Balian Range, South
Geography
The South Balian Range is separated into a few smaller valleys with large stretches of gradually sloping land, which culminate in two separate lakes. Most of this land is covered in deciduous forests, both thick and thin, with large tracks of grasslands inhabited by large herds of grazing animals. Additionally, along the northern and eastern edges of the South Balian Range are large areas of Taiga along the mountains of the Range proper. Ancient Barrows and Hillforts dot the landscape from thousands of years past, when the Dunleode lived in a myriad of ever changing kingdoms and city-states.
Localized Phenomena
March of the Barrow Kings
Every year, on the last day of the seventh month, Barrows from all across the region open and small retinues of undead pour forth, and march to Casvalhall, where they re-enact the ancient battle that took their lives. So long as the living stay out of their way and don't interfere in the battle, these 'Barrow Kings' and their armies ignore the living, intent on fighting their eternal fight. The composition of these armies varies, reflecting the various ancient kingdoms of the region, such as the Ogres of Cragrake or the Fiends of Myttar.When the armies arrive at the battleground, they wait until all of the other Barrow Kings arrive, and then fight exactly the same as they did in life. Some are cut down by unseen blows from opponents who did not die on the battlefield, with one entire army's right flank not being present. After the last of the dead fall, their bodies are absorbed by the ground and their tombs close once again, until the next year. The battleground and Barrows appear to be entirely mundane, and capture of an active Barrow King has been all but impossible, as once the new day begins they rapidly decompose and all those who enter into the Barrows are violently shunted outside.
Natural Resources
Rich in wood, common metals, clay, various foods and numerous useful creatures, the Southern Balian range has plenty to go around, though it's rulers are usually unsatisfied with this abundance.
History
Early History: The Father of Majic & the First Dunleode Confederacy
The Southern Balian Range, also known as Dunlyfte by the local Dunleode peoples, has been a hot spot for conflict throughout all of recorded history, even during the relatively peaceful reigns of the Magical Mysterums. Early in their history, around the year 367FM, a legendary figure would appear out of the forests of Dunlyfte, Greysen Airaldii, the Dunleode’s ‘Father of Majic’, an ancient mage who would start the ancient Majic Bloodlines of the Dunleode.Greysen kept detailed notes, maintained through strong majical bindings, which sheds much light on the origin of Dunelode Majic and the formation of the Dunlyfte Confederacy, the first and longest lasting Dunleode nation-state. Airaldii would offer Majic to those who would join this alliance, initially utilizing the Lattice Method of Majic to grant power, though this process was incredibly painful and was a short-sighted method. With many of those who willingly underwent the process either dying from the pain or killing themselves, Greysen would then offer those who joined an alternative, Majic not for them but for their descendants.
These Bloodlines initially all started out as Arcane in nature, due to them being fabrications and alterations but, as the generations marched on outside influence would warp these bloodlines into distinct powers, such as the Fey bloodline of the Hyrdwu (Forest Keepers). Greysen would not live to see these alterations, as his search for immortality would ultimately lead him to his death at the hands of the Bronze Dragon Hycgan, becoming the first of the Dunleode Saints, Deity’s of the region.
As for the Dunlyfte Confederacy, repeated attempts to centralized the state as well as those trying to crown themself Cyning (King) slowly wore away at the bonds that held the state together, as well as fostered petty rivalries. It all came crashing down in 797FM, when the First Mysterum’s enforcers took control over the crumbling state in their efforts to regulate and control Majic across the Charted Realms. This would set in motion a series of rebellions that would be violently crushed by the now Second Mysterum’s enforcers, which would ultimately set the region back hundreds of years, and permanently scar the landscape.
