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--- nordveld [2025/08/14 22:08] – mortalitas
+++ nordveld [2025/10/08 23:00] (current) – mortalitas
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+{{wiki:nordveld_settlement_thumbnail.jpg?0x290|An unknown settlement on Nordveld.}}
+====== Introduction ======
+The continent of Nordveld is a place of magnificent mountains and bitter cold. It is the ancestral home of the [[Kallard|Kallardian]] and [[Blainn]] races, who live together in relatively autonomous //klans// ruled by //Hövdings//, which are part of larger regions called //läns//. Important decisions are made in assemblies called //tings//, where every free man has the right to vote.
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+====== Pre-Sundering History ======
+No records of Nordveld's history prior to [[The Sundering of Asterra]] have been made available at this time.
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+====== Pre-Conflux History ======
+At some point in the ancient past during a cataclysmic event known as //The Sundering of Asterra//, the entire face of [[Nave]] changed drastically. The continents of [[Myrland]], [[Urmothar|Urmothâr]], [[Sidoia]], [[Sarducaa]], and //Nordveld//—once a singular connected continent called [[The Sundering of Asterra|Asterra]]—were torn apart. The land mass split up into the continents as we know them now.
+//Urmothâr//—or as the //Tindremenes// call it, //Lykia//—in the south-east, //Sidoia// in the south-west, //Sarducaa// in the west, and //Nordveld// in the north-west fell apart from //Myrland//, as the tectonic plates of the southern hemisphere sunk several hundred meters into the ocean. This left a huge landmass fault and an enormous waterfall, hundreds of meters steep, between the //Inner Sea// in the north and the //Coral Sea// in the south, called //[[Gods#Tecton|Tecton's]] Fault//.
+The former land bridge between //Myrland// and //Nordveld// became an island, and [[Sarducaa#The Sundered Continent|two enormous bridges]] were constructed to link //Myrland//, //Sarducaa//, and //Nordveld// together once again. In the ages before [[The Conflux]], the [[Kallard|Kallards]] of Nordveld and [[Tindremene|Tindremenes]] of //Myrland// waged whole wars atop of //Tecton’s Fault// for control over the island itself and its strategically important bridges.
+{{wiki:tecton_s_fault_post_conflux.png?0x300|A sketch of Tecton's Fault and the surrounding continents after The Conflux.}}
+These wars were so impactful to the //Kallards// that //Nordveld's// many warmongering //klans// consolidated under one chieftain to fight off the [[Tindremic Empire|Tindremic Empire's]] forces.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== The Nordveld Campaign =====
+Eventually the //Tindremic// generals led their armies to a great success over the Kallard forces, leaving the heavily defended town of [[Meduli]] behind and setting up a bridgehead on the eastern coast of Nordveld. After conquering the town of [[Varborg]] in the west, the //Tindremenes// controlled the greatest parts of the south of //Nordveld// and started to assimilate the //"savages"// into their Empire.
+They subdued those who actively resisted and tried to enlighten the others by using the full force of the //Tindremic// political machine.
+The main target for the //Tindremic// forces was [[Branth]], the capital of the Kallards in the far north-east of the continent. However, to access //Branth// they had to either cross the //Fensalir Mire//, or attack the well-defended mountain stronghold of [[Rimfrost]].
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== Fensalir Mire =====
+To the frustration of the //Tindremic// generals, the consuls of the //Tricapita// back in [[Tindrem]] completely underestimated the difficulties of crossing what they saw as "a small puddle", and the army lost vast numbers to the mire's unfamiliar terrain and dangerous inhabitants, human and creature alike.
+The //Tindremenes//, though greater in number, faced an enemy who was not only familiar with the land and its dangers, but also used to the rough climate. When the consuls finally realized that the situation in the //Fensalir Mire// was hopeless, they had the army pull out of the wetlands.
