Kayomar, Kingdom of
Kayomar is synonymous with knightly virtues and the rule of law and order. Many castles, large and small, overlook the countryside where small villages abound. The land is rich in soil and produces crops of wheat and barley. The people lead a simple, prosperous life, content in the protection their lords offer them. These simple folk farm the land, raise cattle and pigs, travel little and speak of the far eastern lands in vague terms. They are a religious folk and pay homage to their saints (Luther and Vivienne) and call upon the protection of the PALADIN'S GROVE more often than not. The region is well known for its taverns and drink. Due to its proximity to the wilds, however, and the Darkenfold in particular, Kayomar’s borders are constantly threatened by creatures of evil intent.
Kayomar is ancient and as such offers adventurers plenty of opportunity to explore lost ruins, forests, and mountains. Wealth abounds within the many deserted castles and ruins, particularly on the borders of the wilds in the NORDMARK where the rule of the king is less than total.
History
Kayomar’s past encompasses several thousand years. Even at the beginning of man’s recorded history, kings ruled in the deep valleys. The tribe of Ethrum traced its origins to the valleys of Kayomar. The TARVISH EMPERORS, who fought so long against Al-Liosh and the AENOCHIANS, ruled their lands from spired castles along the ARDEEN RIVER. Once in a while, after a flood or storm, the ancient ruins of buildings or dungeons crop-up, reminding people of just how old the land is. The history of that land, however, at least so far as the modern world is concerned, begins during the Age of Heroes.
In the Age of Heroes, LUTHER of the HOUSE PENDEGRANTZ reigned as king in Kayomar and at his side stood VIVIENNE, his queen. For 16 glorious years they reigned together and forged a realm of peace, prosperity, and power. The holy sword, the DURENDALE, shined over the land. In countless battles against the evil of the world he prevailed, but always over the light of his reign stood the moment that was his queen, and all
men loved her and worshiped her for she was kind and gentle, a spirit of purity and hope.
At the height of King Luther’s reign, war came, once more from the east, this time upon the horns of UNKLAR.
As war rolled across the great straits, the remaining kingdoms gathered in a holy alliance and plunged themselves on a mad crusade against the enemy. Luther had, by this time, abdicated his throne in favor of his son ROBERT LUTHER, and taken the Durendale Sword into the east in an attempt to slay the Sorcerer NULAK, or the EMPEROR SEBASTIAN, whichever came near him. With him traveled his old companions, ARISTBULUS and DALADON. Their task proved fatal, and Aristobulus fell to a demon lord from the Wretched Plains even before they reached the east, and Luther, greatest of heroes as called by the gods, carried the Durendale from the plain into the SEA OF DREAMS, there to guard and hide it from the enemy.
Before departing he briefly returned to put his house in order and in 639oy he boarded his ship, the EVENING SWAN. His journey was kept secret for the blade’s importance stood above all things, so it was that all thought he would soon return. Queen Vivienne knew better, and she knew that she would never see her love in life again, that he would cast himself out onto the Dreaming and be lost to the world for an age or more. He departed and left her grief stricken and alone. She died three
days later, and was buried in the family tombs on the FREIDEN ANHOHE.
The knights of Kayomar and King Robert Luther continued the war against Unklar. The CATALYST WARS saw the over-throw of the kingdom of Kayomar and the fall of Robert Luther. For 39 years the King Robert Luther waged his war against the Dark in the east. The songs of his deeds ring through the years, and he is accounted the greatest hero of his age. At last, in 798oy, Unklar besieged Du Guesillon, the King’s capitol. For almost two years Unklar’s legions battered at the doors of that mighty fortress, but to no avail. The king laughed at them from the walls and led countless sorties into the fray, and slew many and more of the evil god’s minions. At last Unklar came and unmade the walls and assailed the king in his keep, which men later called the TOWER OF HOPE. The king came forth to face the dark god.
“Your crown of horn has no meaning here! Now, get thee from this place!” With that, he struck Unklar a blow upon his helm so great that it split the iron, and drew blood. The blow toppled the Horned God causing him to crash into the ground with a mighty clap.
Robert Luther’s laughter frightened the ungern hosts such that they broke and ran from that land in complete terror, but Unklar lifted himself from the ground to come against Robert Luther once more. This time the Horned God came as a wedge of fury, the vapors of his hatred choking lesser men. He pounded the walls with his mighty fists and tore the gates asunder. In a voice akin to graveled iron the god spoke, “I have unmade the world. So I shall unmake you.” He fell upon Robert Luther with all the might of his grim power. His spells wove a deadly mist from the LANGUAGE OF CREATION, binding the king in a maelstrom of swirling ash. Robert Luther struck one last blow, taking a great splinter from one of Unklar’s horns. Unklar cursed and gored him with his twisted horns. So the king, Robert Luther, on the 28th day of
Nochturn, 800oy, died, and his body fell to the earth. The light went out in the world.
