The Delent

There are parts of the Delent that feel like the wheat is endless; just a flat eternity of grain and hay. Other parts feel designed to make you feel small. The mountains looming in the North or South can make anyone down in the basin feel cosmically insignificant, so great is the contrast.
The Delent is a part of Hain typically associated with ranching, wheat farming, and the most superstitious and foolish peasants. rom a purely scientific perspective, this is the more arid part of Hain; flatter, drier, and colder than the rest of it, but also more insulated from harsh weather. Huge aquifers and local life that has been mutated to perfectly suit the local soil has made this region unusually productive for what it is. Many of the people here are burrowing starspawn, variations on a mole-like body type that people call "Yolps". 
Stereotypes within Hain depict vast swarms of half-witted and dirty farmers who struggle to remember that Ustav isn't their local forest spirit and who won't leave their hovels if the chickens cluck in some ill-omened way. People beyond Hain barely register the Delent as a distinct region in any way. What they miss is that the Delent is actually one of the more recently integrated parts of Hain - while the region has answered to Hain's kings for a thousand years, it spent much of that time as a buffer area against the Northern chaos wastes and was largely managed by local elites instead of Hainish knights. This is no longer the case, but it has led to a certain distinction between the Delent and the rest of Hain that colors relationships to this day.
While the Delent is no longer the frontline against monsters from the Bladed Wastes or Hell's Cradle like it used to be, it is slightly more dangerous that the Hainish heartlands - the Margraves that ring the land cannot perfectly control every mountain pass and tunnel, and the beasts are persistent. It is even rumored that some small tiny scraps of Ederstone still sit in corners of the land, mutating new life periodically.
As a rule, Western Delent is less culturally distinct and safer from monsters, but also more scarred from previous Kivish Scourings. While this is a mostly rural land, the city of Zinduhl is notably here.

Geography

The Delent is 130 miles long, and 50 to 80 miles across. It is mostly grassland, with small patches of forest or shrubland. Small streams, rivers, and ponds dot the landscape, but there are no major waterways; some of these can be impacted by the dry season as well. The local wells are thankfully reliable and fairly easy to dig. The soil, particularly in the East, is unusually soft and fertile for dry compacted earth. While most humans don't notice a difference, there is a distinctly strange - maybe spicy? - taste in the air and soil here that Prisms instantly notice. While many prisms dislike this, the local ones claim that it is refreshing and enchanting once you grow accustomed to it.
On both sides, the Delent is surrounded by the Gardog mountains. In the North, the mountains lead to chaos; in the South, the mountains are part of the Hainish prism "Halmenter", or heartland. Artoril is considered the traditional core of the Halmenter mountains. In the Southeast, the Delent connects to the Eastern interior of Hain through a single mountain pass: the Orivdi Pass, which is said to become haunted and unlucky to travel through during winter.
There are two chaos wastes bordering the Delent, the Bladed Wastes and Hell's Cradle. The Bladed Wastes are a nightmarish jungle of sharpened mineral-plants, inhabited by armored beasts and extremely militaristic Starspawn. Hell's Cradle is an Ederstone volcano, a churning mass of molten minerals acting in unnatural ways, inhabited by beings of fire and poison.
Politically, the Delent is divided in half between Oskdelent in the West and Shodelent in the East. Each has their own Herzog. The Tolemshol family rules Shodelent; the Seilar family rules Oskdelent. Both Herzogs are ruled by the Elector-Princes of House Hugelma. The two largest settlements in the Delent are the city of Zinduhl in the East and the town of Hodsyarn in the West. Zinduhl is easily the richer and larger settlement, and it stands as the collection point for the crops of the abundant East as well as the seat of regional power. Hodsyarn is an odd town prone to mostly-harmless anomalies that ended up protecting the town during the Scourings; it is also a place that warlocks seem drawn to for some reason.

Fauna & Flora

The Delent has some unusual wildlife; while it is not a chaos waste, mutated life from them has reshaped the ecosystem of the region. Even the ordinary plants and crops are hyper-specialized for the strange soil of the Delent. The cattle here are hardier, come in strange colors, and often have horns that open into photosynthetic leaves; the antelope that run free are outright animal-plant hybrids. "Woven", or leafy silhouettes of people that wander the plains sowing seeds, are common sights in mid to late spring. In winter, some of the shrubs and trees take to flight or periodically burn parts of themselves to melt snow into water. 
Rabbits the size of small horses roam the grasslands. Rodents of unusual intelligence live in the ground in great quantities. In the soil, the worms are unusually varied; some are the size of a man's arm, while others seem to have extendable digestive flaps for consuming their rivals. Moles and burrowing snakes also come in hundreds of different local varieties. The underground ecosystem is by all means wilder and more active than anyone above-ground can guess - the peasants understand this, while the lords and merchants and outsiders laugh that anyone would concern themselves with the lives of worms.
There are a few creatures in the Delent that locals consider legendary and worthy of respect.

