Duchy of the Rampart
The Duchy of the Rampart is a palatine dukedom, which means that the title is hereditary and that the duke holds his lands directly from the overking. It 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 the darkness is subtle and isolated, 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.
On the eastern side of the March of Mountains, the borders of the Duchy of the Rampart extend roughly 200–250 miles from Troye to the south, southeast, and west. To the west, the border extends roughly 600 miles and includes all of the lands between the Cretian Mountains and the Rampart Mountains.
The duchy was once much larger than it is now, reaching as far east as the Gundlock Hills, and south almost to the Lorremach Highhills (though this latter was a mix of Suilleyn and Rampartine nobles and villages that had no real delineation until the secession of the Suilleyn king). Most of these lands were lost to the Kingdom of Suilley during the Suilleyn rebellion from the Kingdoms of Foere, and there is no credible expectation that they could be retaken.
History and People
The Duchy of the Rampart was founded in 2802 I.R. when Overking Osbert II raised Claud Oberhammer, a war hero and the overking’s nephew, to the status of Duke of the Rampart, Battle-Duke of Foere, and Sword of the Foerdewaith. In accordance with the ancient Hyperborean custom of dux bellorum, the battle-duke is traditionally the marshal of the armies of Foere anywhere they fight. This custom has waned over the years, with overkings or generals often leading armies into conflicts and crusades that occur far from the Rampart.
The earliest beginning of this break from custom came with a tragic occurrence, perhaps the duchy’s greatest shame. During the Second Great Crusade of 2970–2971 I.R., while the majority of Foere’s military forces were engaged across the Sinnar Ocean in far Libynos, a powerful vampire-lord known as the Singed Man arose in the western Kingdoms of Foere and conquered a great swath of territory in the distant Duchy of Kear, far to the west of the duchy itself. The Singed Man formed his own enslaved domain and named himself as its Infernal Tyrant. By the time the crusader forces returned from the east, the Infernal Tyrant was already well entrenched and ready for the attack of the war-weary soldiers.
Responsibility for dislodging the vampire-lord from his hold and freeing the oppressed lands was given to Duke Ormand I, palatine-duke of the Rampart and battle-duke of Foere. Because of the scattered nature of the returning armies and the depleted resources of Foere, Duke Ormand had great difficulty raising a new fighting force and properly equipping and supplying it. It was 2977 I.R. before Ormand finally marched on Kear, and in all those years the Singed Man had been carefully planning and preparing a response to just such an attack. Duke Ormand’s forces trudged across The Plains of Eauxe, enduring the constant harassing tactics of the Singed Man’s defenses, but finally brought the Infernal Tyrant’s forces to ground at Seilo Ford, trapped against the flooding Meander River. Unfortunately, it was also there that Ormand discovered the horrific preparations of the Infernal Tyrant: All the dead of Kear suddenly rose up from the ground on the banks of the Meander around the duke’s army and attacked from all sides.
Duke Ormand’s army was decimated at Seilo Ford, the survivors fleeing east back toward Foere. The battle-duke himself was captured and turned into a vampire, an unholy slave of the Singed Man. Duke Ormand became the Singed Man’s general and devoted servant and used his military prowess and experience to expand the wasted realm of the Infernal Tyrant to ever greater bounds. Foere’s own armies were exhausted and crippled, unable to do anything but watch as the Infernal Tyrant ran rampant in the west. It was not until more than 50 years later that the paladin Sir Varral the Blessed was able to destroy the Singed Man, free the realm of Kear, and finally send the former Duke Ormand to his eternal rest. Ormand’s name was stricken from the line of the Rampart by his grandson, Duke Claude III, and a taint lingered upon the battle-dukes in the eyes some of the Foerdewaith overkings due to the late duke’s failure. This great shame only festered over the years, leading perhaps to an overly aggressive war doctrine among the line of battle-dukes that ultimately led to the duchy’s second-greatest shame at the Battle of Bullocks Bale some 94 years later.
In the war between Oceanus and Foere, when the city of Endhome declared neutrality in 3217 I.R. and expelled its Foerdewaith garrison, the forces of the Rampart marched up the King’s Road to retake the city, but sudden intervention by Burgundia caused the outflanked Foerdewaith army to withdraw to Troye without bloodshed. The lord-general of the army was dismissed in disgrace by the enraged battle-duke of the Rampart, but the event was the first real damage dealt to Foerdewaith military invincibility in the provinces.