Middle History: The Interregnum
Throughout the Interregnum’s near thousand years of chaos, the tribes of the Dunleode developed into a feudalistic society revolving around the bloodlines created by Greysen, with those considered ‘bloodless’ to be of lower import. Hill forts became castle-towns, permanent trade roads were built between the major towns, the population exploded and conflicts with the early Syckian settlers along the Southern Balian Range became more common. In 1635 IN, a great deal was made between the Imperium and the lowlands, where each would respect the other’s borders in exchange for open movement of people and goods between each other, which would in turn enable the Imperium to support distant colonies in the southern tip of the range.During this period a few cabals rose up in the swamps along the major rivers, which focused on creating powerful brews and potions. These so-called ‘witches’ gained their majical power through dealings with entities that exist outside of reality, and used said power to aid the common folk of Dunlyfte, something that the nobility could not abide. Over the course of three hundred years these witches were slowly culled until less than thirty remained in the entire region, at which point they fled to Nesica and established the Scarred Coven, in 1863 IN.
After the defeat of the proto-Wesian peoples at the hands of Manus MacEalar, their remnants fled west and south, in Dunlyfte, where they would establish the border Kihubian Kingdom, named after the tribe’s word for vengeance. These embittered warriors would frequently war against the Syck Imperium, often dragging their neighbours into their wars unnecessarily. When the Briven and Wesians returned to the Wes Basin, the sudden exodus was seen as an opportunity by warlords to gain more land, but the ever watchful Kihubian Kingdom prevented much expansion.
Recent History: The Balian War and the Ascendance of Osma Averille
In 2795 LM the armies of the Syck Imperium Loyalists began their exodus from the Mountain Homes to raid the soft Dunlyfte borders, which had remained relatively unprotected for centuries. It is this event that marks the end of the Imperium, and the rise of the Balian Kingdom under the Triumvirate. This new state would use the veteran armies of the Imperium to burn a swath of destruction across the lowlands, toppling many petty kingdoms and razing many towns.Due to the fact that the Dunleode were still fractured into dozens of tiny city-states very few armies could be marshalled against the Balians and, when they did, they were always outclassed as the veteran armies of the Balians marched armoured in Mithral and armed with Adamantine, using cannons and powerful crossbows. Time and time again the Dunleode would be beaten back, with many observers noting that the battles seemed more like slaughter of animals than a fight between peers.
When the First Battle of Scorhill was lost to the Balians and a large tribute was paid to keep the city intact, the fledgling Broneyles Kingdom dispatched emissaries to the Dunleode nobility, offering protection for vassalage. While most would not accept this, those in immediate danger like Scorhill would accept eagerly, and the armies of the Broneyles would march against their old enemy once more. Having fought the Imperium to a standstill for decades, the generals of the Broneyles knew the Balian’s tactics like the back of their hands, and had kept a close eye on their old enemy since the civil war fizzled out.
Knowing one's enemy is half the battle, they say, and the Broneyles knew all about the Balian’s desperation for food, and set a trap. They had the Duke of Scorhill send out missives to all the villages and towns in his domain to send all of their surplus food to Scorhill, specifically via the large trading town of Scorrerebo. It was here that the Balian’s raiders attacked, just as the Broneyles predicted, and it was here where they fell to a deafening barrage from artillery cannons and Broneyles Bulette Cavalry. The Battle of Scorrerebo became a symbol of Broneyles power, which led many more nobles to flock to their banner though, in the eastern South Balian Range, things were going poorly for the Dunleode.
With the Western Kingdoms willingly signing away their sovereignty in an act of cowardice as the Eastern Kingdoms fought and died against the encroaching Balians, the Monarchs of Casvalhal, the largest of the Dunleode Kingdoms, marched forth to fight the enemy back, and lost everything. The entire army was destroyed to a man, with both the Cyning and his consort being killed in battle, leaving the kingdom in the hands of their young daughter, Osma Averille. This just eighteen year old had barely had time to wrap her head around the ins and outs of adulthood when word came to Casvalhal that her parents were dead and the nation was hers.
It has been said that, upon hearing the news of her parent’s fate, that Osma’s bloodline manifested physically as flames danced between her hairs and waves of power pulsed from her form, as barely contained rage filled her. This was followed by a sudden moment of despair, as her parents had taken the realm’s entire army to fight the Balian’s, leaving her with barely twenty knights and no garrison. How was she to fight this enemy, alone? She would need allies and time to train an army, two things she didn’t have right now, so she got to work.
