Duchy of Reme
Land of Gravediggers and Shipwrights
The Duchy of Reme is a stable and well-guarded realm, with a strong sense of chivalry and feudal obligations. But a certain decay is setting in, and strange things lurk in the shadows. The creeping advance of dark and dangerous things is subtle and isolated here, but very much present. The people of the duchy know in the backs of their minds that the Rampart is declining, but they do not understand why, or how to counter the process.
A certain sense of ennui, decadence, and decay has been slowly creeping into the Duchy of Reme for many years. The tenets of chivalry are on the wane, roadside inns seem just a bit less well kept, and the pleasures of some of the nobility are a bit more jaded than in centuries past. Banquets sport increasingly elaborate dishes, carried to the table by poorly fed domestic servants. Heresy in on the rise, and small and secret covens of demon-worshippers have been uncovered in the rural countryside, their cults festering beneath the mask of a cheerful peasantry. The occasional savage murder goes unsolved, leaving people to look over their shoulders when walking alone. The touch of evil and decay is subtle, but its gentle pressure can be felt.
The duchy is well-settled, although pockets of wilderness are everywhere in between settlements. The verge of the Towers is a wild and rugged place, much more sparsely inhabited, and correspondingly more dangerous for those who venture close to these lands.
Structure
The current ruler is Wevan Meade. He assumed the throne from his uncle just three years ago. King Wevan is young, crowned when just aged twenty, and unproven. In his time, he rules a kingdom little more than the city he rules from. The sprawling landscape past the small villages close to Kintalla have been untamed and unconquered for ages. They’re more the sites for the Gravediggers to explore, and so today’s king keeps his royal eyes on his city and the regions closest to it.
The kingdom has operated under a monarchy for centuries, though the rise of the Gilded Ring and the Order of Ohl’Abdurr has given these two factions sizable political power. The king and his court retain supreme authority and command of the duchy's military force, but Reme has grown too dependent on these other organizations to displace either by law or otherwise.
No edict is issued without careful consideration on how it may impact the city’s healthy economy or powerful citizens. The king is aided by several advisors who bear the title Proconsul. A Proconsul may specialize in the knowledge he provides the king, such as finance or religion, and each Proconsul is treated with the respect due his station. Citizens regard a Proconsul as an authority only the King supersedes.
History
Reme began as a wartime outpost, built where modern Kintalla is, more than 2600 years ago. This outpost was conquered, burned, rebuilt, abandoned, and resettled many times over the next few hundred years during a time known in the area as the Time of Many Crowns. One of the many small kings to arise was, in fact, a small queen.
Although Isalla Bly would never use such a title for herself, the people who followed her surely viewed her as a ruler. Isalla was a child of the Time of Many Crowns. She learned from a young age what made a woman or man trustworthy, and in a troubled time she was looked to as an honest leader. By the middle of her years, Isalla had grown into more than just the matriarch of the Bly family. She was the small queen of a community that lived off the bay fields. She proved to be a wise counsel in a time of need, and her direction was followed for everything from treating wounds to growing food. Her years as head of the community garnered her a title that she would use: Watcher.
Although Isalla’s community was peaceful and untouched by rivals who might come to claim what belonged to it, fear of that possible threat may have made her decide to relocate, moving the peoples who followed her east to the Bay of Erryn’s shore. The move was a gamble; the community had established a livable, if not vulnerable, home in the bay fields. Relocating risked settling in an area less hospitable, with no guarantee of more safety. Isalla decided that having the water at their backs would be one fewer direction for her to worry about, and pressed for the move despite the risk.
Fortunately for the Watcher, her gamble paid off. As the community migrated east towards the bay, they happened upon the remains of Castle Muranir (the ancient wartime outpost), and enough aged texts surviving within to learn its name and history. Though nature had crept right up to its battlements, wiping away any hint of the former port, the castle stood tall. It was an ideal place to settle, with fresh water and plenty of land to develop nearby. From within the remains of Castle Muranir, the Watcher’s humble community took residence.