Only five years later, the forces of the Rampart were directly engaged in the war of Suilleyn independence of 3222 I.R. An aggressive new lord-general led his Foerdewaith army into western Suilley to bring the rebel barons to heel. Unfortunately for the battle-duke who was returning from far afield in the battles of Matagost to the east, his Foerdewaith were virtually slaughtered at the Battle of Bullocks Bale, with only a few managing to escape. At this one stroke, the legend of the military power of the Duchy of the Rampart was ended. The Rampart maintains a powerful army in the present day, but it is no longer seen as the invincible force that at one time simultaneously threatened and protected the realms of the overking.
The people of the Rampart are solidly and traditionally Foerdewaith and very loyal to the overking in Courghais. Chivalry is still a strongly held value among the knightly class, although there are certainly many knights whose claim to chivalry is dubious at best and scurrilous at worst. The Order of the Swan, whose device is a white swan on a black background framed by a circle of plumes, is an ancient order of knights based in the Rampart. 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 threatens.
However, a certain sense of ennui, decadence, and decay has been slowly creeping into the Duchy of the Rampart 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.
Trade and Commerce
The capital city of Troye benefits from an excellent strategic location for trade, although the city itself is not particularly mercantile. Caravans ascend the King’s Road from the Kingdom of Foere and enter Troye’s gates from the west. Southern trade arrives from Toullen, Keston, and Vourdon along the South Road, and the King’s Road brings cargo from Endhome’s seaport and the farms of the Gaelon River Valley. Many of these shipments change hands in Troye as the various different merchants buy each other’s goods to take back on the return journey.
In general, the folk of the Rampart are not traders or merchants, but the duchy makes efforts to foster trade and travel within its borders. In 3423 I.R., the Duchy of the Rampart acted in cooperation with Endhome, Sun¬derland, and Suilley to establish Grollek’s Grove as a merchants’ post on the Trader’s Way to foster commerce among the four realms. Even though the Kingdom of Suilley tends to divert caravans onto its own Flatlander Road rather than the more-dangerous Trader’s Way, the duchy makes no protest about reducing trade to Grollek’s Grove. The Flatlander Road, after all, eventually leads to Troye itself from which it can continue down the King’s Road to Grollek’s Grove, enriched from its time within the duchy.
Loyalties and Diplomacy
The Duchy of the Rampart is the easternmost domain of the Kingdoms of Foere. The duchy has stood for centuries as the eastern defense of the Foerdewaith homelands and is fiercely loyal to the overk¬ing and the heartlands to the west.
Government
The current ruler is Claud VII, Duke of the Rampart, Battle-Duke of Foere, and Sword of the Foerdewaith. He has a long and bloody history in petty wars on the wild fringes of civilization fighting on behalf of Foere, with the duchy administered in his absence by the nobleman Traont, Bar¬on Thulde under the title of Lord-Steward of the Rampart. In the recent campaign against the Huun in the lands of the Gulf of Akados and Irkaina, the overking decided to lead the armies personally rather than placing the duke in his traditional post of command, and Claud returned to his lands in the Rampart, clearly confused and insulted.
Having been established by decree, the duchy is not a wild patchwork of feudal divisions like the provinces to its east. It is segmented into a reg¬ular system of equally-sized counties. The counts appoint sheriffs and other officials and usually have at least four castled baronies in their lands, along with several knightly manors.
Wilderness and Adventure
The Duchy of the Rampart is well-settled, although pockets of wilderness are everywhere in between settlements. The southern verge of the Cretians is a wild and rugged place, much more sparsely inhabited, and correspondingly more dangerous for those who venture close to these strange peaks. Fewer settlements are along the margins of the Rampart Mountains, but this is an area where mining towns and villages of hill dwarves can be found in the rugged foothills. Patrols are at least occasionally undertaken by actual troops rather than a lone knight or a few volunteer yeomen with billhooks and crossbows.
Region
Duchy of the Rampart
Parent Organization
Controlled Territories
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