Some of the last to fall to the dark were in the House of Pendegrantz. JARIEL GALEN (third son of King Luther) fell on the steps of the tower next to his brother’s body. JAREN the Monk fell too, in the tower, struck by the mage NULAK-KIZ-DIN. Unklar’s minions sacked Du Guesilon and left the castle in ruins. They left behind the HOLY FLAME however, for that sacred artifact the paladins carefully hid with spells within spells. Those who survived the war fled into hiding. Many slipped beneath the eves of the ELDWOOD and the DARKENFOLD Forests. Others took to the SHELVES OF THE MIST, and many had no place to go but lingered in the wilds to face the coming winter. The refugees survived largely due to the protection of their patron, SAINT LUTHER. He came to them in their dreams, breathing life into their struggles. He gave them hope for the future. Too, he planted secret strengths in the people of Kayomar, so that in their dreams they were heroes born and bred.
During the long MILLENIAL DARK, the HOLY DEFENDERS OF THE FLAME fought on. They made Du Guesilon a holy place, where they came to pray and ask for aid from the gods Durendale and Luther. The dish remained in the ruins of the castle and a paladin made to watch over it at all times. The order shrank to a few dozen knights, for the lives of these paladins was hard, and they had no lords. The older warriors recruited younger ones from those who they deemed worthy, trained them, and taught them the law of good. They went out into the cold world of Winter to fight lonely battles against impossible odds. Countless and nameless were the heroes of those dark days, but ever did they struggle on in their war against the dark. These few brave men held the order together, waiting for the time when their king and lord would return from the Sea of Dreams. In those days the only place the knights could find succor lay in the Eldwood. There, the WOOD ELF KINGS never bent beneath the weight of Unklar, for none could assail the magic of that place. As is told elsewhere, GREAT TREES from the DAYS BEFORE DAYS still wandered that ancient forest, but too, the WATCHER IN THE WOODS, a ranger order founded by DALADON LOTHIAN, defended it with bow and spear. The Holy Defenders
forged a deep bond with the folk of the Eldwood.
When, in 1119md, Luther came to the paladins from the Dreaming Sea bearing the sword Durendale, he called to them, and awoke in them a hunger for war and let them know that his return was imminent A fervor took the knights and they set aside the years of loss and grief and took up a lust for war and revenge. MORGAN, MASTER OF THE HOLY DEFENDERS, called to his knights and paladins to gather at Du Guesilon. They unearthed the Holy Flame and, holding it aloft, they traveled the land gathering those who would fight the enemy. Men and women armed themselves, joining him in droves, to hound the enemy.
The knowledge of Saint Luther spread from the Dreaming, so that even those who did not join Morgan rose against the dark. They turned on their masters, Unklar’s minions, and pulled them from their high seats to stone them or drown them in the rivers. The orcs fled their holds and the SANJAK AZIZ, MASTER OF THE VALLEYS OF KAYOMAR, worried in his many-storied hall.
At first Morgan’s troops fought small battles, harrying the enemy’s caravans, burning outposts, or killing guards. Aziz did not move against them until their depredations became such that his revenues declined. With troops from across the Ardeen he attacked Morgan and pursued him into the Shelves of the Mist. At the BATTLE OF TWO CREEKS, a troop of mounted paladins annihilated several dozen giants and hundreds of mounted men, and so the war was fought. Aziz hounded Morgan but
could not bring him to heel. Morgan slew many of Aziz’s troops but could not master his overwhelming numbers.
As the war spread elsewhere, Kayomar became a drain on the IMPERIAL LEGIONS imperial legions. Experienced COHORTS were pulled from the lands of MAINE and the GELDERLAND and sent to fight for Aziz in the south. At last Nulak-Kiz-Din came to Aziz and told him to press Morgan into battle, or he himself would answer in AUFSTRAG. Early in 1122md, Aziz marshaled the whole of his imperial legion and through chance or luck came upon Morgan on the banks of the HUME RIVER. They forced Morgan from the river, driving him into the Shelves of the Mist with the greater part of his host, which numbered 187 paladins, 352 knights, and 2000 footmen. There they pinned him up and hounded him with the SCOURGE OF DARKNESS, great packs of wolves and evil beasts, but Aziz’s people feared to come to grips with the enemy and the Sanjak could not force them over even with pain of death. The banners of the Holy Defenders stood before them and even in those distant ages the echo of the Catalyst Wars remained with the folk of Aufstrag.