Port Muranir was seeing the work of human hands for the first time in over a century. The forests nearby were logged to make new houses for the growing community. Fields were plowed and the bay was fished to feed its growing population. Isalla saw her people flourish and expand from their humble roots into a proper village over the next 16 years before her death. On the day she died her people wept; she was buried in a nearby copse, in the area known today as Watcher’s Grove. Isalla’s only son, Kintesarian, took the reins of leadership after his mother’s death. Though Isalla led them to their new home, it was Kintesarian who would make it their legacy. As he grew from young man to old, Kintesarian oversaw the village’s growth. Families multiplied. Outsiders arrived by foot or by boat to join its ranks. More and more houses were built, modest streets were created, and the harbor that once existed two centuries prior was reborn. What was once just the small community built around Castle Muranir, was now something much more; it was something that needed a name. Kintesarian decided to name it Kintalla, combining his and his mother’s names, and the city has
remained named such ever since.
The city would know a time of peace, for a while. Kintesarian would not leave any heirs to inherit the family’s role of watching the thriving community, and it was understood that the community had grown too large for a single Watcher. Instead, the governing of Kintalla was left in the hands of the matriarchs and patriarchs of the city’s most important families. These individuals decided everything from where newcomers could build houses, to how much an hour of honest labor should cost, what currencies people should circulate, and the best way to defend the city.
While Kintalla continued to develop over the next century and more, the rural communities, once led by the many small kings for two hundred years, began to consolidate. This was largely due in part to one Remanid the Uniter. Remanid was a young ruler, a middle-aged human who thought himself an emperor. He was brash, confident, and powerful; through the years he had expanded his territory and accumulated the first capable army seen in the region since the War of Broken Blades. What Remanid did not take by force, he conquered through diplomacy. The Uniter led his army from village to village, offering each small king the chance to yield to him, or lose their home in battle. One by one these communities fell to Remanid, and with each, the young emperor’s domain and army grew.
He wisely left the small kings their positions of power in each community, with his own generals and people he could trust to keep an eye on things throughout the land. When Remanid had reached the middle of his years, he set his sights on a new target: a city by the Bay of Erryn, one that had slowly grown in renown for the past hundred years. Kintalla was the only power in the region that could rival the Uniter’s. He would not consider his empire complete until his banners flew from its parapets. In his most ambitious undertaking, Remanid mustered the largest force he could from his domain, and marched upon the city. Kintalla was prepared for siege; a hundred years of development was enough time for the city to form its own militia. It was also enough time to erect strong walls around its borders, and garrison a military fort on the largest isle in the bay. The years Remanid spent conquering the small kings, the Kintallans spent gathering resources and fortifying the city’s defenses. They had seen attacks by would-be invaders before, and they had learned how to protect themselves.
But what Kintalla did not have was unified leadership, and it had never seen an invading force the size of the one on its doorstep. When Remanid arrived outside the city’s walls, he offered its peoples the same deal he had offered every small king before them; surrender to him, or face an attack. Kintalla had survived for a century without a king, and in the hour of decision its de facto leaders could not agree on a course of action. When Kintalla failed to produce an answer, Remanid stormed the city gates. Without any orders or direction from their leaders, the city’s militia gave no resistance. The gates were opened, every soldier threw down their weapons, and Remanid's forces occupied the entire city without a single sword stroke. The entire event took place in a span of hours, remembered today as the Bloodless Battle. Remanid took up residence in Castle Muranir, proclaiming himself a true king, Kintalla his seat of power, and his conquered regions his kingdom.
Demography and Population
Territories
Most of Reme's central and southern lands have a very high-sitting water table, leading to lots of marshy, cold wetlands and swamps. Toward the western and northern borders the lands rise and dry out significantly. However, this means that most of the duchy is unsuitable for agriculture or ranching, leading the Remish citizens to rely on imported agriculture and livestock to supplement their robust diets of fish and other aquatic creatures both saltwater and freshwater.
