The Valley Princes

Neither truly to the North, neither of the Neck, we are our own, and we will not bend... Prince Auric, response to the High Bishop Alfredo Anquerna, Sword of the Iron King. To many people, the Valley Princes are considered a territory of wealth, and decadence to a degree: Cities filled with laughter, music and the smells of spices and fish during the day, and music and dancing in the night. But these assumptions quickly are erased to travelers once they start living in the Valley, and see its real, but, no less interesting day-to-day: The Merchants and Farmers going through the Murren river, the guards of every city-state guarding their own part of the Murren, caravans hiring mercenary companies to guard their wares, and even travelers gearing up to The Great Waste. The Valley Princes do not have a unified ruler as a whole, but each city-state keeps safe their own lands, as well as part of the Murren River, an large body of water so wide, it takes half a day to sail from shore to shore, but calm enough that some nobles even have boats-homes instead of summerhouses. The three more important cities of the Valley Princedom are as follows:

Enkara: The Gate of the Gap; it retains much of the Kannathi Architecture of old, and even has a sizable temple to the Old Gods, though their worship has much diminished during the the years.

Theban: The City of Gardens; considered by many to be the crown jewel of the Valley, it is an emblematic city that defines as a whole what the Valley Princedom is in general.

Ankurnoss: the Salt-water city; though much retired from the Murren (half a day away), the city is actually a coastal city, so instead its trade is that of sea fish, salt, and other goods it gets from Aealos, and even from Orc sailors from The Great Steppes.

Geography

Surrounded almost on its entirety by the Wyrmfang and Jotunfang mountains, the Valley Princes are considered one of the most isolated regions of the Neck, the fact that the Murren River flows through the heart of the Valley, and separates a good deal of its territory. Only The Gate in the south makes the Valley easily accesible for travelers, though engineers of the Academy are building a railway that will, eventually, connect the Valley Princes to the larger continent, little by little. Inhabited by a mix of peoples, some of them can trace their origins to the Khanathi Empire, before it became The Great Waste , however, some also claim ancestry from the island in the north, and even a few from former crusaders of the The Crimson Lands . Much of the river lands have become farmlands once you go south, closer to the Gap of the riverlands, and many of the constructions are reminiscent of the hanging gardens and ziggurats of the The Great Waste, but upstream, the scenery changes slightly: Godstones of the Kanathi are replaced with the Ancient Standing Stones, the mud-brick buildings combine northern designs, and even the people's facial features and costumes blend in. In these lands, many humans, half-elves and half-orcs live peacefully, and it is one of the few places that Halflings can actually call their own, for one of the small folk actually have a Prince: Prince Oneiron of the Silver-Piston.

Fauna & Flora

Much of the land is forested, with the thickest trees and other vines surrounding the Murren river and the Lakes of the Gods. There are plenty of deer, bears, wolves and common temperate forest creatures, and rumors abound that from here, someone created the Owlbears.

Natural Resources

One of the many resources the land has is, of course, wood and water, but it's also known that at the Khanai mountains and the Akhanai mountains also are a rich resource of silver and copper, so much so that northmen, the Crimson Cities and the elves have also fought agains the Valley Princes for supremacy of the land, but, for the most part, the Valley has always remained free of any cohesive control.

Alternative Name(s)