Lord Aziz called for more troops. Though the greater part of the legions were now fighting in the far west under the dark host and only a scant dozen or more legions remained in the lands of AENOCH and ETHRUM, Nulak chose to reinforce Aziz once again. Troops were stripped from garrisons as far away as ANGLAMAY and sent to Kayomar. At last in 1123md, his cadres swollen with troops, Aziz moved to draw out Morgan and destroy the Order of the Flame.
The BATTLE OF EADORE RIDGE
Morgan gave battle on the heights of EADORE RIDGE. With 2000 men-at-arms and 500 knights and paladins, they met the host of Aziz on the 19th of Erstdain. Aziz himself commanded the 5th Legion of 5000 men, arranged in three cohorts, the 11th, 63rd, and 194th. These were the bedrock of his battle line. The vast array of troops culled from the other provinces and sent to him by Nulak, he set on the flanks and rear of the 5th. These included 4000 light infantry he divided in two and set on his flanks, 4000 loosely organized horse he set as reserve and a great horde of slingers and bowmen he put before his host. His whole army numbered 16,000 and more.
To counter this Morgan ordered his men to build a wall of dirt and stone atop MOUNT EADORE, overlooking the enemy. There they waited.
Aziz softened Morgan’s lines with archers and slingers and followed that by sending the battle-hardened 194th cohort against the rocky wall. Boulders thrown from on high disrupted their attack and they hit the wall in broken groups and sought to gain purchase, but everywhere the pikemen drove them back. Many were slain, and more were pushed off the wall to crash back into the ranks below and behind. Chaos ensued as the ungern pushed harder, clambering over the fallen, sliding through the ichorous gore of their comrades, and pulling themselves up the rocky escarpment with claw, and leg. They were easy prey to the pikemen who never yielded an inch but drove them back time and again. By close of day the ungern lay in heaps all along the base of the wall and only a tattered remnant returned to the ranks below.
Early on the morning of the second day, Aziz sent the archers forward again to pin down the defenders. He sent the 11th and the 63rd to either flank, supported by hordes of infantry. On the right the 63rd could find no purchase, but on the left the 11th topped the wall and breached it in many places. Morgan formed his knights in a great wedge and these fell upon the ungern as they regrouped around their many breaches. The knights drove them back in great slaughter, pin- ning them against the wall so that they could not escape and those coming over the wall tangled in their ranks with great confusion. The slaughter was immense, and both sides suffered grievous losses. The whirling maelstrom of iron and steel clashed with horn and talon, mace and axe and bodies fell upon bodies until the heap climbed to the wall’s edge. In the late afternoon the tide turned against Morgan as more and more of the enemy breached the walls, but in the failing light the paladin unleashed his pikemen and men-at-arms and these weighed into the battle to turn the tide once more. Those over the wall were not ungern, instead made up of men and orcs, and they could not stand the press of battle overlong. They turned to flee but were cut down so that few if any escaped. Upon the morning of the third day the last cohort of Aziz drew up at the hill’s foot and waited. As they assembled Morgan unleashed his knights and armored host. They pushed down the wall and leapt through the ruins of death all around them, running down the hill in a great clamor of noise. The ungern drew their lines up and fleshed out by the remnants of the other cohorts held their ground. Morgan’s folk overwhelmed the lines of ungern in a deafening crash, grinding their ranks up in an iron wave. Within the span of an hour they were utterly destroyed, dying where they stood. The rest of Aziz’s army disintegrated, fleeing hither and yon, and the Sanjak himself fled to the east, taking with him the greater part of his horse, never stopping until he came to the Gelderland. The battle bore two names ever after; some called it Morgan’s Song, but to most it was simply the Battle of Eadore.
The Rise of Old Ethrum
Aziz’s defeat spread disenchantment throughout the ranks of Unklar’s legions. Many deserted, and others retreated to the fortresses spread throughout the land, but the greater part of them moved to the north, into the wilds. Within a few short months all of Kayomar threw off the yoke of Unklar’s rule. When the SHROUD OF DARKNESS began to fade and the people once more felt the light of day, they rejoiced in the long valleys, singing songs to the Dark’s demise.
Lord Morgan was not satisfied with the many enemies gathering in the northern wilds, and once more gathered his knights and men-at-arms to attack the enemy there. He moved them into the west, upon the borders of the Shelves of the Mist and attacked them in their strongholds one after the other. In this way he pushed the greater part of them to the east, against the mountains to the FORTRESS OF OX. With him marched other lords, Daladon Lothian with many rangers, and the elven king NIGOLD. These were called the BATTLES OF WEATHER'S GAP and they were particularly bitter, as no quarter was given or asked.
