Kaledoria wrote:App:
Faction Name: Duchy of Belya
Territory: The Lands west of Luxtoria
Race by percentage:
Half Orcs 25%
Goblins 23%
Orcs 16%
Humans 14.5%
Wood-Elves 8%
(Mountain) Dwarfs 4.5%
Holberker 3.5% (An Elf/Orc/Human mix race)
Halflings 3%
Half Elves 2.7%
Dracones 1.5%
Others <1%
Nobility is Half Orcs, Orcs and Humans only.
Population: 110.000
Society Description: Feudal, decentralized Duchy, with old tribal rights still well rooted in the minds of the people
Military Description: Free Knights mostly organized into small Orders and mostly in permanent employment of their respective Noble leaders, freemen militias, armed serfs.
The Belyan armoury: The main weapon that every knight, every militiaman and every serf who might at some point be drawn into the levy forces is trained with it the throwing spear in one of its many forms.
Darts: Short Javelins with fletchings at the end and a heavy, often barbed tip, possibly with a weight below the tip.
Common Javelin: A Javelin of up to 1.50 meters, with a leaf-shaped head.
- Hunting heads: Wider, heavier bladed heads are used in hunting. On the battlefield they may find use against unarmored horses. In ship-to-ship combat they are sometimes thrown into the enemy's rigging, if no (rare) rope-cutter Javelins are at hand.
Gaison: A spear (throwing or not) with a long, thin metal head ending in a very thin bladed head or simple a thrusting tip is called by the Old Belyan name. It has great armor piercing capabilities.
- Angorn: If the head of a Gaison ends in two or more barbs, it's called a Gaison.
- Shine-bold: some Gaisons have small hooks and rings along the metal part to strap combustive rags to it. It is then used as an incendiary weapon. Due to the low velocity of javelins compared to arrows, this is in fact quite easy.
All-Iron Spear: The warriors of the land before the Myrtia and Macklin kingdoms had one very specific weapon. Due to findings on old battle-sites and paintings of the time, sages have, just a century ago, reconstructed the knowledge of the All-Iron. Over the following decades, the All-Iron Spear has made it's way into the modern Knight-Culture, too. As the name suggests, its a throwing spear made entirely of iron. It's rather thin (not useful for melee) and ends in a thin, sometimes slightly barbed tip. Young noblemen are often gifted one All-Iron when becoming knights, that they will henceforth regard as their personal weapon. This is rather odd for a thrown weapon and has created the myth along foreign soldiers, that if a group of Belyan knights throws only regular Javelin at you, it's probably a feint attack, but if they throw their All-Irons, prepare yourself for them to they charge next, to retrieve them.
Polearms: The only pole-arms of widespread use are single handed spears, as the use of a shield is so common. Cheap spears use small leaf shaped heads, mostly used only by the worst-equipped levies. The common spearhead is a long, thin blade with two small wings at the base. The wings both serve as a way to prevent a penetrated opponent from drag himself up the shaft and with his last action strike at the wielder of the spear, as well as hooks to catch an opponent's armor or -more likely- shield.
The few two-handed pole-arms present focus rather on length then force. Badiches and pole axes are nearly unheared of but there are some pikes and a few spetums, ranseurs and bill-hooks.
Swords: Swords are not as much a symbol of knighthood in Belya then in other Duchies, therefor it's ownership is not pursued with the same determination. Many soldiers prefer to go with a cheaper weapon and use the money for a decent armor. Since the effectiveness of a good cutting weapon can not be denied, however, those that can effort it usually have one at their side. The main categories are:
Saber: A light single edged curved blade, the Saber is often associated with the Elves in the south of the Duchy.
Straight sword: A double-edged sword, often considered "Luxtorian" mostly for historic reasons and iconicaly associated with the humans.
Falchion: A single edged blade, still mostly straight and more heavy to wards the tip, allowing stronger hacking then a saber or straight sword.
Smashing weapons:
Axe: Maybe the most common weapon after the javelin. Axes come in many different forms, some with a spike on top, some with a spike on the opposite side of the blade. Likewise the blade may be curved or straight, sometimes with a long beard, sometimes rather short
Mace: A modern version of the primitive club, made all of iron. The head is usually flanged or spiked (the later called a morningstar)
Warpick / Warhammer: A weapon derived from a miners pick is the warpick. it's greatest problem is that it can likely get stuck in the enemy, especially if he is wearing moderate armor. Therefor the weapon is combined with a hammer-head on the other side. The hammer head is likewise equipped with short spikes on the striking surface or along the edge, which serves not to penetrate the opponent but rather to prevent the weapon from bouncing off plate armor.
