soured. The dead stirred. And so began the Curse of Mournlight, a punishment not only for the living, but for the land itself.

And yet, Mirtistrav endured.

House Mirtis, born of a Roitegian general and a Cymeran war-priestess, rose from the blood-slick battlegrounds of that age as the new monarchs. Bound by marriage and sharpened by necessity, they proved more cunning than kings, more ruthless than revenants. Through espionage, arcane contracts, and calculated mercy, House Mirtis wove together a patchwork of rebel clans and surviving nobility into a working realm—fragile, secretive, and unbreakably loyal.

Today, Mirtistrav is a kingdom of watchers and whisperers. The people walk beneath iron lamp-lights and masked balconies. Cities like Neverdawn rise from the mist like cathedrals of sorrow, their stones echoing with footfalls of the living and dead alike. To live in Mirtistrav is to endure, to remember, and to guard what little warmth remains.

The Grey Faith has taken deep root here. Its Stewards—children born with the dead eyes of Saint Khrell—serve as gravekeepers, executioners, historians, and priests. Their rituals give the land a rhythm, a cadence against madness. Where they walk, the dead do not rise… or at least, do not rise alone.

But not all kneel to the Grey. In the winding backroads and mist-draped marshes, the Cults of Fellgoth chant beneath fungus-lit altars. Vampiric nobles offer oaths sealed in blood. And beneath it all, the land itself waits—dreaming of fire and sunlight it no longer remembers.

Mirtistrav is not merely a cursed realm.

It is a wound the world could not cauterize.

And within its depths, hope flickers like a candle pressed too close to the grave.

Neverdawn: The Twilight Capital

There is no sunrise in Neverdawn.

No golden thread spills across rooftops, no birdsong greets the morning. Instead, the city wakes beneath a muted veil of grey, its towers caught forever in the half-light between dusk and night. Fog rolls in thick from the Duskwalde River, weaving through the streets like a mourner’s shawl, and the air carries the perfume of wet stone, candle wax, and cold iron.

Yet Neverdawn endures, and it endures magnificently.

This is the beating black heart of Mirtistrav, the seat of House Mirtis, and the silent sentinel of the kingdom’s cursed sky. The Roitegians carved it into the banks of the river centuries ago, setting its foundation upon the ruins of elven watchposts and forgotten sanctuaries. Wrought from obsidian-hued granite, the city sprawls like a fortress-palace: layered, angular, and hungry for secrets. It is not a city made for beauty—it is a city made for watching.

Its streets are narrow, intentionally so. Curved alleys and blind corridors twist through districts like a labyrinth of whispers. Watchtowers loom over plazas. Each block, each structure, is a maze within a maze, a design born not only of architectural brilliance but paranoia—Neverdawn was built for siege and subterfuge alike.

No light reaches the city from the heavens. Instead, it gleams with lanterns of violet flame, enchanted braziers that flicker eternally on wrought-iron lampposts and gargoyle-adorned sconces. These flames are not warm. They cast long, sharp shadows, giving every face the look of a mask, every movement the impression of haunting. This is by design. In Neverdawn, to be seen is a choice. And to disappear is a warning.

The Districts of Neverdawn

The city breathes, though it does not live. Its veins are stone alleys where shadows linger longer than they should. Few maps remain accurate; streets seem to change their course in the damp twilight, and even the locals joke—quietly, without smiling—that the stones move when no one is looking.

The Veil Yards

District of Silence and Soil

This is where the dead are laid to rest, or so it is claimed. Rows of stone mausoleums, most older than the kingdom itself, form narrow lanes where the air does not stir. Bone-chimes hang from the eaves, carved with prayers that no longer match the tongue of the living. Funerals in the Veil Yards are swift, mute affairs—no wailing, no speeches. Only the Steward’s bell, a single toll, and the closing of earth.

They say some tombs whisper at night. And none will speak of the Grave Chapel built into the cliff’s edge, where the Grey Faith watches over the unrestful with sleepless devotion.

The Markets

District of Barter and Eyes

Called a market, though it has the hush of a confessional. Trade happens in whispers and with hands beneath cloaks. The air smells of rusted iron, river salt, and something else—an old scent, like candle wax dripped on rotting wood.

