Kingdom of Mordan

The Kingdom of Mordan

Geography

The King of Mordan, wearing the Silver Crown, commands the whole of the Kingdom of Mordan, a country blessed with large fields of farmland to the south and large mountains filled with natural resources such as wood and metal to the north. In the center and east of the country lies extensive rivers, which lead to the Sea of Joren to the west. The Kroth Peninsula to the west has also allowed for large port cities within Mordan, creating a large economy of farming to the south as well as in the west. The Khroten Mountains to the north as well have gifted Mordan with resources such as tin, copper, iron, zinc, salt, lead, and silver. However, rarer metals such as gold and platinum are not found within Mordan and thus has forced the kingdom to trade with the northern nations of Tekia and Alvrena that occupy the more mountainous regions. Just south of these mountains lie the frigid highlands of the Arastkelia Highlands. Several deltas also exist in the northwest of Mordan, the largest of which is the Ghrovian Delta just south of the western-most mountain in the Khroten Mountains. These deltas create swamps just north of the center of the kingdom, in a region named the “Yur’den” by the locals. In the southwest the rivers fed from the Ghrovian Delta to the north head south, giving birth to vast forests that make up the Yurtal Forests that are caught between the southern hills and the Yur’den as well as the eastern deltas and rivers. To the east however, extends rolling hills that have made excellent farmland. To the south east these once-bountiful disappear and the Whelkia Plateaus appear.  As one gets closer and closer to the edge of the eastern Mordanian border, the lush flatlands give way to the arid lowlands of the Yorari Lowlands. As one goes to the edge of Mordan, the air soon turns dry as does the grass and on the very edge of the kingdom the land soon turns into a desert that no one has ventured beyond. This is where the eastern border of Mordan ends and the Jorath Desert begins for as far as the eye can see.

Politics/Government

The Silver Crown is bestowed to those of the current ruling royal family. The holding family of the crown is chosen through election when there is no more eligible heirs to the throne. This election is held between the seven Grand Dukes and fifteen Archdukes, holders of the highest honors a nobleman can obtain. This voting process can sometimes take several months to complete and as such the election is called the Hundred Day Electoral.
The government of Mordan is comprised mostly of an elaborate bureaucracy along with the king’s personal advisors and heads of state. At the lowest level of noble is the lord, who rules a small region and answers to the baron that holds the barony in which his land is contained. The baron controls about five to seven regions and answers to a viscount. The viscount rules around three to seven baronies and answers to his count. The count holds dominion on approximately two to three viscounties and answers to the duke. The duke rules about three to five counties, but answers to an archduke. The archduke controls usually two to three duchies and answers to the grand duke. The grand duke controls two to three archduchies and answers to the king.
The Kingdom maintains strong trade relations with the nations of Tekia and Alverna to the north but is still wary of possible attacks through the mountain passes as the Khroten Mountains provide the necessary metals to Mordan. On the Kroth Penisula, the great trade cities of the kingdom maintain trade with the island-nation of Yhetei to the south-east which produces many exports such as spices, wood, and sugar. Beyond the Jorath Desert to the east there is no known nations but occasionally nomads and other traders cross the wastes and trade with the farmers and herders of the eastern hills. And while the majority of Mordan is accepting of other ethnicities and immigrants from outside nations, the people of the Yur’Den swamps to the central north of the kingdom represent a cultural minority of the kingdom and are treated with somewhat of disgust by the majority of the people within Mordan.

