Ord
The kingdom of Ord is a land of fogshrouded moors, rolling highlands, and rocky coasts. Bordered by the hungry Khadoran Empire to the north and east and the powerful Cygnarans to the south, Ord has maintained its sovereignty through skillful diplomacy backed by stalwart soldiers and a navy capable of holding its own against any fleet on Meredius.
The Ordic people are descended from two mighty kingdoms, Thuria and Tordor, and its people are proud of that ancestry. For some the tales of ancient glories help distract from their difficult lives, as this nation has widespread poverty and a sharp divide between the wealthy and the poor. The Tordorans dominate the upper classes and are particularly populous in the north, where they own and control the most fertile and prosperous lands. Many of the wealthier Tordorans have made their fortunes in livestock; the region is famed for its cattle, goats, sheep, and horses. The Thurians, more numerous in the south, are far scarcer in the halls of power; even those families that have risen to power are generally subordinate to their Tordoran counterparts. Those Thurians who have attained any success have had to do so with wits and hard work.
The nation’s ports are home to the finest sailors and dock men in western Immoren. Ordic fishermen and sailors exert a great deal of control over seaborne trade routes all across the western seaboard. True, some Ordic ports are pirate havens and thieves’ dens, but the goods their merchantmen procure from all over the Iron Kingdoms can make even the most disreputable cities worth the trip. Ord’s largest city and most thriving trade center is Berck, where the leaders of merchant houses dominate city politics. While it is a city with a dark criminal underbelly, it is considered the fair face of Ord and is home to the famed Ordic Navy.
Equally important and of far darker reputation is Five Fingers, also known as the “Port of Deceit,” a city sprawling across numerous islands at the mouth of the Dragon’s Tongue River. Five Fingers is a city that has made an industry of vice, including smuggling, gambling, and extortion. The seemingly lawless environment here, combined with Ord’s neutrality in the wars abroad, makes Five Fingers appealing to mercenary companies, and it has garnered a reputation as a place where deals can be struck for anything under the sun. As dangerous as it is, for many the unique opportunities offered in Five Fingers outweigh the risks.
Ord is the poorest kingdom in western Immoren. Aside from peat harvested from hundreds of bogs, Ord has little natural resources, with livestock the only other significant export. The coal deposits in the riverbanks near Merin are considered abundant but are only sufficient for the needs of the capital and the northern city of Midfast. Inland residents tend toward farming, raising livestock, or trade in peat or wool.
Like the craggy hills and boggy moors, the people of Ord are rugged, weathered, and difficult to tame. They are mostly a common people who enjoy a wide variety of sport and gambling diversions from their everyday lives of dock work, shipbuilding, or tilling fields. Those born to wealth live on large estates high above the lowlands. Both classes can fall prey to the numerous brigands that plague the nation despite the efforts of its kings to eradicate them.
While more famed for its navy, Ord has an army that has earned respect in countless border wars. The Ordic Army has managed to repel numerous Khadoran invasions throughout history despite its chronically dated arms and relatively small size. Its soldiers are traditionally well trained and brave, but the nation lacks the economic might to outfit them with the advanced mechanika now common in the other armies of the Iron Kingdoms. Much of Ord’s security has been derived from the rugged border between Khador and the Ordic interior, jagged hills fortified with dozens of holds and fastnesses. The recent seizure of the Thornwood by Khador has imperiled that, prompting the Ordic Army to increase recruitment and commit to a frenzy of construction along their eastern border.
Ord’s King Baird Cathor II, known as “the Baird” among his people but sometimes called “the Bandit King” behind his back, relies on shrewd political maneuvering to ensure his kingdom’s survival. Some say he earned his less flattering moniker as much from his shady associates as from the curses of castellans complaining of his high taxes. While he presents himself as a simple pleasure seeker, he has proven to be one of the shrewdest and best-informed monarchs in the kingdoms and possesses an expansive network of spies. Since the outbreak of war, he has carefully maintained his country’s neutrality even as he attempts to play other nations off one another. While Ord has suffered repeated attacks from Khador over the centuries and Baird’s sympathies rest with Cygnar, he is too pragmatic not to exploit opportunities to enrich his struggling kingdom.
Such opportunities lately have bestowed the nation with the chance to become a more significant power. As the only kingdom not yet actively engaged in war, Ord is in an advantageous position. After the fall of Llael many refugees, some possessing valuable skills, sought refuge in Midfast and Merin. This led to the Free Order of the Golden Crucible establishing its new headquarters in Midfast, bringing with them a wealth of alchemical expertise as well as considerable income from their far-flung membership. Cygnar seeks to solidify an alliance with the kingdom now that Llael has fallen, and the Ordic throne recognizes its increased value to Cygnar. This has resulted in some exchanges of services and mechanika between the Cygnaran Armory and the Ordic Navy, spearheaded by King Baird’s second son, a distinguished naval officer who has taken up the cause of modernizing the kingdom’s military assets.
The annexation of the Thornwood by Khador resulted in an unexpected development when the Cygnaran city of Fellig was cut off from the rest of its nation after the fall of Northguard. Mercenaries working together with the Ordic Army were able to provide the city relief from a Khadoran siege, and now Fellig has become an Ordic possession, creating a stalwart northeastern bastion for the Ordic Army. Cygnar’s King Leto has seen fit to allow this situation to persist, at least until his nation can recapture the Thornwood. For now, it is better that Fellig be in Ordic rather than Khadoran hands. The city’s citizens find themselves in a peculiar position, as it is populated by proud Morridanes who remain fiercely patriotic to Cygnar; most residents are grateful to Ord but become prickly at any talk of the city being anything but Cygnaran. Nevertheless, the influx of Ordfolk including fresh soldiers has been a boon, and the city is in the midst of finding its new identity.
Thus far Khador has proven reluctant to test Ordic borders. As Khador’s only source of outside commerce, Ord is a market the kayazy wish to preserve. Like the tides from which the kingdom derives much of its livelihood, Ord’s outlook seems to ebb and flow from day to day, and her leaders and king cast their nets into the choppy seas of politics and intrigue to see what bounties they might draw forth from the deep.
The coins of Ord are: the royal, silverweight, galleon, half-galleon, and blackpenny. The Royal is the gold coin equivalent to the Cygnaran Crown. The Galleon is the silver coin equivalent to the Cygnaran Shield. The Blackpenny is the copper equivalent to the Cygnaran Farthing. The Silverweight is the equivalent to two Cygnaran Shields or Ordic Galleons, and the half-galleon is the equivalent to five Cygnaran Farthings, or Ordic Blackpennies.
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