Dealings are not always for coin. A memory, a secret, a curse buried in a locket—these things carry weight here. Many stalls are masked by draped black cloth, and some vendors wear no face at all.

The Carrion Rows

District of Fog and Tenants

The oldest part of the city, though none can say when it was built. Stacked tenements lean into one another like drunks swapping confessions. No sunlight has touched these slums in a generation. Mold lines every wall; even the rats seem to walk with reverence.

Here live the forgotten: the old-blood Roitegians, debtors, widows, and those too proud or too cursed to leave. Ghost-lanterns glow in the upper windows, not for light, but to ward off things that remember a time before kingdoms.

Deathwatch Stockade

The Palace and Its Watchers

The place is not a beacon—it is a wound. A tower of pale stone that cuts the dark like a bone snapped clean. High above, at its pinnacle, burns a cold flame that never flickers. Some say it is the soul of the first king, bound in silence and sorrow. this district is home to the city watch as well as the dungeons beneath. At its center lies the Deathwatch Spire.

The spire is not open to the people. Its guards wear grey-plated mail, faces hidden behind sculpted visors shaped like ravens. They do not speak. They do not rest. They are not recruited.

The ravens do not leave the tower.

The House of Knells

District of Faith and Finality

This is the seat of the Grey Faith, though it bears little resemblance to a cathedral. It is a low, square building of blackened stone, built deep into the ground. The wind cannot touch it. The only light comes from blood-tinted candles and the pale green eyes of the Stewards who serve within.

Here they keep their records. Every name, every death, every sin. The bones of executed criminals hang in iron cages from the ceiling like ghastly chandeliers. If the bells toll at night, the city holds its breath—someone has risen, and the Stewards go out, hammers in hand.

No children are ever born within the House of Knells. It is not a place for beginnings.

The Duskwater Quay

District of Salt and Secrets

Where the Duskwalde river meets the Eastern Sea, the Quay slouches into grey mist and crashing tide. Rotting piers stretch like broken ribs into the water, and the docksmen say the river no longer flows—it seeps, as if reluctant to carry the city’s sins to the open sea.

Ships still arrive, their sails torn and their captains with pale eyes who no longer dream. Trade persists in shadows. Saltfish and opium. Bleached bone and black glass. The Voljanii still dock here with their strange wagons lashed to barges, hawking stars and sorrow in equal measure.

Some say the tide no longer obeys the moon. That something older dwells in the deep, watching the city that forgot how to pray.

No one swims here. Not anymore.

The Gloamcourt

District of Thrones and Threads

The royal seat of House Mirtis does not sit atop some radiant hill—it squats beneath one. The Gloamcourt, nestled in a shadowed hollow beneath the cliffs of Neverdawn, is a fortress dressed in mourning garb. No banners fly. No torches burn. The windows are shuttered with carved iron, and the gates are guarded not by men, but silhouettes—silent figures in lacquered armor, unmoving even as rain trickles down their visors.

Inside, it is colder still. The royal court is a den of spies and secrets. King Leopold walks rarely and speaks less. Queen Amara holds court with sharp eyes and a sharpened tongue. Their children are seen as little more than rumors: Prince Draven, veiled and pale; Princess Elenora, whose voice was lost in a childhood illness—or something worse.

No music echoes through the Gloamcourt. Only whispers. And the cawing of the ravens that roost in the rafters.

Hollow's End

District of Smoke and Ash

Not a slum, but a graveyard of ambition. The Hollow's is where the poor rot in tenements stacked like ossuaries, each one sagging beneath the weight of sorrow and mildew. The chimneys belch black smoke from crematoriums that never cease their labor. Peddlers sell wormroot tea and dreamless sleep. Gravepickers barter in teeth. In the alleys, the rats have names and know more secrets than the city guard.

Children here are born with calloused hands and coal-flecked eyes.

The Catsprawl

District of Masks and Whispers

Here is where the unseen reign. The Catsprawl is a twisted web of hidden alleys, false storefronts, and velvet-curtained pleasure dens. It is said that if you wander long enough, the alleys turn themselves around to test your intent. Masked couriers glide through the shadows delivering poison or promise. Spies of House Mirtis hone their arts here—or are buried beneath the cobblestones if they forget their place.

Every brick remembers a betrayal. Every window watches.

