A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTIQUATED LANDS

The Iron Heart War

From -2000 R A To -1106 R A
This account of our people begins with the story of the Three Kingdoms. Each Kingdom of this period has its own history, and the oldest, Kempt, was built upon the back of an even older empire. 2000 years ago three Kingdoms, Kempt, Tor, and Galnoroch, each held land the 15,000 square mile area now called Gilderoy. They fought minor wars between vassals and petty feuds, but had few major conflicts. Halikion IV, King of Galnoroch discovered the Iron Heart at Hymnsmount1 in 1 Hy mnsmount was, and is today, the library -fortress the Hjanaskiir call home. It is a lone mountain peak jutting sharpy from the ce nter of the Bay of Tears. It is also the focus of a

1193RA. According to the Hjanaskiir2, the Iron Heart was used to forge the bodies and souls of mankind. The Iron Heart also had utilitarian use; it could be used to transmute lead to gold, iron to mithril, and steel to adamantine. Halikion IVs army attacked and captured Hymnsmount and made it the capital of Galnoroch3.
great deal of religious attention, and pilgrims are ferried across the bay daily to the mountain. 2 The Dwarven clan native to Hy mnsmount. 3 Anyone who has made the pilgrimage to Hy mnsmount has seen the Galnoroch ruins left over from their occupation to Hy mnsmount. Though they held the mountain for less than a century, the wealth afforded them by the Iron

Hjanaskiir refugees fled south, led by Hengar Oln. They arrived in Kempt and told King Angsa the Calm about the Iron Heart. Angsa gave Maasin, his second son, command of an army. Maasin planned to attack by marching his army through the Pass of Gnashing Teeth4. Halikion IV was prepared for this, though, and had bribed the orc tribes of the Pass to attack the Kemption Army. Caught off guard by the normally disorganized orcs, the Kemption Army was unprepared for an attack. When the Galnoroch defense forces arrived in the Pass of Gnashing Teeth, most the work was already done. It is unclear how many Kemption men died in the Pass of Gnashing Teeth, but one-hundred captives were marched back to the Galnoroch city of Kassis. The orcs in the Pass tortured and mangled many Kemptians before giving them to Galnoroch as prisoners of war. One of these captives was Angsa the Calms son, Maasin the Castrated, who gained his moniker after being captured alive in the Pass of Gnashing Teeth. Galnoroch traded their prisoners to Kempt in exchange for foreign dignitaries that had been in Kempt when hostilities broke out. Maasin returned to his own country in the winter of -1181 RA , and forging an alliance with Tor immediately. In -1105 RA , almost ninety years after Halikion IV discovered the Iron Heart, Maasin the Castrated (now over one-hundred and twenty years old) led a force to attack Galnoroch. His army constituted 1100 Torian footsoldiers, 300 longspearmen and dragoons from Kempt, 300 orcish mercenaries from the Pass of Gnashing Teeth, and 70 Hjanaskiir dwarf warriors led by Hengar Oln. In the spring they razed Kassis, and in the following summer marched from the ruins of Kassis towards Hymnsmount.
Heart made it possible for them to build impressiv e structures. The Amphitheatre built during this time is still used to conduct religious rites. 4 The Pass of Gnashing Teeth is a wide valley that makes a natural gate through the Black Range. At least thirty identifiable and unique orc clans ex ist in the relatively small valley.

The battle at Hymnsmount was a bloody, profane thing. Ships burned in the bay, blood flowed through the streets, walls crumbled. All the gold of Galnoroch could not save them from the hatred and avarice of Tor and Kempt. When the two people saw the armories and treasury of Hymnsmount, they set upon each other in a deep madness to take the Iron Heart. It was then that Hengar Oln became 5, King of Hjanaskiir. He ordered his dwarven warriors to destroy the Iron Heart.

Maasin the Castrated Maasin was 31-years old when he was tortured and castrated by the orcs in the Pass of Gnashing Teeth. He was not in line of inheritance to the throne, had he had fathered a son and two daughters. The regeneration spell was available, but Kempt has a long tradition of placing willing eunuchs in service to the state. They believe that eunochs are can more easily train and develop magical powers; Maasin was feared and respected as a eunuch.