+The political bickering surrounding the invasion continued, with many consuls eager to be part of a successful conquest of the //Kallard// capital. Winter was coming and //Rimfrost's Gorge//, the only pass wide enough for an army to cross, would have been snowed in for the next few months. Against the generals' advice to properly regroup and wait for spring, the consuls ordered an even riskier advancement; a full frontal attack on //Rimfrost//.
+The consuls where somewhat aware of its massive defenses built by the [[Blainn]], and predicted they would need the help of the [[Huergar|Húergar]] to overcome them. Knowing that this could be a sensitive matter to the //Húergar// council as they are cousins to the //Blainn// race, the //Tricapita// never revealed its true intentions to them. Instead they requested a small party of //Húergar// "emissaries", among them carefully selected architects, to help in //"negotiating"// with //Rimfrost//.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== Attack on Rimfrost =====
+{{wiki:rimfrost_thumbnail.jpg?0x300|Rimfrost as it was prior to The Conflux.}}
+The stronghold of //Rimfrost// was built centuries ago by //Blainn// craftsmen and engineers, and is set inside and above //Rimfrost's Gorge//. Its defenses are excellent and the strategic position over the pass make it virtually impossible to besiege it. The entrance to the pass is closed off by a massive defensive structure made of what looks like a single piece of polished //gabore//.
+The //Tindremenes// felt confident in their campaign since the //Húergar// architects had served them well before, for example in the construction of Tindrem, and their prowess in masonry was second to none. However when the //Húergar// architects arrived and realized that they were supposed to take part in fighting the //Blainn// they immediately refused.
+The planned efforts to persuade the individual //Húergar// by promising them the spoils of //Rimfrost// or huge sums of gold merely insulted them, and without further ado they all turned on their heels and marched back to Myrland.
+Both sides felt betrayed by the other. The //Húergar// were infuriated by being asked to fight their own, and on top of that destroy a grand work of masonry and engineering. The consuls however couldn't understand the principled squeamishness displayed by their old ally, and felt that this betrayal had cost them their victory.
+It was thus that the alliance between the two peoples that had lasted for centuries was fractured.
+As winter came the //Tindremenes// were forced to retreat to //Varborg//—not a single man had been killed in battle at the siege of //Rimfrost// and not one //Blainn// or //Kallard// had been captured during the expedition. As no blood was spilled, this is still considered the most shameful campaign in Tindremic history.
+The consuls in //Tindrem// had nothing but snide remarks and incomprehension for their generals' lack of military skill. While the army set up winter quarters outside //Varborg//, the generals were brought back to //Tindrem// to fight a variety of //Nordveld// beasts and, in the end, each other to at least amuse the //Emperor// until the army could make a new attempt on //Branth//.
+Then //The Conflux// happened.
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+====== Pre-Irruption History ======
+As the cultures of //Nave// recovered from the throes of //The Conflux//, an uneasy truce was forged between //Nordveld's// many //klans// and the //Tindremic Empire//. This truce would remain in effect even through the //Tindremic Empire's// slow decline in the years to come, and only unraveled when [[The Irruption]] once more threw //Nave// into turmoil.
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+====== Recent History & Scars of The Irruption ======
+The hordes of //The Irruption// never reached the northern parts of //Nordveld//. It is believed the icy winds stopped the flying //Fleshbiters//, and that the prolonged exposure to cold weakened the larger insectoids, preventing them from venturing into the mountainous regions.
+Many of the //Varborgians// had time to flee up north and eventually reached //Branth//, which remained completely unscathed during the invasion. Other regions in the south weren’t as fortunate for they were farther away, or had to circle around the great //Fensalir Mire//, meaning they met with the same fate as //Myrland//.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== The Missing Fleet =====
+Three official expeditions from //Nordveld// have reached the shores of //Myrland// in the last two decades. The first was a failed attack on //Meduli// where the currents of the //Inner Sea// seem to have been underestimated, leading to most of the fleet disappearing down the //Fault of Tecton//, never to be heard of again.