The Royal House of Mirtistrav

Seat of House Mirtis
Beneath the cliffs that smother Neverdawn’s southern flank lies the Gloamcourt—a palace neither proud nor radiant, but low-slung, iron-clad, and half-swallowed by the stone it was hewn from. It does not rise, it waits.

Its halls are narrow and high-ceilinged, built more like a tomb than a throne-room. The walls are draped in faded velvet and bone-colored wool, and the scent of lavender ash and old parchment clings to the breath. Torchlight is forbidden here; only witchlamps burn within, emitting a cold, blue gleam that casts no shadow. The ravens of the court—bound by spell and pact—perch in the rafters above the high chamber and croak only when secrets die.

Here dwells the last sovereign house of Mirtistrav:

King Leopold

They call him The Hollow King—a man of withered voice and sleepless eyes, whose crown sits like a wound upon his brow. Once a famed rider of the Nightmare Calvary, he was pierced by a vampiric pike in the Battle of Hollowmere, and some say the infection never left his marrow. Now, he walks little, speaks even less, and is rarely seen without his black wolfskin cloak and iron circlet. Servants say he prays more than he rules. Others say he listens—day and night—to a voice in the crypt beneath the throne.

The king bears a sword that has not been drawn in fifteen years. Its name has been filed from record.

Queen Sorelda

Born of the Raulden line of Cymeran blood, Queen Sorelda is said to have once sung the dead to sleep. Her voice now rarely leaves the court, and her will is known through edicts written in violet ink, sealed with wax bearing the Raven’s Eye. She wears a thin black veil, and beneath it, her eyes are lined in ash. It is said she communes with the Stewards, and that she walks the Hall of Bones barefoot in the hours before dawn. There are whispers that she keeps a ledger of every citizen of Mirtistrav—and a second ledger for those who should be.

Her enemies call her a sorceress. Her people call her the spine of the realm.

Princess Nymira

A shadow at the edge of rumor. Pale as the moonless sky, with eyes said to mirror the color of stormglass. Nymira walks only at night, and never alone. The court claims she is sickly, but none name the ailment. A scar runs across her left palm, but none know what blade made it—or why she cuts it again every year on the night of Hollowfast.

She is educated in seven tongues, including the silent script of the Stewards, and keeps a tower chamber of her own—The servants say she speaks to birds. The guards say she sees things through them. The Stewards say nothing at all.

She keeps no ladies-in-waiting. Only a pale hound follows her. It is blind. It does not bark.

Her chamber is kept locked by thirteen keys—each belonging to a different priest.

Prince Draven

Handsome, reckless, and whispered to be the king’s bastard by another mother. Draven is beloved by the lower houses and feared by the noble ones. A duelist, a scholar of forbidden histories, and rumored to consort with Voljanii witches.

He vanishes from the palace for days at a time. When asked where he goes, he simply replies: “Down.”

The Political Structure of Mirtistrav

In Mirtistrav, power is not inherited—it is endured.

1. The Crown

The Monarch — Sovereign of the Hollow Vale

The ruling monarch (currently King Leopold IV of House Mirtis) is the highest authority in name and law, but Mirtistrav is not a kingdom ruled by declarations from thrones. It is ruled by whispers, oaths, and the ability to survive betrayal. Monarchs are expected to embody restraint, not glory; cunning, not righteousness.

Crown Powers (in theory):
Right to declare war or peace.
Power to issue edicts that supersede noble law.
Authority over trade, currency, and foreign policy.
Right of judgment over high treason.
Crown Powers (in practice):
Depends heavily on noble compliance.
Political pressure often limits or delays royal decrees.
Must rely on espionage, marriage, and cultic alliances to maintain dominance.

The Royal Consort (currently Queen Sorelda) often acts as the public face of governance, particularly in matters of diplomacy and court ceremony. In Mirtistrav, queens and kings share power unequally depending on lineage and reputation.

2. The Privy Circle

The Iron Table beneath the Crown

An elite council of five trusted powerbrokers who represent different arms of authority and governance. They are not elected—they are appointed by legacy, bribery, fear, or direct favor from the monarch.