The war raged around the ancient castles and fortress of that place, neither side seeing victory nor defeat. Not until the dwarves of NORGORAD KAM came down from the BRASS HALLS were they able to overthrow the orcs there. After that, the power of Aufstrag in all the long valleys
of Kayomar came to an end, so that only scattered bands remained.
In this same year Saint Luther took the crown of Kayomar upon his brow. The people rejoiced for the dawning of the new age. He rebuilt Du Guesilon and lay the DISH OF THE HOLY FLAME in the high Tower of Hope where two of his sons had fallen in a different age of the world.
Luther’s reign did not outlast the wars. He fought many battles in the east and came home seldom for he lusted for the struggle against the Horned God and would not quit the field. After three years of absentee rule, King Luther I abdicated the throne of Kayomar in favor of his friend and the Master of the Holy Defenders of the Flame, Morgan. Morgan’s own wife crowned him, naming him King Morgan I. Luther retained the title of PALATINE KING OF KAYOMAR, reserving his right to
assume the throne if ever the need should present itself. He then returned to the wars and later to the Dreaming Sea where he set himself the task of watching the world and spoke to men through their dreams, and all knew that he kept an eye upon his terrestrial kingdom.
Morgan’s first official act as king of Kayomar bound his line to Luther evermore. In the lands which Luther’s family owned, even before the Winter Dark, Morgan established an order of clerics. They built a temple there to honor and worship the Paladin of the Dreaming Sea and the Durendale Sword. Morgan named it the PALADIN'S GROVE. In after-days, it became the holiest of shrines for the lords of law and good. The grove encompassed 300 acres of wooded land surrounded on all sides by a low wall. The DRUIDS OF THE GREAT TREE came to the grove at the behest of Daladon Lothian and planted there a crop of silver birch, said to be the offspring of the TREES OF MORDIUS from the dawn of time. By year’s end, the Holy Flame in its dish of platinum was placed in the altar chamber of the temple, where it sits to this day. In the years which followed, Morgan attempted to establish a feudal hierarchy in Kayomar. However, due to the predominance of the other aristocratic families, he failed to seize complete control of the kingdom. Of the ancient houses of Kayomar, few had survived, but those that did strove to exercise the same rights they believed they held under the previous Kings of Kayomar. Morgan wearied of these continual disputes with the nobles. At one moment he was heard to remark, “I now understand Unklar’s reluctance to live in this land; so headstrong are these folk, that they are ungovernable.”
In 1145md, Morgan abdicated the throne to his son, MORGAN II, and traveled with the crusading knights to Aufstrag in secret. There he flung himself against the enemy with reckless abandon, causing much havoc in their ranks before he fell. It is said that his trusted horse, wounded beyond healing, gave out beneath him and he would not leave it. Fighting over its dying screams he held off a horde of ungern until at last he too succumbed to a multitude of wounds.
When the wars at last ground to a halt, the kingdom settled into a long peace. Morgan’s son ruled for 40 long years. So prosperous was his tenure that folks called him the Great King, even before he died. His reign is viewed as the Golden Age of Kayomar for there was peace and the realm flourished. Towns grew, trade increased, and artists and poets flocked to the courts of the Great King. He rebuilt major roads throughout the realm. He also ordered that a university be established in the city of Du Guesilon, making it a bedrock of learning that eventually produced philosophers, wizards, and theologians of high repute.
Morgan II did not choose to interfere with the spread of the religion of ORE-TSAR. It took on in some areas, mainly in the north near the wilds. There, people built temples and called to the god of common folk for aid, but in truth, with the paladin kings on the throne of Kayomar, the people had no need of new gods or new ways of life.
Morgan II’s son, LUTHER II, followed in his father’s stead. The title of Great King remained, attached now to the throne. This paladin, possessed of amazing abilities, did not rule the kingdom for long. While on campaign in the wilds hunting a giant troll, he fell afoul of a devil from Aufstrag. They fought long and hard in that desolate place, but even as Luther II’s men came to his aid, he fell to the creature’s axe. The other paladins fell upon the devil with a lust not seen since the days of the
Winter Wars and slew him soon thereafter. They bore the body of the noble king back to Du Guesilon and lay it with his forefathers.
Luther II was Morgan’s youngest son. His wife bore only one child, and only late in their marriage. She gave birth to a boy in 1179md. They gave him the name EADORE, after the famous battle which his great grandfather had won. This young child assumed the throne as the Great King Eadore at the age of only 4.
Of Her Kings
Palatine King St. Luther I (1126 md-1129 md House Pendegrantz)
Morgan I (1129 md-1145 md House Dawin)
Morgan II (1145 md-1185 md)
Luther II (1185 md-1187 md)
Eadore (1187 md-present)
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
Leader
Location
Controlled Territories
Related Ethnicities
Comments