Karrnath
The Undead Antebellum
Of all the nations, Karrnath suffered the most direct damage from the efforts of Galather and Levistus. Korth, the Capital, after what amounted to an infernal siege, became ground zero for the aerial battle in and around the Tower of the Twelve.
Kaius ir’Wynarn III is still ruler, but the work of rebuilding the nation has largely fallen to his aunt Morenna, who is called the “gray lady” and lends a steely grit to the hard decisions necessary. The nation depends more than ever on the use of the undead to provide workforce and military to the nation, and the Emerald Claw is no longer.
New factions have arisen in the nation as a result of the rise of Levistus. Notably, The Order of the Magnificent Butterfly, founded by Viktor Dupree and led by him until his murder by one of the other members of the order some ten years ago, continues to promote the integration of the undead in the living world.
Culture
Eberron Next Notes: Karrnath is a creepy version of the Civil War-era South. The clothes and customs are very similar and most people born there have a southern drawl. After the Fall of the Tower of the Twelve, Karrnath is more like the post-Civil War South. Their undead labor now have (very rudimentary) civil rights, carpet-baggers from Argonessen and Sarlona roam the nation, and much of Atlanta (Korth) lies in ruins. Despite this, Karrnath is still a proud, military nation. The economy is in the tank and the armies are stretched thin, but they're far from whupped (as a Karnathi might say).
History
Founded by Karrn the Conqueror, Karrnath has been your typical tyrannical, military dictatorship from day one. It's not been all political prisoners and heads on pikes, but there's been enough over the years that nobody's exactly shocked when that rabble-rousing new guy doesn't show up for work on Monday. Or anywhere. Ever again.
While there's blame enough to go around, the match that ignited the Last War inferno was Kaius I rejecting nearly nine centuries of tradition and declaring himself king of Galifar. He gambled that his armies could crush the combined might of the other royal houses and would have been proven right had it not been for a series of famines and plagues crippling his plans. These early misfortunes forced Kaius to turn to Blood of Vol necromancers, who could work with the one resource the besieged nation had in abundance: corpses.
Church and state were tightly aligned for nearly a century, but the two most recent rulers, Regent Morenna ir'Wynarn and Kaius ir’Wynarn III, have severed ties with the Blood of Vol. First, the Regent outlawed the church's military arm, The Order of the Emerald Claw (the Claw became a terrorist organization determined to unseat King Kaius, but have not been much heard from for the past 10 years). Then Kaius III, upon reaching the age of authority and assuming power from his aunt, has thrown his considerable support behind the upstart cult known as The Order of the Magnificent Butterfly, which has reduced the Blood of Vol to having but a minor role in Karnathi politics, a role that is dwindling by the week.
The end of the Last War and the Treaty of Thronehold saw Karrnath make several painful concessions. The biggest was the loss of the Mror Holds, which gained its independence. King Kaius III has made it no secret that he shares Kaius I's thirst for expansion and conquest, but since the Fall of the Tower of the Twelve, he's had to focus most of his energies on just keeping what he has.
Maps
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Korth
The City of Korth.
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
Capital
Demonym
Karrnathi
Leader
Person
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Monarchy, Absolute
Location
Controlled Territories
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
Karrnath
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