• There is an immortal wandering goat that can be contained by no fence or wall, named Orhaun, is said to live in the Delent. It is said to be sentient and capable of speech, but appears as a normal goat. Some say that it is a spirit of the land; others say it is just a ghost of unusual shape. Some believe he is an "Elf", or a sentient shapeshifting ederstone creature.
• Father Sulmvar and Mother Sulmandra are two enormous earthworms that usually live deep underground, but emerge every decade or so onto the surface to "dance" in a strange convulsing ritual. These worms are large enough to destroy barns on accident; they are true behemoths. They don't seem hostile, at least. While they could be two ancients as many believe, it could also be that there are a number of these big worms down in the earth and that we only see two at a time.
• The Wosperhava, a beast with the head of a rabbit, the body of a serpent, the horns of a stag, the wings of an eagle, and the voice of a choir. It is said to be beautiful, radiant, and clearly magical. While the peasants swear up and down that it exists and has all sorts of magical properties, it seems to completely elude all attempts to find it.
• The Elfeldon, a big hairy man that drinks the blood of goats, leaves big footprints, dances wantonly in the fields at night, and is said to play a flute of haunting beauty to lead unwary youths into the wilderness to be taken into the wastes. He is not entirely wicked; it is said that, to good Uvarans, he creeps up to them while they sleep and whispers warnings into their ears to let them know of approaching monsters or bandits.

History

The Ancient Past (Pre-1300)

Many tribes have lived in the Delent still the original Scouring, and little is known of them or their history. The Empire of Andrig called them all the Toshvem, and said that they rode around on rabbits and gave tribute to devilish birds from the far North. Andrig did conquer Western Delent in the 400s ME, but struggled to extend their reach Eastward. When the Kivish arrived in 495, Andrig abandoned the Delent entirely. The empire's legacy remained, both in scattered ruins and in new meeting places between the Hainish tribes and the people of the Delent. The tribes of the prairies rallied to defend Hain against the Kivish, and were allies during the first two Scourings.
At some point before 1000 ME, the Yolpine tribe built the early city/town of Ishlaht (where Zinduhl now stands) and established a dominant relationship over the other 'Toshvem'. The Yolpine likely combined Hainish technologies and hierarchies with the customs and traditions of the Eastern Delent to become the dominant military and economic power of the valley. The Yolpine were mostly burrowing Starspawn, and they built great underground networks and warrens in the East; they were exceptionally good at making traps and ambushes for wayward Kivish raiding parties or monsters. The Yolpine were also excellent diplomats; they acquired Hainish technology and actively worked to court Liberated Path in the 900s to acquire Kivish contacts and technologies.
The Mageplague devastated the Yolpine, like it did everywhere, but it left behind a more unified, stratified, militaristic Yolpine kingdom. The new regime actively colonized the other tribes and sought to dominate the people and landscape of the valley in ways that prior regimes did not. By 1200, the Kingdom of Hain recognized a growing potential threat in the Yolpine. In a series of minor wars and skirmishes over the 1200s, the Kingdom of Hain established dominance over the Yolpine - they extracted tribute and played kingmaker with Yolpine rulers. They also brought the early forms of standardized Uvaran religion, though the Yolpine largely avoided having Hainish priests instead of Yolpine ones and kept most of their old faith. By 1300, the Kingdom of Hain was confident enough in their rule over the Yolpine that they marked the Delent as Hainish territory on their maps.

Scouring Tensions, 1300 - 1500

From 1300 to 1500, the Kingdom of Hain was too busy dealing with a renewed Kivish threat to bother devoted resources to annexing the Delent. The Yolpine military elite adopted many Hainish customs, but only became more autonomous during this period - the Hainish Savadan monarchs hardly dared to interfere in the affairs of their "Yolpish Margraves". While Yolpine elites did adopt Hainish knightly titles and seals, and they did praise Ustav, they also kept their old pagan ways and customs. This proved to be an issue in the 1400s, when large numbers of Hainish refugees were driven into the Eastern Delent by the Scourings. Yolpine lords enserfed Hainish peasants and subjugated them before their own burrowing Yolpine settlers (just as they had to the other Delent tribes the Hainish refugees sent pleas to the crown asking for justice and Hainish law. The conflict between the two groups was particularly fierce, since the Hainish communities often characterized the Yolpine as "defeated barbarians brought into the garden" that had no right to command them. The crown worked its best diplomatic efforts to make things better for the Hainish refugees, and they did manage to get Hainish law applied - but the tension wasn't resolved.
Another point of tension was the Yolpine openness to non-Reverent Kivish groups. Liberated, Promised, and even some Exalted Path Kivish moved freely through Yolpine land; many settled down in the Delent. While the Kingdom of Hain welcomed the Promised Path (conditionally), they outlawed the Liberated Path and generally felt that all Kivish groups needed to be regulated. This concern escalated when the Kivish were invited to help build up the Yolpine capital of Ishlaht - and the Liberated Path housed in "Angel" in the Temple of Eternal Life (a nominally "Uvaran" temple that already was built on top of a great Ederstone beast). The Kivish and Yolpine called this beast "The Angel of Blessed Chains", while Hainish folk called it "Solmzar the Worm-Weeper". This sowed the seeds for the "Yolpishklung" - the fall of the Delent.