Religion

The majority of the commonfolk within the rural farming villages of the kingdom prescribe to a paganist belief system that is based in a pantheon that stretches back several thousand years. The religion is founded on the principle that the Mother of the Land, Uran created the world and from her hairs spawned several other gods such as the god of the sun, moon, forests, mountains, rivers, oceans, rain, snow, wind, and storms. While countless lesser gods exist as well as many local gods depending on the region, for the most part each of the main gods stands for an aspect of nature. However, the Kingdom itself officially worships a religion based on the gods of life and death, Il’dren and Wel Toram. The clergy of the kingdom (which is a requirement for some adults to join in some regions) serves the church by preforming services across Mordan. The church is required to also pay taxes to the king as it is its own separate political entity.
Around a hundred and thirty years ago, the immerging church conducted an Inquisition War to capture and lock away all religious (and therefore magical) artifacts and relics. After the Inquisition War, the relics of the major pagan gods (dubbed the “Old Gods” by the church) were locked away as “heretical artifacts” and existing artifacts were redistributed between the new twelve “holy houses” as well as the new Royal Family of Mordan. These artifacts included the Silver Crown, which was utilized by Tel’in Yoken to unify the nation. Worship of the local gods (officially recognized as “Forgotten Gods”) has lessened if not entirely disappeared.
While the creation myth of the church remains the same as that of the common folk, there are some differences. The church’s believes that the god of life Il’dren rules in divine ordinance over the nine holy lands above the mortal plane of mankind, named Er’torath by the church. Each holy land(Rhentei) is ruled over by one of the eight sons and daughters, separate embodiments of the god-king of Er’torath, Il’dren. Bekorn, first son and the embodiment of Il’dren’s courage, rules over the first rhentei, Tol Eifen as its first line of defense against the forces of the god of death, Wel Toram. Kelia, the first daughter and embodiment of wisdom, rules over the great archives of Rehorm, the second of the rhentei. The second son and ruler of the third rhentei, Ken’bria, is the embodiment of kindness, who serves as Il’dren’s left hand. The third son and ruler of the fourth rhentei, Phrok, is the embodiment of Il’dren’s tenacity and rules over Vhrena, the greatest fortress in Er’torath. The second daughter and ruler of the fifth rhentei, Vothen, is the embodiment of Il’dren’s honesty and rules over Gorkhei. The fourth son and ruler of the sixth rhentei, Ulrai, is the embodiment of Il’dren’s honor and rules over Yur Korak. The fifth son and ruler of the seventh rhentei, Tal’ren, is the embodiment of Il’dren’s loyalty and rules over Sestrik. The sixth son and ruler of the eighth and final rhentei, Lor’torei, is the embodiment of Il’dren’s peace and rules over Eotria.
The god of death, Wel Toram, is held to be the god who in the beginning of time refused to mate with the Goddess of the Earth and instead slew her. As a result, he did not split his power amongst several sons and daughters like Il’dren did and as such is much more powerful. But, still seeking the companionship of other beings, he takes the souls of the living to keep him company in the deathworld of Koran-Tel. Jealous of the love that Il’dren has gathered from the souls of the faithful (whom he takes in after death due to his love for humanity), Wel Toram promised his blood-brother to slay him and destroy Er’torath in the End of Days, where all the souls of the dead and damned as well as the combined strength of Wel Toram will be flung at Er’torath in order to destroy all that Il’dren holds dear.

Military

The Kingdom of lMordan holds a sizeable military, although the majority of it is controlled by regional rulers and lords. Due to the strong metal trade to the north has made the steel and iron industry within the kingdom very profitable and as such as led to one of the strongest infantry forces in the region. However, due to the scarcity of horse breeding grounds like the ones found to the far east, the cavalry force within the kingdom is lacking. It is for this reason that Mordinian tactics heavily favor long range assaults by archers before engaging with heavy infantry and large amounts of levied forces. However, the complicated political structure of the nation has made combined and organized assaults like these difficult to manage. However, the Crown does directly control the Silver Arm, an army that takes orders directly from the Royal Family and their advisors.

Economy

The Kingdom of Mordan is blessed by farmland along major rivers to the west within the Ghrovian Delta, but these floodlands pale in comparison to the vast plains of the east. In the southern hills, the raising of livestock produces items such as wool, linen, hide, and meat. The south is also a big producer of crops such as wheat, corn, cotton, and hay. The eastern plains lack horses for the most part except for the eastern border on the north eastern edge of the Whelkia Plataeu, but other than that cattle graze in this area, feeding on the lush grass that grows there. Vast swaths of corn and wheat also populate the eastern plains, with areas such as the