Military
Reme's first line of defense is the Kintallan Guard, which serves primarily as its police force. The Guard consists of roughly 1,500 soldiers, though only about 900 are on duty at a time. In time of war, Reme beckons the Guard to its full strength, and calls for the aid of men loyal to the kingdom beyond its borders. At most, the duchy can muster a standing force of 5,000 soldiers to defend it. The Ohl'Abdurr academy can also provide magical support of around 50 fully trained wizards and another hundred or so students.
An ancient order of knights is based in Reme: the Order of the Swan, whose device is a white swan on a black background, framed by a circle of plumes. Knights of the Swan are generally knights-errant rather than in service to a feudal lord. They owe their loyalty to the Order, although they have often ridden to the defense of the Duchy when danger has threatened.
Reme has the largest navy of any Ladosan nation, with around fifty carrack-class warships, twice that worth of smaller caravels, and a dozen man-o-war ships of the line outfitted with the latest in smallfolk cannonry.
Religion
There’s no official religion in Reme, the result of a particularly apathetic line of rulers throughout the city’s history, a fact which rankles against the pious citizens of the neighboring Holy See of Therezia. Still, its residents keep their gods and goddesses, even if the city does not abound with temples dedicated to them. A person of faith may find a dedicated place of worship if the deity is popular enough, and many hold their religious practices in private. Priests of all kinds make the city their home as well, and these few are often called upon to hold ceremonies or perform rites to a citizen’s god of choice.
Agriculture & Industry
Reme's capital boasts an extensive shipyard, which is supported by a booming timber industry in the northern parts of the duchy. Reme also profits greatly off of the coal found within the Frostfire Foothills, the hilly region that separates the Towers Mountains and the Whitepeak Mountains through which the Black Road travels westward. Unsurprisingly, the country's unique culture and varied goods draws visitors to the duchy's cities. Immense quantities of salt in the Frostfire Foothills give Reme an advantage over her neighbors. The nation is able to preserve much of the fish and meats found in her lands, as well as sell and trade the excess with other countries. The Salt Lords of Reme are a structured group of merchants who now control the global salt trade.
Trade & Transport
The capital city of Kintalla benefits from an excellent strategic location for trade, which gave birth to the Gilded Ring's headquarters there. Caravans ascend the Ivory Road from the Duchy of Kirsvald, entering Kintalla's gates from the south. Western trade arrives from Sendrellar, Mirabar, and Westden along the Black Road. Many of these shipments change hands in Kintalla as the various different merchants buy each other’s goods to take back on the return journey. In general, the folk of Reme are not traders or merchants, but the duchy makes efforts to foster trade and travel within its borders.
Education
While the Order of Ohl’Abdurr is a growing outfit for education in the city, it only tends to the most privileged or prodigious students. Most Remish can’t afford to spend their lives with their noses in books; commoners depend on income from trade or labor to feed their families. They have a basic education, learning simple arithmetic, science, and history that a common life in the city can afford them. Most in the duchy can read, or at least know Common script well enough to navigate the city and sign their names.
Those who can afford to pursue higher learning can do so in the Order of Ohl’Abdurr. Their studies may be broad or very specific, as the Order turns out its share of sages specializing in alchemy, lore, medicine, and magic. If a commoner shows an uncanny knack for magic or a gifted mind, the Order may offer the individual a form of scholarship to join its ranks. The families of these individuals are typically compensated to have them attend the facility.
Wealth and Wisdom
Founding Date
22634
Type
Geopolitical, Duchy
Capital
Training Level
Semi-professional
Veterancy Level
Trained
Demonym
Remish
Leader
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Monarchy, Constitutional
Power Structure
Feudal state
Economic System
Traditional
Major Exports
Coal, fish, marble, salt, weapons, ships
Major Imports
Agriculture, livestock, luxury goods, spices, tools
Parent Organization
Location
Neighboring Nations
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