Osma’s plan was two fold: Slow the Balian’s down with enough internal strife so that the Dunleode could train a unified force, and to unify the Dunleode into a single force capable of defeating the Balians. Both were monumental tasks but she had an ace in the hole, at least as far as it came to slowing the Balians, the Broneyles. They would know of something that would screw with the Balian’s internals, though they would not hand over such information for free and, as such, Osma hammered out a deal with them: They would be given uncontested rulership of the Dunleode lands that they had taken as well as the lands between what they had taken and Dunmere (the lake that the Broneyles currently border) in exchange for two things: something that would slow the Balian advance and that the Broneyles would not expand eastward into more Dunleode lands.
For whatever reason, the Broneyles agreed, and told the young Cyning of General Ailean MacMorag, son of General Morag MacShimm, the last ‘true’ Syckian general and hero of the Imperium. General MacMorag was an honourable sort and had his forces act more as a patrolling army than a roving band of bandits, where they would exchange the heads of bandits they killed at towns for foodstuffs. MacMorag was acting almost entirely independently, and had spoken out against the Balian’s actions on numerous occasions, to the point where he had clashed in battle against other Balian Generals.
Osma flew her way to MacMorag’s camp alone, as she believed that there was no need for an escort or to waste time marching, and arrived as the sun was setting. The only Tiefling in a camp of Dwarves, she stood out like a sore thumb and, in surprisingly good Syckian, demanded to meet with MacMorag, under a flag of parley. Surprised by this, MacMorag met with the young ruler and engaged in a night-long discussion with her, sharing points of view, personal history and their plans. For some time MacMorag had thought that what was being done against the Dunleode had gone past necessity and that it almost seemed that the other Generals took pleasure in the violence they perpetrated, abandoning their honour for gold. With this call to action from a prominent Dunleode and the memory of his mother burned into his skull, MacMorag agreed to cause problems within the Balians, so long as he and those who aligned with him were offered amnesty with the Dunleode, which were incredibly amenable terms.
MacMorag would go on to gather a surprisingly large force of Balians and Dunleode who were discontented with the actions of the Balian aristocracy, engaging in open warfare against them for the next two years, until the peace agreement at Loshal, where the newly created MacMorag Clans officially became a new independent state. For the Dunleode under Osma, however, things would be tougher, as she had to somehow convince the petty kings to put away their childish rivalries and blood-feuds and fight together against the common foe. These leaders would not simply accept her leadership because she demanded it, and so she orchestrated a meeting in the woods near Cloudford, where she knew Balian Raiders were prowling.
As expected, the meeting was crashed by these Raiders, who were swiftly and simply annihilated by the young Cwaegem (Witch-Queen), a move which impressed those who she had saved. The nobility of the Dunleode at the time respected personal power, and Osma had just shown them that she possessed ample power, and was worthy of following. Now she had the Dunleode together and amassing an army but, she felt that she needed more, and thus brought in three new outside forces to bolster her growing army: Megharian Mercenary Lancers, an army of veteran Dunleode trained and experienced under MacMorag, and a force of Kihubian Defenistrators.
On the anniversary of her parent’s death, Osma’s army met the Balian’s in battle for the first and last time, in the Battle of Miltar, where she used her army’s superior mobility to split up the Balians, exhaust them, and then force them to rout. It was not the most noble of battles, nor was it the quickest of plans BUT, Osma had done something no Dunleode army had done before, marched into Balian territory and defeated them. This battle, along with the mounting pressure in the south by MacMorag’s forces and rising civil strife as the Kingdom attempted to begin farming again, the Balians were forced into a peace agreement, where they returned significant lands in the south to the Dunleode and signed a nonaggression pact.
In the years following the peace, Osma would forge the Dunleode into a nation of semi-independent dukes who would support each other against outside threats, and keep internal conflict to a minimum. Many Dunleode would praise Osma’s actions and claim that she was a Saint to be which, she was as, at age thirty, she ascended to Sainthood, becoming the Divine Protector of the Dunleode.
Alternative Name(s)
Dunlyft
Type
Vale
Location under
Included Organizations
Contested By
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