History

The beginnings of the kingdom can be found around one hundred and fifty years ago, when a major cult that worshiped the god of life, Il’dren, started conquering land in the central hills. The origins of this sect remain foggy to this day, but historians agree that its head priest, Rel’kithal, came into possession of a relic of Il’dren, the Holy Spear Trelken. There are various other accounts on how Rel’kithal came to meet the sect’s political and military leader, Tel’in Yoken, some ranging from that he was the successor to a powerful kingdom, to others saying he was a simple farmhand. But once they combined forces, the cult (known as the Order of El’torath) began its war path. Their armies first cut a swath through the eastern fields, ending in a decisive victory against the Brerothian Kingdom on the Varalect Plains in 149 BPD (Before Present Day). What separated the Order’s army and tactics from their contemporaries was not only the tactics and military skill of Tel’in (aided by the Silver Crown which he had acquired in the early Siege of Yol Trei) but also their forceful collection of a kingdom’s ruler’s relic. While other conqueror-kings and would-be rulers would allow their defeated foes to keep their magical artifacts – symbols of their power and prestige, Tel’in did not because he realized the threat it posed of keeping his enemies armed. It also strengthened his own armies at the same time and allowed him to build trust with his own generals.
At the end of the eastern campaign, the Order turned their eyes to the south. Marching through the Whelkia Plateaus to the south east and finally west through the southern hills, Tel’in’s forces fought against the city-state of Utein in the spring of 148 BPD. As the months dragged on, there seemed like nothing would be able to pierce the thick and tall walls of the city, before the famous general Rei’ktop Azorlia told Tel’in that he would be able to open the gates in three days. All he required was the Silver Crown and fifty feet of rope. Trusting in his general, Tel’in gave to him the Silver Crown and the fifty feet of rope. The army waited three days and three nights and on the fourth morning, when Tel’in’s generals were about to suggest that Rei’ktop had stolen away with the Silver Crown, the gates of the city opened. In rushed the Order’s forces and in the aftermath, Rei’ktop returned the crown. How he managed to open the gates is unknown.
The Tel’in and his armies marched onwards, they collected more and more relics until finally conquering the region by the end of the winter of 148 BPD. The next target was the western Ghrovian Delta and the north central Yur’den. Having to contend with raiders and a coalition of kingdoms that had heard of the conquests of the Order, called the Urathian League, Tel’in decided to stop his march at the old city of Yol Trei and renamed it Yoltren. There, he and Rel’kithal appointed governors of the large swaths of land they had conquered and distributed the treasury of relics they had acquired. The entire process took three years and by the fall of 145 BPD the army was the march again. Having to cross the Yur’den was the biggest hurdle, as the large forces of the Order were stopped at every turn by League forces as well as the nation state of Vel’oran. It was a long fight and many armies and generals were lost in the Yur’den campaign, now referred to as “The March of Blood”. By the end of the Yur’den conquest in 143 BPD, Tel’in decided to split the massive Order army into two forces, one to march to the northern Khroten Mountains and Arastkelia Highlands and beat back the Tekian and Alvrenaian forces, and the other to fight against the Urathian League in the western Yurtal Forests and the Ghrovian Delta. Meanwhile, Rel’kithal formed his own personal force (the predecessors of the Silver Arm) which invaded the trade cities of the Kroth Peninsula. Over the next four years war waged on these three separate fronts, with Tel’in defeating the Urathian League to the west, Rel’kithal and his Swords of Bekorn conquering the trade cities to the south, and the rest of the Order’s forces driving back Tekian and Alvrenaian forces to the north as well as the various nomad warrior-tribes. By 139 BPD, the entirety of Mordan had been conquered by the Order.
Tel’in quickly instated himself and his line as the Royal Family of Mordan and appointed Rel’kithal as Supreme High Bishop of the Church. Over the next forty years, Rel’kithal would spread the religion of the late Order around Mordan, trying to stamp out the last traces of the Old Faith. It was during this time that he realized that the vast amount of relics hadn’t been seized by the end of the War of Conquest and some were still in the hands of both heretics and revolutionaries. Aiming to stamp this out, he went to Tel’in for help. Tel’in agreed. As his first act, he declared that all relics, both heretical and not, must be turned into the new church for redistribution. He then created twelve new “holy houses” noble families that would be approved to hold relics of Il’dren. He finally then formed an army to forcefully take any relics that were being hidden. This began the thirteen yearlong Inquisition War which lasted from 138 to 125 BPD, after which these relics were classified and either redistributed or stored in church storage.
Over the next forty years, the Yoken restructured and centralized the nation through a combination of magical relic deprivation and oaths, forcing many houses to obey the new Royal Family. The next major crisis to the kingdom came from the north, as tensions began to mount between Alvrena and Mordan in 78 BPD. A trade disagreement led to entire trade block off between the two nations, cutting off a major source of both income and metals from the north. Previously mining towns were transformed quickly into large fortresses to suppress the surges of Alvrenian forces, their complexes created to protect the metals of Mordan. It was said that the real reason behind the invasion was because Alvrena still held grudges against the Mordanian people for forcing them out of their territory almost eighty years ago during the War of Conquest. The Alvrena-Mordan War lasted three long years as the legions of Mordan struggled to push back the advancing Alvrenian hordes. In the third year of the war, after losing many armies and commanders, the Supreme High Bishop of the Church at the time, Relkia Orent, signed what would soon be called the Orent Declaration, authorizing the use of divine relics as well as the formation of a royal contingent of forces (dubbed the Silver Legion) operating under the authority of the Commander of Arms and Supreme General, Alent Yoken of the Royal Family. With special authorization from the church, Alent was given one of the god relics of the Royal Family: the Blade of Yur Korak, Rendathal.  Within a year, the war had ended.
With the end of the Alvrena-Mordan War, a coupe occurred within the Royal Family as Alent Yoken overthrew his father, the aging Brentha Yoken and became King of Mordan. Fearing a regression to the times before the kingdom, the church stepped in by revoking Rendathal through use of the Inquisition Army, at the same time purging the other holy houses of the relics they were given during the Alvrena-Mordan War. With the throne in Alent’s hands, he began by strengthening the northern border. It was also around this time that Mordan began establish stronger trade relations with the southern nation of Yhetei. By 54 BPD, the throne had fallen to Alent’s son, the king Voler Yoken. Voler, and the kings that succeeded him until King Chalist Yoken in 7 BPD, were famous for the Time of Strife, a period of immense taxation and repression within the kingdom. It was during this period that the wealthy thrived, the poor suffered even more than before, and the church benefited by spreading its doctrine to otherwise unreached parts of the kingdom through mass inquisitions and cleansings of smaller towns and villages that were suspected of possessing relics, both heretical and not. After two rulers, the cousin of the previous ruler of Grarad Yoken overthrew the current ruler of Irithal Yoken, thus restoring the previous taxation laws and restoring order. However, the old scars of the Time of Strife still remain, inciting other lords to rebellion against the Silver Crown and the Royal Family.

