Heartsport

"The royal court may have taken some of the city's soul with it when it moved to Demenia City, but Heartsport is still the heart and pride of Lete." - Lady Evanora Brunton, Lady-In-Waiting to Duchess Ilialora Redheart

Heartsport is an ancient city first established a thousand years ago on the shores of the Gelon Sea that makes the heart of Byanos. Heartsport serves as the capital of the Kingdom of Lete, both as a sovereign nation and as a prefecture in the Empire of Demenia since its annexation. The city is built around a small natural harbor and among several mesas and a large spire formation.

Government

Heartsport is ruled by the Duke of Heartsport, Easton Redheart, who also functions as the Lord High Steward of the Kingdom of Lete, ruling the entire prefecture as well. To aid him in this task Duke Easton has divided the city into four districts: Blackfish Harbor, Enella's Hill, the Olive Quarter, and the Pikes. Each District is administered by a lord: Count Devan Redheart, Baroness Constance Sabin, Baron Phillip Longbridge, and Count Alexander Brightling, respectively.

History

Established some thousand years ago by early Redheart Clansmen, Heartsport began as a longhouse and a series of huts clustered in the shadows of what is now Enella's Hill, along the shore of the Gelon Sea. History from this time table is largely speculation but it is believed the longhouse that formed the core of this first settlement was built by Thadinus Redheart, one of the earliest Chieftains of the Redheart Clan.
This early settlement was sacked twice in the first thirty years of its founding, the first time in 149 and the second in 157, causing its inhabitants to quarry their way to the top of Enella's Hill and relocate most of the growing village there. The rock quarried from the mesa was used in the construction of the village's first walls and construct the buildings on top of Enella's Hill. With the intense climb up the mesa providing protecting for those living there the village continued to grow steadily for the next hundred years before it expanded beyond the limits of the hill, and further excavations were made, expanding into the valleys between the mesas, and up onto Harmony Hill, which now is home to most of Heartsport's religious buildings.
Over the two hundred years Heartsport would expand to every mesa in the area and build a double string of curtain walls, baileys, and other defensive structures. This safety brought the city great wealth and influence and soon Heartsport emerged as the regional power under the leadership of Chieftain Lavius Redheart. In the spring of 472 Lavius would begin an era that is now known as Lavius' Conquests which ended after a series of wars spanning forty-three years and most of Heartsport's closest city-state neighbors were subjugated and absorbed into a new nation under the rule of King Lavius I Redheart. The Conquest officially ended with Lavius' death in 315 when his son King Thanidus I Redheart ascended to the throne.
It was another century before Heartsport saw its next great challenge, in 414, when the Bloody Miasma, a plague, swept through the city like a fire, killing more than a third of the population including its young ruler, King Lavius II Redheart and his Queen, Ladora Redheart. The king and queen died without an heir at the age of twenty, and twenty-two, respectively. With no heirs the rule of the kingdom fell to Lavius' sister, Princess Enella Redheart.
Queen Enella Redheart received her coronation two days after her brother's death and immediately went to work trying to save her city, and her kingdom. Her fist act was to quickly move the city's sick to the hardest hit area of the city, Old Town, and established a body of healers to treat them. At the same time she ordered the bodies of the deceased were to be burned in a large mass grave whose location has been lost to time. Further, Queen Enella ordered the burning of several neighborhoods and buildings throughout the city. Over the next two and a half years the city began a long period of steady recovery, and in the spring of 516 the last three people infected with the Miasma died. Their bodies were burned in the same pit where the plague's other victims had been interred. Old Town would eventually be renamed Enella's Hill and she would be known as Enella the Savior.
While Enella had saved the city from the miasma with its population suddenly reduced so drastically Heartsport fell into a long period of decline that saw its population continue to drop and its influence wane. It was during this period, that historians have dubbed the Ruining, where the capital of the kingdom was moved further inland, along the Ballorn River, to Shaleport by King Danadus Redheart in the year 424. The city suffered greatly with disease, crime, and poverty. Many buildings, including most of the harbor, fell into such ruinous disrepair almost nothing from this time, or before, remains of the city in the modern era.
This lasted for thirty years when his son, King Thanadir III Redheart moved the royal court back to Heartsport. Over the next sixty-four years of Thanadir's reign the city would undergo significant reconstruction and reform. New excavations would begin and the city would expand to Harmony Hill, entirely reclaim Enella's Hill, and the harbor, long the seat of Heartsport's power, would be completely rebuilt. Thanadir would peacefully die on the anniversary of moving the royal court's return to Heartsport in 522. The crown would pass to his son, King Alexander I Redheart. Alexander would largely continue his father's legacy, finishing many of the civil engineering projects his father had begun throughout the city and kingdom. When he dies at the age of seventy two, in the year 564, Heartsport, and the kingdom, will be entering a true golden age that lasted 20 years and made the city the epicenter of culture, wealth, trade, and influence of the kingdom.