Flail: A weapon much like a mace but with a chain between the head and the shaft. When swung high overhead, its a rather threatening weapon but it's not very useful in formation or against an experienced opponent, thus it's a rare weapon to see.
Ranged weapon:
Spear-thrower: A long stick that has a top that holds a spear in some way and serves as an extension to the wielder's arm when throwing certain javelins. It's a rather difficult weapon to handle and usually only a few champion use it.
Bow: While Belya is not known for the strongest of warbows, the bow in some form is a very common weapon and they can often field large numbers of archers.
Crossbow: Belyan crossbows usually don't feature a fancy reloading mechanism, but only a very strong composite bow mounted along a rail. A foodhold at the center allows the crossbow allows the weapon to be hold in place with a leg while using both arms to pull back the string, allowing greater draw-weight then a regular bow. Since the string is held in place by a mechanism and not by the shooter's muscle, the precision is better, too. The drawback is the slow rate of shooting. A speed shooter can reload and fire in about 5 seconds but with any precision, one shot every 7 seconds is a very good value.
Magic Type: Holy 5%, Astral 30%, Nature 75%, Enchanting 20%, Dark 50% (Thus, the average magic user knows 1.8 types of magic)
Brief Description of Magic in Society
-The primary magic user is the Druid who starts with and specializes in nature magic. They are a stable pillar of society and a caste by themselves with own jurisdictions and several privileges. Many Druids later add astral or dark magic to their repertoire (and a few enchanting), which does not effect their status.
-Pure astral users are often called Stargazers and belong to the Druid caste, too, but are viewed with more skepticism.
-Pure enchanters are counted along the craftspeople and are often considered weirdos. Enchanters that later add nature magic to their skills are seen as respect-less by the Druids but the freemen like them for being more down-to-earth then the Druids and just as useful. Enchanters who openly dabble in dark magic will soon find themselves branded as witches and warlocks, too. Enchanting/Astral crossover casters are negligible few.
-Pure Holy or Dark casters are known as witches and warlocks and are usually outcasts of society. While the practice of this magic is not by itself prohibited, the people mistrust them. Nevertheless, their skills are very valuable and even though it is not a prestigious think, they are often employed for various magic tasks by all kind of freemen and nobles. (Among other things as mercenaries, since Druids categorically refuse such work, this puts them in a pretty sweet position). Dark/Holy crossovers are not uncommon and Dark users sometimes add another second type of magic (but holy casters never). While the general population does not distinguish Dark and Holy casters, they themselves do.
-Special Traditions:
- - Caster-Nobility: Unknown to many common men, a high degree of the upper nobility is made of able Astral casters. This gives them the best chances to marry into the ducal family, as it is believed to offer the greatest chance to produce Astral caster heirs. Those who do not manage to marry this well often join...
- - The Lightguards: A secret organization, partially spread out over all of Myrtia, tasked with keeping the rites necessary to banish the unholy light, should it be released (see below).
- - The Inquisition: An order of Dark magic users, whose magic repertoire includes a few very dangerous mental spells, that may never get into the hands of common warlocks, thus those casters have to pledge their life to the service of the Warden. They are few and their task is to find and bring to justice possible horror worshipers and demon pacters who picked the wrong demon to make deals with.
The Threat: The unholy light: An ancient arcane weapon of mass destruction kept in a locked box inside a sealed chest. There are records of two confirmed and one suspected use of this weapon alongside the box in the chest, though only the last use over 800 years ago is well documents. It happened on a far away continent and one side of an all out war opened the box on a hill next to the enemy capital. The whole population of the city perished (as well as the soldiers that had opened the box) but not all really died. About one in thousand turned into an abomination, a twisted mockery of life (or unlife, though the abominations were different from all forms of known necromancy), that seized the light unleashed and turned it against the attacking nation. Only high arcana and only after a long time managed to reseal the light inside the box, at which points both nations were in ruins.
The chest was then send as far away as possible though teleportation magic unknown in Myrtia with documentation of its power, a warning never to use it and an apology.
As if the thread of a madmen stealing the weapon an unleashing it just to see the world burn was not big enough, every now and then, the light attracts the attention from a thing from the great beyond - beings worse even then demons and highly magical. They are drawn to the light (and the threat that one of those might just dig it out through magic means has discouraged and ideas to just bury the damn thing).