Magic

Before the War of Conquest and the Inquisition War, magic and the knowledge of how to imbue items with magical properties was common place. The Old Gods would sometimes descend to the mortal world and show themselves to humans and the Forgotten Gods would show themselves to the truly devoted. Many powerful and legendary relics were created. This time would become known as the Age of Legend. All this knowledge became lost, however, in the years following the rise of the Kingdom of Mordan. As the church grew in power, the knowledge of magismithing became more and more restricted to church-sanctioned priests. All Old God class relics became restricted under lock and key by the clergy as well as the knowledge required to create more of them. Over time, even the knowledge to make new items became shrouded in mysticism and religious doctrine, causing the skills to be lost all together. Now, only the highest priests of the clergy know the true secrets of how to create new items, and even then they do not understand them completely. The majority, if not all magic relics are controlled by the church and those suspected of possessing “heretical items” are either killed or tortured to determine the whereabouts of more items.
The process for creating magical artifacts first requires the blessing of the certain god that will be applying their boon onto the object. This is usually accomplished via either prayer or lifelong dedication to that particular god. Usually a god will give their blessing to a particular church. Once this boon or blessing is given to the magismith, it is then required that they imbue said item with power. This is commonly accomplished via a ritual. Present day priests believe that the Old Gods used blood rituals and other foul means to conduct their blessings but this is not true. Once the item is imbued with power, priest must then decide the strength of the blessing. This is usually decided through the priest’s connection with said deity or in the case of present day priests, their rank as a member of the clergy. Once the strength and source of the blessing is imbued onto the item, it then must be linked to the specific person. For this reason, items are usually associated with their owners and magismiths must attune a new person for the item every time it passes down into new hands. This can only be done with magismiths associated with that specific god and of the same rank or higher of the priest that attuned the relic last. For this reason, in the Age of Legend most houses had a court magismith that would attune their items for their successor should they pass away. Once the item has been linked, it must then be activated by it’s owner, usually by a key phrase, mental image, motion, or other activation means. The activation means is determined by the original owner at the moment of attunement.