The Annexation: 1500 - 1600

After the Fourth Scouring ended, Hain no longer had a Kivish apocalypse to occupy their attention. While the application of Hainish law for Hainish refugees eased the Kingdom's immediate need to march soldiers into the Eastern Delent, many still wished to see the Yolpine finally brought fully to heel. Hain still was recovering from two centuries of slaughter, and the Yolpine lords were strong enough to resist many forays. Over the 1500s, Hainish "Questing Knights" harassed the Yolpine, forcing the "Margrave King" to turn to another strategy: Hainish courts. The Yolpine sued every knight that dared quest against them or their Kivish subjects, but this strategy made them more and more reliant on Hain's institutions. Finally, in 1575, Princess Sammara Hugelma of the newly promoted House Hugelma leveraged a series of court cases to claim that the Yolpine were entirely subject to all Hainish laws - and that they were violating Hainish law with their customs.
Princess Sammara rode into the Margrave's lands, deposed him, and installed a new leader - but she found that the entire local establishment turned against her when she tried to enforce royal law. Her candidate was murdered and replaced with the old Margrave; the Yolpine were officially in revolt. Unfortunately for Princess Sammara, her House was weak and the crown saw the revolt as a House Hugelma problem rather than a crown problem. If she wanted her House to rule these lands, she would have to conquer them herself. She was forced to seek allies in the lower echelons of House Savadan and in the subjugated peoples of the rural Delent who resented Yolpine impositions. The locals seemed to want to retain their Kivish folk and some of their customs, and followed Sammara's bastard half-sister rather than Sammara herself. Through help from a handful of unorthodox Uvaran mystics, the Spring Knights, local warriors, and a host of second-sons, the Princess cast down the Yolpine lords and slew the Worm-Weeping monster.

Integration: 1600 - 1750

House Hugelma smoothed the transition by ruling gently in the first half of their century. Hainish legal and cultural norms had been creeping into local society for centuries, so it was hardly much of a change. The Liberated Kivish were regulated, but more gently than in the rest of Hain - they were forced to convert to the Promised Path if they were to remain, but many were allowed to convert in name more than practice. Local Yolpine warrior elites were pushed marry into lesser knightly families and to Quest into the mountains to the North - to redeem themselves as the vanguard of the Hainish order. Those elites who did not were ground down into the peasantry, or became merchants.
There were still divisions between Hains, Yolps, and Tovs - and conflict between them in the renamed city of Zinduhl. The lines between these groups largely dissolved during the Fifth Scouring, as populations were forcibly mixed and pitted against a larger threat. The Kivish settled into more Promised customs; the locals became more Uvaran. All groups were slaughtered and enslaved as one by the invaders, and the Delent suffered greatly as a whole during this period.

Recovery: 1730 - 1873

From 1730 to 1830, the Delent recovered and rebuilt. While many of the farms bounced back quickly, the political order that had brought stability to the region was not easily mended. The Northern border had been compromised by the invasion, and numerous monsters and wandering starspawn tribes had penetrated the Delent. It took a great deal of time to patch those holes, and the border of 1830 was still a fragile and sometimes-porous one.
A major figure in the recovery effort was Queen Bolta Hugema, who was elected monarch of Hain in 1826 and reigned until 1837. Queen Bolta, having been raised in the Delent, saw the region as a core part of Hain and diverted resources there. She rebuilt Zinduhl, funded the full annexation of the mountain region of Gonenka (Northeast of the Delent), and patronized artists in the Delent. Bolta also consolidated her house's control of the small Andrigan kingdom of Nedever to the Northwest, and invited population exchanges between the Northern border holdings and Nedever's grand prism-holds.
From 1830 to 1873, the Delent prospered and saw peace - though the border remained a warzone against emboldened monsters.