The Lightguards are a backup secret Order, in case the worst happens and the light is released. Estimations are, that they could probably stop the light from destroying the entire kingdom but the documentation that came with the chest was based on a fundamentally different magical theory so there is still a very large margin of error in that estimation.
Faction History: In the time of the Macklin Kingdom, the old Belya, which is the western parts of today's Duchy was known as a very pleasant, agricultural community that had some wealth in their livestock and grains. The eastern parts were just known as the rough woods, populated with hardly controllable tribes-people. However, as time passed the Kingdom managed to peacefully integrate the tribes through trade. Even though they had numerous privileges like tax exemption, this was of great benefit to the Kingdom, as it pacified them.
In the war against, Krafneg, the western towns and cottages were quickly overran by an attack through a northern route. The people however managed to take most of the spoils of war from the attackers by throwing all stuff they could carry onto their cattle in time and fleeing into the woods. Attempts by the Krafnegs to invade the forest proved more costly then they were willing to pay. When the war was ended by Myrtian victory the two people had melted into one. However, the villagers had already been repopulated by the Krafneg invaders. A time of turmoil began, as Macklin villagers tried to press their former rights but documentation was sparse and unreliable and the Myrtian overlords decided to stay mostly out of those conflicts.
Out of the turmoil, a new, strong Duchy emerged that had taken the best parts from their various roots: The social structure of the tribes-people, the political organization / feudal order of the Macklin old Belya and the military organization of the Krafneg settlers.
With the thread of civil unrest defeated, the King pushed Belya's warden to honorably resign and distributed the region to the neighboring factions, even though the vast differences in culture and language created new unrest there. It was not until 45 years later, that a new thread emerged and the resigned Warden's grandson went to the King to request the honor to Ward this thread if Belya was reestablished, a request that was granted.
Additional Information: (Concept Art or random stuff)
Peerage:
One Warden Duke
-> 2 Marquess
-> 7 Earls (2 of whom are vassals to their Marquesses, 5 directly to the Duke)
-> 4 Viscounts
-> 25 Barons
-> Round about 200 chiefs (the number changes every few years)
On death or abdication of the Duke, all nobles rank Viscount, Earl and Marquess come together to elect a successor. Usually this is an astral mage and able warrior from the Duke's dynasty (Preferring sons, then grandsons, brothers, nephews, cousins ...). It is an open debate, whether a woman could be duchess and most nobles find that woman should not be electable, though there have been a number of women that became a countesses and baronesses in lack of a suitable male heir to those titles.
The election is then brought before the King to confirm or veto (and the last few times, they had always found a successor, that the King was willing to confirm, in their first election)
Religion: Holy magic is rare because most Belyan gods do not grand such kind of blessings. They aid their followers rarely but when they do, it is usually much more awe-inspiring and personal. This has brought churches of other realms to classifying the Belyan gods rater as very powerful Demons then Gods (not totally unjustified although it should be mentioned that those demons are not all entirely evil.
Natural and unnatural creatures of Belya:
The Shee: A kin of creatures in many ways similar to the Yokai of the neighboring Ionia but with own cultural identities (not that most people care about the subtle cultural differences between malicious spirits). A clear physical description is not possible as different types of Shee vary widely, even if they are related and because they often have powers of shape-changing, illusion or both.
The most well know Shee is the Bean She, a spirit kind of resembling a female Human or Elf (or sometimes another humanoid (Yes, there have been sightings of at least one Bean Shee kind of looking like an old Goblin Lady)). They are gifted with the power of prophecy and wail for those that will soon be dying. There have been instances where the destined to die people took their wailing as a warning and managed to avoid their deaths, so their are not always right.
Other common Shee are the Cu Shee and the Cath Shee, also known as Faery Hounds and Faery Cats in the common Myrtian language. While this beings are much more intelligent then the animals they resemble, they still not speak. They sometimes act as familiars to powerful Warlocks, though even among the dark mages, many tent to avoid them, fearing that they mean bad luck on the long run.
Great Spiders: A spider the size of a cat, rather fearsome looking to most outsiders but kept around by the people of Belya: It's (very little) excrements are not known to carry and disease dangerous to people (and since it's extremely dry it can just be swept out of the door with a broom). It hunt down small vermin but hardly ever attacks people and even then, there were never any fatal attacks. For that reason, their poison is also highly priced by the Druids: It makes a poor weapon poison but is useful for a physician if properly treated. If applied to the skin, it makes the area go numb. If injected into the blood it can paralyze limbs or cause an unconsciousness but will not kill (Contrary to popular believe, a reliable anesthetic is difficult to find). The only fatal cases with this poison were two cases where people ingested large amounts of the poison, went unconscious and vomited, then suffocated on their vomit.