+A few late coming ships managed to go on shore around Meduli and the haggard crew immediately surrendered in favor of a few years worth of penal servitude, as long as food was included. It so turned out that the ravening gang was the sole surviving population of a small coastal village east of //Fensalir Mire//, which had simply abandoned their territory and set sail for a better future. The population has survived to this day with most working in the fishing trade; some as new citizens of the //Tindremic Empire//, others still considering themselves //Kallards//.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== The Branthian Sack of Tindrem's Harbor =====
+The second expedition was a carefully planned attack on //Tindrem's// harbor in //29 AD// by a fleet from //Branth// led by //Ingunna the Drummer, Noaid of [[Gods#Skadi|Skadi]]//. At this time the capital had a burgeoning trade with //Sarducaa// via an expanding port in //Khwar Migdal//, the western end of the now ruined //Bridge of Tecton//.
+When the //Tindremic// ships had anchored, the crew disembarked and the port hands were about to unload the brimming hulls, //Ingunna's// infiltrators set fire to the surrounding harbor. In the ensuing chaos and under cover of night, her fast rowing ships swept in with small crews to man the trade fleet and quickly sail it out to sea, carried by a southern wind people would swear was as unnatural as the profound drumming from the accompanying ships.
+The audacious move took the //Tindremenes// by complete surprise, and if it hadn’t been for the strange wind blowing the flames towards the sea, the fires would have surely spelled disaster for several districts. Evil rumors circulated that //Emperor Isaios Avitus// would not be disturbed during all this bedlam as he was preoccupied with enjoying a particularly well-composed suite on //lyre// and //hornucopian dronepipe//.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== The Varborgian Delegation =====
+The rumors surrounding //Emperor Isaios Avitus//, coupled with the degradation of having an entire trade fleet including its goods stolen from right under his nose, were probably some of the reasons for why the third encounter with a //Kallardian// expedition unfolded the way it did. For the first time in 400 years an official delegation from //Varborg// arrived in //Tindrem// in //32 AD// to seek an audience with the //Tricapita//.
+The delegation was led by none other than //Bárd Laglegur//, the current //Länshövding of Varborg//, who claimed direct descendence from the famous //Tindremic// general //Cassian Andel Bellus//, the original conqueror of the city. The //Varborgian// ruler sought a treaty with the old //Empire//, possibly even a reunion, and had brought valuable gifts and a boatload of famous //Varborgian Ale//.
+//Emperor Isaios Avitus// dismissed the tribute with the now famous dictum //"Wine smells like nectar, beer smells like goat"//, and went on to accuse //Bárd// for the //Branthian// attack, demanding //Ingunna's// head on a plate before any negotiations would take place.
+Efforts were made to explain the somewhat complex governmental system of //Nordveld// with //Läns//, //Tings//, and //Hövdings//, and the fact that there’s no sovereign ruler—meaning //Bárd// had nothing to do with the attack and held no power over neither Branth nor Ingunna. //"I am not king. The people is king."// said //Bárd// finally in broken //Tindremic//, but //Emperor Isaios Avitus// would hear nothing of it.
+He replied that if //Bárd// was not the king he was just an entertainer, a mere jester at the imperial court, and it seems a deeply affronted //Bárd// and delegation barely managed to hastily set sail back to //Nordveld// before swords were crossed.
+  Kinsman, thy journey to the king ended otherwise than I would have chosen. I urged much thy coming hither;
+  now, I entreat thee, go home with all speed, and come not in the way of king Isaios, unless there be better
+  agreement between you than now seems likely, and keep thee well from the king and from his men.
+  Ölvir Högg, “Bárd Laglegur’s Saga”, Chapter 25
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+===== An Uneasy Peace =====
+For the past few years this is where the political situation has been left hanging, as there has been no official talks since. Trade is continuing as usual albeit with a high tax on //Nordveldian// commerce in //Tindrem//, which coupled with the [[Tindrem#The Diádima Outbreak|Diádima outbreak]] have led to an increasing amount of traffic to //Meduli//.
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