Llael

A proud realm with a complex history, Llael has perhaps suffered more than any other nation in the Iron Kingdoms in recent years. Even before the Khadoran invasion and occupation, the kingdom experienced the sudden and unexpected death of its monarch, King Rynnard, who left behind an unclear line of succession when he perished in 595 AR. The feuding Council of Nobles quickly fell to further infighting, and shortly thereafter to cold-blooded murder. Within a few short months, virtually anyone who might have possessed a legitimate claim to the throne had been slain. Even those with no ambition for the crown were struck down, many succumbing to poison or an assassin’s blade.

With no clear road to ending the conflict, Archduke Deyar Glabryn, Minister of the Treasury, assumed the mantle of prime minister, claiming that he was acting as regent until the proper succession could be determined. To many Llaelese citizens, the name Glabryn would soon become one of the most reviled in the nation’s history. Even as the prime minister worked to line his own pockets and increase his power—all the while showing no signs of abdicating in favor of any monarch, legitimate or otherwise—he was secretly working with Khadoran agents to undermine Llael’s defenses in preparation for the coming invasion.

In the winter of 604 AR, Khador attacked Llael in force. The war that followed was the most brutal that the citizens of Llael had ever known. The Khadorans were more than willing to slaughter defenseless noncombatants merely as an example to others, and after months of bloody conflicts and protracted sieges, Prime Minister Glabryn announced Llael’s surrender in 605 AR.

Khador took all of western Llael during the war, but portions of the south and east remained free from the Motherland’s soldiers, and pockets of Resistance fighters sprang up in even the most heavily occupied cities. Then, in late 606 AR, Hierarch Severius brought the armies of the Protectorate’s Northern Crusade to Llael and offered the Llaelese Resistance a partnership. Together, Severius claimed, they could drive the Khadorans from the kingdom.

In 607 AR, the combined Protectorate and Resistance forces recaptured the city of Leryn without firing a shot, as Severius undermined the city’s defenses from within by appealing to several Menite practitioners of the Old Faith among the Greylords Covenant. The relief of the Resistance fighters was short-lived, however, as Severius declared the city the capital of the Northern Crusade and burned its Khadoran governor alive in the town square. Despite promises to the contrary, the Llaelese Resistance had merely traded one occupying force for another.

Ironically, the events leading up to the Claiming ultimately freed Llael from its oppressors. As the wars across the continent persisted, the forces occupying Llael found themselves stretched thin. Severius took much of the Northern Crusade back to the south to defend Tower Judgment from the skorne, a battle in which he fell. When the infernals began to attack en masse, neither Khador nor the Protectorate could continue holding out against the forces of the Resistance, and both began withdrawing troops to protect their own interests. Resistance fighters took back most of Llael bit by bit, but the land was changed forever, and the scars left behind by war will take years—if not generations—to heal.

GOVERNANCE

Shortly before the Claiming, a new contender for the Llaelese throne appeared. Princess Kaetlyn di la Martyn had been smuggled out of the country as a child and hidden for years, first in Ord and then in Cygnar. In 614 AR, having finally reached the age of majority and secured the backing of key figures in both Cygnar and the Llaelese Resistance, she returned to take the throne of a new, free Llael.

One of the first things Queen Kaetlyn did in the years following the Claiming was to cement the fledgling nation’s alliance with Ord by marrying King Baird’s grandson, Alvor Cathor. Unfortunately, Kaetlyn proved to be a weak queen, and her marriage was based on political expedience rather than love. Alvor generally remains in Ord, where he was rumored to have a mistress among the rival Mateu family.

SOCIETY

The Llaelese are a people proud of their culture—and a people who have seen that culture crushed. Whereas the rest of the continent reeled from the events of the Claiming, the people of Llael had already been reeling, occupied by unyielding foes and subjected to vicious cruelties the likes of which they had not seen since the time of the Orgoth. Although a free Llael was never entirely eradicated, it is impossible to say that Llaelese culture entirely survived, either. Most of the nation’s aristocracy is dead or so deep in hiding that they have yet to be found, and countless citizens were lost to the Claiming here, just as they were in other nations.

Llael has seen an influx of new citizens in the years since the Claiming, as well as an increase in trade with unlikely partners, including sporadic trade with the trollkin kriels who make the nearby Glimmerwood their home. The strong relationship between Llael and Ord means that Ordic citizens come and go in the kingdom frequently, with some settling here. The nation also maintains strong trade ties with Cygnar and Rhul.

One key aspect of Llaelese society that has remained intact through all the wars and occupations is the Duello, a codified system of rules for conducting duels. Although duels are not unknown in other lands, Llael has refined them into an art form. Today, the stringent rules of the Duello survive even though most of the aristocracy has perished, but in the aftermath of recent cruelties, few Llaelese have the stomach to fight to the death.

Llael is the traditional home of the Order of the Golden Crucible. This important organization recently returned to the kingdom even though it remains headquartered in Ord, where it moved during the Khadoran occupation. The Golden Crucible has reopened offices in Leryn and been embraced by Queen Kaetlyn despite reservations about its growing power and influence. There are those among the order’s ranks who believe the queen is biased in favor of the Llaelese chapter, where the Crucible Guard exerts much less influence than it does in the organization’s headquarters in Midfast.

As other nations rebuild, Llael has a chance to redefine itself. Whether it makes the most of that chance remains to be seen.

GEOGRAPHY

Situated at the feet of the mountainous dwarven nation of Rhul, Llael also shares borders with Khador, Cygnar, and the mysterious forests of Ios, making it the most centrally located realm in the Iron Kingdoms. This position has helped Llael thrive and made its merchants and aristocrats rich as a result of trade, but it has also placed the kingdom in the crosshairs of its larger neighbors, especially Khador.

Today, Llael enjoys the free-flowing trade that comes with more open borders, although the Iosans to the east have once again closed their nation to outsiders. Not even the occasional Seeker ventures out of the forest, and as dark rumors gather at the edges of the deep woods, what was once a nearly unguarded boundary is now watched warily by Llaelese forces.

Although Llael borders vast mountain peaks and trackless forests, the kingdom itself contains little of either, consisting primarily of rich, fertile plains broken up by limestone basins, rolling hills, and small stands of deciduous woodlands. In the south, near the capital city of Merywyn, the nation’s borders cut through the eerie Glimmerwood, a forest long considered cursed by the local populace. Named for patches of algae and lichen that grow on the trunks of its trees and glow with a ghostly blue light in the dusk, this wood is home to several trollkin kriels who occasionally engage in trade with the Llaelese but do not welcome outsiders with open arms.

Neighboring Nations

• Khador