Seats of the Privy Circle:

The High Grey – Representative of the Grey Faith. Holds authority over matters of necromancy, heresy, and death rites. Cannot be overruled in cases of spiritual contamination.
The Seneschal – Keeper of the kingdom’s coffers, mint, and infrastructure. Manages levies, taxes, and royal debt. Often chosen from mercantile families or minor nobility.
The Master of Whispers – Spymaster of the realm. Head of the Black Tongue and responsible for internal surveillance, blackmail, and intelligence gathering.
The Master of Blades – Responsible for royal armies and strategic defense. Often selected from battle-hardened nobles or generals who survived the last war.
The Voice of the Crown – A rotating noble seat that represents the lesser nobility in court. Symbolic power, but capable of rallying regional resistance if ignored.

3. The Peerage of Mirtistrav

High Nobility: Counts and Countesses

Title given to those who rule entire counties within the kingdom.
Typically, of ancient bloodlines or granted by royal favor in response to major war-time victories.
They have full control over:
Local law and taxation
Military recruitment
Appointment of barons beneath them
Ownership of the mines, rivers, and trade roads

A Count wields a throne with a sword beneath it.

They owe annual tribute to the crown, must attend court twice per year, and must field banners during royal summons. In exchange, they are given immense autonomy—so long as they do not consort with cults, vampires, or rebel factions.

Lesser Nobility: Barons and Baronesses

Rule a region within a county, often a city, valley, or strategically vital locale.
Barons swear direct fealty to a Count or to the Crown, depending on status.
Can raise small militias, enact local taxes, and enforce law, but cannot issue judgments over nobility.
Often act as enforcers, castellans, or keepers of border towns and dangerous regions.

Barons are the wolves of the Vale—kept hungry so they do not grow too bold.

4. Vassals, Knights, and Landed Gentry

Knights (Szvardja in Vahdili) are granted land in return for military service. Many are minor nobility in name only, owning a single fortified hall or village.
Gentry are landowners without noble titles—typically powerful merchants, alchemists, or arcane families allowed to operate under noble license. They do not sit in court but wield great local influence.

5. Feudal Obligations and Laws of Blood

Tribute: Counts and Barons must offer a portion of their income to the crown, measured in grain, silver, or “service given in shadow.” The exact terms vary per region.
Banners: All nobles must field warriors when the crown calls a muster. Refusal is considered treason and is often resolved with assassination before open rebellion.
Blood Debt: If one noble spills the blood of another outside of war, a tribunal of three Stewards is called to judge the act. The guilty house must offer land, hostages, or blood in kind.
Sanctum of the Steward: Any noblehouse found trafficking in necromancy, cultism, or vampire blood is stripped of title and burned from the records—by decree of Saint Khrell.

The Fiefdoms of Mirtistrav

"In Mirtistrav, loyalty is measured not in coin or blood—but in how long a man can endure betrayal."

General Political Structure

The kingdom is divided into seven fiefdoms, each ruled by either a Count or Baron (depending on the strength of their bloodline and landholdings).
Each noble owes fealty to House Mirtis, though true loyalty is rare.
Every lord maintains his own levy of troops, taxes his subjects harshly, and enforces his own brutal laws—so long as tithes to the Crown and Church are paid.

Knighthood is rare and coveted. The gentry beneath the nobility are often corrupt, predatory, and vicious, viewing peasants as beasts with lesser souls.

The Hoarwood — "The Shrouded Thorn"

Ruler: Countess Morwenna of Veylsar (widowed sorceress; kept power through terror and pact-binding)
Seat: Caer Threnody, a half-living fortress grown from petrified forest bones.
Military Force: 1,500 light woodsmen, 200 bloodbound guardians (beast-warped soldiers)
Wealth: Moderate (herbs, witch-wood, secret forest tinctures)
Gentry Families:
House Dranvok – Huntsmen and secret poisoners.
House Istvren – Keepers of the elder barrows.
Tone:
The Hoarwood is a place where no man walks alone. Children vanish into the trees. Men vanish into each other's knives. Morwenna rules as a black widow, feared more than loved.

The Grimbogs — "The Drowned Lands"

Ruler: Baron Bogdan Rugg ("The Marsh Wolf")
Seat: Vexmoor Keep, built atop the ruins of a drowned monastery.
Military Force: 900 marsh-rangers, 300 shielded marsh-walkers
Wealth: Low (fish, bog-iron, contraband)
Gentry Families:
House Tzurca – Salt smugglers and cutthroats.
House Yorga – Grave-robbers turned merchant lords.
Tone:
Treachery festers as thick as the marsh-fog. The Baron’s men say loyalty is just a chain waiting to rust.