5 Roughly translated from dwarven as He who does with courage last that should have been done with wisdom first.

The Dead Mans War & Pale Inquisition

From -1104 R A To -900 R A
After the battle of Hymnsmount, the Hjanaskiir reclaimed their ancestral home. The armies of Tor and Kempt carried away their portion of the treasury in Hymnsmount and began dividing the conquered lands among themselves. Tor and Kempt divided the lands among themselves. The once proud Galnorochi were now vassals to foreign invaders. The Galnoroch King Halikion V was moved to the Kemption capital, Anad-Apur, and executed on the third day of spring, in the year -1103RA. Before he died, he wrote a letter to his people, and had it smuggled from his prison by agents working on his behalf. In -1101 RA the letter came to Yanasara, an area now known as Lushpool. The letter was received by Oladir. Oladir was the third and only surviving son of a nobleman who owned large tracts of land south of Hymnsmount that had been seized by Torian authority. He was trained for war and fought against the Torian and Kemption at Kassis. He was respected, and after the war was a bandit who preyed on Kemption caravans, and gave loot to Galnorochi poor. With the letter from King Halikion V, Oladir was invested with authority by his King to wage war on Kempt and Tor. Oladir roamed the countryside, spreading the seed of rebellion, and organizing attacks. In 1097 RA , the Dead Mans War began in earnest. Tor had not recovered financially from the War of the Iron Heart, but they expanded their army and began a long skirmish against Oladirs new army. They grew more and more in dept to their soldiers, who more and more began to doubt their allegiance. Had Tor been strong, and their people content, the Galnoroch insurrection would have lasted less than a year. In -1098 RA , a plague descended upon Kempt. Thousands of people died, including the Kemption king, and the capital of Anad-Apur burned to a husk.6 The surrounding warlords began to squabble about line of progression, and the nation of Kempt fractured. To this day, Kempt is a country of many different people and many different rulers. It is a land of petty warlords fighting tribal wars to regain control over a throne long lost. Oladirs grand-daughter, Inrary, took the reign after her fathers death. She was a brilliant leader, and incredibly beautiful. She lead the Galnoroch rebels for eleven years, and reclaimed many of her peoples former lands, but she refused to declare vassals or give patronage to land-owners. She was authoritative, and became increasingly disliked by her people. She became horribly vane, and in -978RA she ordered that every infant in her lands be slaughtered and bled dry, the blood brought to her castle at Crimson Woods. Her people flatly refused her orders, and she was taken prisoners by her own guards, held prisoner for years, and executed by poison in -974RA .7
Traders who come from modern Kempt speak of the ruins of Anad-Apur with hushed, reverent tones, and tell stories about the skeleton of the city, great spires encrusted in black rot jutting to the sky , streets covered in soot, and strange creatures wandering the surrounding area. 7 Inrary s Keep in the Crimson Woods is the subject of many folk-tales in and around Lushpool. I am particularly fond of the one about standing in the dark and saying Bloody Inrary 3 times in a row; supposedly it summons her, and she eats your face.
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Following Inrarys death, many of the Galnoroch leaders in position to take leadership of the Galnoroch people and continue the Dead Mans War were assassinated. The nation of Tor was blamed, but they did not act alone. Without leadership, the Torian diplomats convinced the remaining Galnoroch to accept peace, and the War came to an official end in -970 RA. The rash of assassinations did not end, however. In -966 RA, the cause was discovered; Vampires, spawn of the vengeful Inrarys, had spread across the land of Galnoroch and Tor. A group of selfproclaimed holy men and monster hunters formed The Pale Inquisition and began aggressively searching for the undead.8 The vampires were deeply seeded in society, however; bakers, courtiers, and nobles filled their ranks. Some vampires, afraid of being discovered, expended vast fortunes constructing hidden vaults, lairs, and castles where they hid or defended themselves. Many desperate people came to willingly work for wealthy vampires, and mercenary armies occupied castles known to serve the schemes of vampire lords. More insidious were the vampires that hid in society, and cast blame on the innocent. The Pale Inquisition killed many innocents, and today are thought of with only remorse. Lands owned by vampires were seized, crops burned. People starved, and the allegiance people had for poor country of Tor, the fractured land of Kempt, and the bleak land of Galnoroch was exhausted. The people of the land began to identify more by clans, by family, by village, and by tribe. By 900RA , the Three Kingdoms had fallen into tribalism.