The Fool's Wars: 1873 - 1910

The 1860s through 1890s saw numerous skirmishes between the major Elector Houses, and the Delent was not immune. In 1873, when the monarch was busy trying to prevent the kingdom from breaking into civil war (and handling an active civil war in the distant kingdom of Ustavet), the Houses of Hugelma and Savadan fought openly for control over land and vassals. It began with Gonenka, the recently-secured Magravedom in the Northeast that was held by the Sedsvods - a cadet branch of the Savadan family that had married into the Hugelmas as well. After the heir to the Sedsvods died in battle in Ustavet, the two Elector Houses fought over a right to decide the next heir - and, ultimately, who the Sedsvods would be a vassal to.

The two Houses openly warred from 1873 to 1874, but King Kasbar I Dezuren interceded and forced the war to end (with the Sedsvods as his family's vassal). That outraged all parties, and the war periodically restarted every few years until it broke out again in a major way in 1879. Finally, the Savadan family won in 1881 - a major humiliation to both the reigning Dezuren family and to the Hugelmas. The Hugelma family only fully gave up claims to Gonenka in the 1970s. While Gonenka was honestly more of an expensive defensive obligation than a useful fiefdom, it was a great producer of Honors and prestige (and it did help the Savadans win the royal election of 1965).
The foolish wars and infighting disrupted the border yet again. Opportunistic and desperate towns in the wasteland began raiding border villages; new monsters poured through. Violence attracts violence in the wasteland, and knightly warfare right along the border had attracted the wrong kind of attention. The Houses all worked to try and stem the tide, but it was a distracted and incomplete effort. Finally, by 1900, it seemed to be over. And then, in 1910, a legendary monster known as the Tarrasque suddenly appeared at the weakest point in the border-line. It not only demolished the local forts, it carved a fresh hole in the mountains for new monsters to enter the Delent.

Border Conflicts: 1910 - 1957

The Tarrasque vanished after its rampage, and reinforcements arrived to find ruins and a security problem. In a moment of House unity, the nobility of Hain agreed that this was a declaration of war - and answered with expeditions out into the wasteland to punish wrongdoers and secure the borderlands once again. These expeditions hoped to find the Tarrasque, or some kind of group allied to it, but failed to find anything but monsters and hardship. A new line of defenses were built, and Hain increased its presence in the Northern wastes. The Delent was made safe once more - even relevant, as a site of Questing Knights and adventurers. Zinduhl in particular saw a great deal of increased traffic and trade.
The firm-but-cautious policy of 1910 to 1930 gave way to blundering foolishness in 1930 - the new King (Oshlo I Geinmen) wildly overreacted to minor border conflicts and pushed an aggressive policy in the borderlands North of the Delent. These royal edicts and expeditions created instability and infighting, and alienated Hainish allied villages in the wastes - from 1930 to 1950, several moments of border chaos led to violence spilling into the Delent. Finally, in the 1950s, the King appointed a champion of the Hugelma as his official royal agent - and said champion (a starspawn warrior named Karsh Tovikroff) sold the king a more peaceful strategy (marketed as military expansion). This champion later proved most corrupt, but his system of tribute and road-building helped restore Hainish support in the wastelands and ultimately calmed the border.
In 1957, King Oshlo declared the matter of the Northern wastes settled, and turned to other adventures. Questing into the North slowed to a halt; the border now drank trade goods rather than warriors. While there have been numerous problems with the border since 1957, none of these disruptions have spilled into the Delent proper or created any kind of notable stir.

Modern History

King Oshlo died in 1965, triggering a royal election that deeply disturbed many in the Delent. House Savadan had leaned on their "Honors" from their ill-gotten Margravedom near the Delent to pull ahead of House Halar - and many were afraid that the bitter politics in the capital would be trudged back to the countryside. Thankfully, the new Savadan monarch, Queen Frashia I Savadan, was uninterested in stirring trouble with House Hugelma and made efforts to broker peace. Frashia's reign was long and her ability to maneuver court intrigue was renowned. She was less skilled at finance and infrastructure, though, and she failed to maintain the funding for the Northern border or for the Delent's royal road. Both the borderlands and the royal road were essentially handed off to the nobility to operate using local funding, with help from the Burghers of Zinduhl. While the Burghers grumbled at having to pay for the roads, their power only grew - the Queen encouraged trade within the kingdom by completely outlawing inter-fief tariffs.
The period from 1965 has been one of increased trade, growing towns, and general prosperity. It has also been a time of powerful burghers and local lords, as the royal interventions of the earlier monarchs have been entirely feudalized. Now, with the election of 2016 settled for King Zenalim I Dezuren, many expect that prosperity and decentralized policy to continue.

Type

Plain

Location under

Stildane

Included Locations

• Hodsyarn
• Zinduhl

Owning Organization

The Kingdom of Hain

Related Ethnicities

• Hainish Culture

Related Traditions

• Questing

Inhabiting Species

• Yolp