The Bleak Fields — "The Broken Plain"

Ruler: Baron Silas Veynar ("The Pale Stag")
Seat: Hallowstead, a battered old hall hung with wolf hides and broken banners.
Military Force: 2,200 levy-soldiers (mostly farmers) and 400 mounted retainers
Wealth: Low to Moderate (grain, sheep, cattle)
Gentry Families:
House Danek – Once kings of the hunt, now reduced to desperate game-wardens.
House Maraslav – Aging warlords clinging to fading glories.
Tone:
Silas rules as a "shepherd among wolves," but the wolves grow hungrier each year. Justice is swift and pitiless here.

The Whispering Hills — "The Crooked Crown"

Ruler: Baroness Fionna Prynth ("Tongue-Blooded", rumored bastard of an old vampire lord)
Seat: Greymead Hold, a mist-shrouded fortress built atop collapsed tombs.
Military Force: 800 sellswords and mercenary bands; few true levies.
Wealth: High (silver, black quartz, bloodstone)
Gentry Families:
House Sorenk – Blood-miners; brutal enforcers of mining taxes.
House Lechora – Mist-traders and occultists.
Tone:
The Hills murmur of betrayal and greed. If gold flows, knives follow.

The Grey Plains — "The Bleeding Steppe"

Ruler: Count Halvar Ashwyk ("The Black Spur")
Seat: Gallowsrun, a grim crossroads where the noose outnumbers the lawmen.
Military Force: 2,400 light horsemen; 1,000 pikemen
Wealth: High (horses, wool, tallow)
Gentry Families:
House Qelthar – Ranchlords and horse barons.
House Barnok – Old smugglers turned lords.
Tone:
Honor lasts as long as a saddle strap. The gallows outside Gallowsrun creak day and night.

The Sunken Vale — "The Watery Grave"

Ruler: Baron Edgar von Gulrich ("The Lord Below")
Seat: Mirehaven, a fortress half-submerged in the poisonous lakes.
Military Force: 700 swamp-watchers, 200 barge marines
Wealth: Low (fish, swamp flax, relic salvage)
Gentry Families:
House Tarvolk – River-priests guarding the drowned tombs.
House Genth – Fisher-tribes clinging to ancient rites.
Tone:
The waters whisper. Men vanish. Some say Edgar bargains with what lies beneath.

The Black Coast — "The Ashen Cliffs"

Ruler: Count Cedric Dravholt ("The Black Ram")
Seat: Dravenspire, a shattered coastal fortress lashed by black tides.
Military Force: 3,000 heavy footmen; 400 iron-cavalry
Wealth: Moderate (iron, smuggling, forbidden relics)
Gentry Families:
House Wrastok – Cliffwatchers and shipwreck scavengers.
House Purvelin – Traitors once, now pitiful vassals.
Tone:
On the Black Coast, life is a wager against the waves—and the waves always win eventually.

✠ The Szvardja of Mirtistrav ✠

"Knighthood in the Hollow Vale is not granted—it is survived."

■ The Royal House of Mirtis

The Gloamcourt’s Iron Veil

Szvardja of the Crown:

Sir Arpad Morvayn — "The Silent Thorn"; sworn sword of King Leopold; has not spoken since surviving the Siege of Duskhallow.
Dame Katalina Velasca — "The Grey Oath"; a widow who rose through bloodshed during the Graven Rebellions; feared as a duel-mistress.
Sir Istvan Halveth — Master of the Gloamcourt's watchmen; reputed to see through walls.
Sir Jovan Teres — Young but already maimed; carries an iron gauntlet where his right hand was severed.
Sir Miklós Veldan — Known as "The Ravenbound"; his family long served as gravekeepers for the royals.

"In Neverdawn, the knights wear silence sharper than their blades."

■ The Hoarwood

Ruled by Countess Morwenna of Veylsar

Szvardja of the Thorned Court:

Sir Sorin Vranek — The "Wolf-Killer"; huntsman who speaks to no man but to beasts.
Sir Gheorghe Istvren — Grey-eyed knight who carries a blade blackened by rites unknown.
Sir Dragomir Velkan — "The Briar’s Bite"; rides a steed adorned in spined iron barding.
Dame Ilona Veydran — Sorceress-knight; leads Morwenna’s private sentinels of Bloodhound hunters.
Sir Razvan Dranvok — Keeper of the Hollow Shrines, his armor rusted by ancient blood.