In the year 581 King Alexander the Pious, called Alexander the Pompous outside polite company, was crowned king and began building great temples on Harmony Hill. Many of these temples stand today, but they were expensive, and his spending left the crown nearly destitute. Alexander died in the winter of 599 from an unnamed illness, though many suspected he was poisoned. In life Alexander had taken a vow of chastity and died unwed, without heirs. This left his sister, Allina Redheart, too rule. However many nobles, and an entire branch of the Redheart family refused to support a woman as ruler of the kingdom. Lete plunged into civil war. Heartsport was besieged by these traitor lords in an attempt to capture the newly crowned Queen. The siege lasted for a year and a half when it was broken by the Green Coursers from Bannesfield. While many of the traitors were captured and punished a great many managed to flee south and eventually settled Lower Lete as the Blackheart Clan, beginning a blood feud that wages to this day.
Queen Allina was not a bad ruler, but nor was she particularly good. She struggled to dig the kingdom out of the debts her brother had incurred, and much of her reign was spent fending off enemies, in the form of Blackheart loyalists, from the south. Allina's greatest achievement was establishing laws requiring magic users to join the Royal Academy of Sorcerers, whose structure and function as a regulatory body for all casters in the kingdom served as the framework for the Imperial Mage Guild. Allina died in 628 of an infection in her leg after it was amputated following having it broken when she was thrown from a horse. Her son, Thyner, scarcely in his twenties at the time, took the throne.
Where his mother had failed to bring the kingdom out from under Alexander's debts Thyner was successful. He abandoned the deteriorating fortress in Small Pike, constructing another, significantly smaller one on the grounds where Thenworth Castle now sits, its eastern gate still stands today. Abandoning Small Pike saved the crown significant money, but other austerity measures were taken as well. At the same time Thyner established charters for Counting Houses, which provided various banking services for a small fee. This was a wildly successful plan made all the more successful by the timely discovery of gold in mountains in the northern reaches of the kingdom.
Heartsport moved into an age of relative peace and prosperity following Thyner's reign, which ended in 650, and his son did little for the city, instead focusing his attentions on the broader kingdom; securing its borders, end establishing treaties with Lete's neighbors. Thyner's grandson, King Alexander III Redheart's reign began in summer of 697. Alexander's chief contribution to the city was the construction of Alexander Citadel which was constructed as a barracks and training ground for the kingdom's first standing army. The citadel stands to this day and still serves as the headquarters and main training ground for the Letian Legionnaires.
Various kings have continued to grow the city, adding to its walls, overhauling its ports, King Thyner II dug great aqueducts, canals and completed the city's current sewer system which greatly improved he quality of life for everyone living in Heartsport. King Danadus Redheart constructed several large temples on Harmony Hill and established the city's biggest market, Stone Park in the Olive Quarter. King Danadus II Redheart was a sickly youth and as King he once again moved the Royal Court to Shaleport, finding the cooler climate more favorable for his many maladies.
When Danadus II died of fever in 989 his daughter, Thassia, was crowned Queen. Thassia was a powerful sorceress and formidable woman in general. She was admired and feared throughout her court by men and women alike for her intellect, wit, and beauty. In 991 Queen Thassia moved the royal court back to Heartsport and began construction of a new palace: Thenworth Castle. Thenworth is the jewel of Heartsport. It sits atop the same mesa as Alexander Citadel, adjoined by a large ribbon of stone that forms a natural bridge. The castle was an immense project for the royal family and Thassia would never see it finished, dying in 1053, a full nineteen years before it was completed by her daughter-in-law, Queen Merryn Redheart.
With the dawn of the Demenian Empire and the death of King Thanus Redheart, Heartsport's importance has faded somewhat. It still remains a powerful place of trade, and wealth, but it is no longer the cultural center it once was, having been supplanted by Demenia City in that regard. With the Council of High Lords being the official ruling body of the prefectures the royal court of Lete is divided between Demenia City and Heartsport. Even Duke Easton spends little time in the city and while the city is in very capable hands, its significance is waning every day.

Founding Date

131

Type

Capital

Inhabitant Demonym

Letian

Included Locations

• The Pikes

Owner/Ruler

Katelyn Kerendas

Ruling/Owning Rank

Queen

Owning Organization

Council of High Lords