The Ironhold Marches
Duty Wrought in Stone
Spanning the rugged backbone of the northern Sphere, where winds howl down from frozen peaks and the earth yields stone before soil, lie the Ironhold Marches—the indomitable heartland of the Lyran Commonwealth and the ancestral stronghold of House Steiner.
This is a land forged for endurance. The Ironhold Marches are a vast region of mountains, fjords, deep pine forests, and glacier-fed valleys—territory that does not suffer the weak to flourish. Its fortresses are carved into crags and ridgelines, its towns walled and self-reliant, and its roads patrolled by knights and stewards sworn to oaths older than the current age. Here, the people do not pray for peace; they prepare for the return of war. From high atop the Silver Bastions—a range of snow-crowned peaks that gleam with iron and ore—the banners of House Steiner fly beneath the watchful gaze of ancestral statues, guardians of oaths long kept. Great stone keeps, vaulted monasteries, and mountain-forged cities such as Tharkad and Kaltenburg dominate the Marches, each a bastion of martial discipline and cultural pride.
The land is rich not in ease, but in strength. Veins of iron, silver, and stone run like blood through the mountains, and ancient guilds of smiths and artificers have long mastered the craft of forging both arms and engines. Magic here is pragmatic and respected—used to reinforce walls, bless battalions, temper steel, or seal the honor-binding oaths of noble houses. Social life in the Ironhold Marches is rigid but just. Every citizen has a duty, and every duty is a mark of pride. From armored knight to coal-burning forgehands, each knows their place in the great structure of Steiner society—and the price of failure to uphold it. Noble blood is earned as much as inherited, and those who fail in discipline are cast down faster than any invader might unseat them.
Festivals here are few but fierce, marked by tournaments, winter vigils, and the retelling of great sieges. In the lowland cities, trade flows with quiet strength, protected by the knight-companies and merchant-lords who owe fealty to the throne. In the highholds, banners are sewn into cloaks, and the honor of a house can be decided by the outcome of a duel or the resolve of a single defender in a mountain pass.
To dwell in the Ironhold Marches is to live with one's back straight, blade ready, and name clean. This is not a land for the subtle or the soft—but for those who carry duty as a banner, it is a home like no other.
“Our strength is not the wall. It is the stone beneath it—and the will that stands behind it.” — Archon Elric Steiner, Founder of the Ironhold Doctrine