"Their oaths root in stone—and strangle all who break them."

■ The Grimbogs

Ruled by Baron Bogdan Rugg

Szvardja of the Marsh:

Sir Vasile Yorga — "The Mire-boar"; foul-mouthed, feral, deadly with a bog-pike.
Sir Lorand Vechs — Known to wear the skull of a wyrm for a helm.
Sir Radu Tzurca — Crooked-handed veteran whose blade is as chipped as his grin.
Sir Istvan Drask — Pale-eyed, said to never blink in combat.
Sir Gavril Orlek — "The Dread-Oath"; said to whisper to the dead before battle.

"To swear to the Marsh is to drown standing upright."

■ The Bleak Fields

Ruled by Baron Silas Veynar

Szvardja of the Bleak Hunt:

Sir Bela Velic — Wears the fangs of every wolf he has slain.
Sir Laszlo Maraslav — Rider without a banner, serves only the Pale Stag now.
Sir Florian Dalca — Blind in one eye, lethal in both hands.
Sir Dacian Daskil — Once a starving farmer, now breaker of rebel lines.
Sir Emilian Danek — Drunken, savage, but unbeaten in the jousts of Bleakhall.

"No knight rides so far that the hunger of the Bleak does not follow."

■ The Whispering Hills

Ruled by Baroness Fionna Prynth

Szvardja of the Redcourt:

Sir Adrian Sorenk — "The Twinblade"; fights with twin knives coated in whisperweed venom.
Sir Nicolae Lechora — Scholar-knight; carries runes etched into every seam of his mail.
Sir Stefan Vorven — His blade is named Vesmin, meaning "silence" in old tongue.
Sir Lorik Dravien — Known for binding the tongues of traitors before execution.
Sir Claudiu Vechora — Duelist who has never unsaddled from his grey steed "Mistmare".

"In the Hills, every blade wears a second shadow."

■ The Grey Plains

Ruled by Count Halvar Ashwyk

Szvardja of the Gallows Knights:

Sir Matei Qelthar — Hangs trophies of traitors from his horse’s tack.
Sir Dorian Carth — "The Plaguebreaker"; known for burning plague villages without order.
Sir Alin Barnok — Smuggler-lord turned grim war captain.
Sir Sorin Malgost — Rides with a hundred nooses coiled at his saddle.
Sir Valentin Skandrel — His armor is stitched with gallows-black silk; silent as a vulture.

"On the Grey Plains, law rides heavier than justice."

■ The Sunken Vale

Ruled by Baron Edgar von Gulrich

Szvardja of the Drowned Court:

Sir Gregor Tarvolk — His armor rots and leaks; his sword drips brackish slime.
Sir Iosif Genth — "The Ferryman"; leaves river-stones upon the brows of his victims.
Sir Ludovic Yelvin — Wrestler and spearman; said to be half-fish, half-man.
Sir Vidor Lencz — Refuses to sheath his sword after sunset, fearing river-spirits.
Sir Marin Veslav — Drowned once—and risen in the service of Gulrich ever since.

"In the Vale, a knight's oath rusts quicker than his blade."

■ The Black Coast

Ruled by Count Cedric Dravholt

Szvardja of the Ashen Spire:

Sir Csaba Wrastok — "The Tidebreaker"; hammer-knight who shatters bones as easily as waves.
Sir Zoltan Purvelin — Shunned for surviving a vampire ambush—some say he didn’t survive it cleanly.
Sir Ovidiu Davoren — Chain-master; his swordplay favors grapples and mutilation.
Sir Gavril Skold — Black-hearted raider who sings dirges to drowned gods.
Sir Tibor Veszin — Silent captain of the Black-fleets; never seen without his corpse-painted helm.

"At the cliffs, a knight may win—but only the sea will feast on his victory."

✠ Heraldry of the Lords and Their Szvardja ✠

■ House Mirtis (Royal Family)

Colors: Deep violet and sable (black)
Symbol: A black raven clutching a broken crown on a field of purple.