Tazelworms: A creature looking like a snake with very thick scales and more of a Lizard-like head. They come in various sizes of up to one meter and are rather dangerous. They usually live subterranean (otherwise in very thick undergrowths) and do to acid bile can even (slowly) burrow through solid rock. It can spit it's bile to blind prey or attacks with it's sharp fangs or chokes the prey with its whole body. It rarely attacks grown men but has taken sheep and pigs more then a few times.
The Lindworm: One of the original 62 threads of Lysander was the Lindworm, believed to be a unique Tatzelworm of approximately 25 meters length. However it had shown to be a (very!) intelligent beast, that it well able of speech and living in harmony with creatures it can not hope to dominate, like the combined force of the culture-creating races of Myrtia. This has made some sages classify the Lindworm as a wingless, limbless Dragon rather then a huge worm. At times the Lindworm even agreed to dig a tunnel for the people of Belya, if the really need to get through a mountain instead of over it. This for of plesant harmony and cooperation has made the king retract this position of Warden and assign the land to the Duke of Belya.
Different stories about the Lindworms size over the centuries however suggest to some scholars, that today's Lindworm is in fact the granddaughter of the Lindworm at the times of Lysander. In one story of a group of knights threatening the Lindworm with death, it is said to have replied, that "this would do nothing, as one of her lesser daughters would take her place. Whether this refers to Lindworm-babies living somewhere underground away from the sight of men, of whether the Lindworm is actually connected to the much lesser, non-intelligent Tatzelworms is unknown.
Wargs: A large, cunning breed of wolves, with a special empathy for Goblins. Wargs either live in small families, join packs of Wolves (and often become their Alpha) or seek the company of Goblins.
Theme Song: Listen closely!
Warden App
Appearance: (Picture Please) For now, this one will do:3 years younger and armed differently...(Image)
Gender: Male
Name: Conan
Coat of Arms or emblem:(Image)
Race: Half-Orc
Age: 18
Alignment: Neutral Good
Height and Weight 1.80m, 91kg
Brief Bio: Born as the princess' son, Conan showed a great magical talent already at the age of 8 years. His parents thus taught him in the ways of Astral magic, and as Conan's grandfather started speaking about getting to old to be an able warden, they started introducing young Conan to the court. The fact, that he was of excellent physical shape helped but even more helpful was the fact, that he had his grandfathers support as successor. During a long illness 4 years ago, the Duke then decided it was time to abdicate.
Conan was a controversial choice along the Belyan high nobility: For once, he was just 14 years of age, though he looked older. And while their had been precedence cases of Dukes taking the throne at this age, this time it was for an heir who was not even of the Duke's dynasty, related to him only through his daughter, all that while there were a second degree cousin and a second degree nephew both of the rank of count, that had some knowledge in Astral magic, too and would have been two solid alternatives to elect.
But Conan proved his critics wrong. With the help of his parents and his grandfather (who never fully recovered but the Druids were able to battle the illness well enough for the old noble to live another 16 month), he navigated the nation well through the two years until his official adulthood.
Fighting Style: Like a noble of his land: Shield and Javelin to engage the enemy, preferably on horseback. Then melee either mounted with a spear or on food with his Falchion.
Weapon of choice: Round-shield and Falchion
Magic type: Strong but not very refined yet. Strong in Astral, some base knowledge in Dark and Natural.
Personality: Friendly, outgoing, optimistic. Rather passionate and sometimes bordering hedonist.
Additional Info: (Sex pref, Quirks) Betrothed to Aydeen of Siegstone, who like him is a child of high magical talent and noble birth. But she has just turned 14 so he has another 2 years until marriage. He does not really know her but from the few times they have met, she is quite cute and if she comes anything like her mother she will probably become a very pretty woman soon.
Extended my app by some information, too, mostly on weapons and creatures of Belya.
Hm, more details on the religion could be a next thing. Note that the leading statement would be:
Unless otherwise noted, all Belyan deities are deities of healthy offspring, bountiful harvest and glorious victory in battle, in addition to whatever else they associate themselves with. As a northern European, I always wonder, why roleplayers define the deities of their pantheons by the God's respective Domains, even when they are based on gods that are inspired by gods that did not follow such a straitjacket.
I mean: Only the Olympians really did this (And the Romans kind of copied it).
