Minaria: Muetar

 

Muetar is the largest kingdom of Minaria in land area and possessed of the largest army. Its rulers are the descendants of the Mueta horse lords who first harried the city-states of the Land of the Great Rivers, then were its foederates, until a chieftain general Oyaro (Old Meuta: Hoyaru), forced the Princes of Methluma to give him the title of Supreme General or Warlord. The word, as borrowed into the Muetarian tongue, eventually came to mean "emperor." Oyaro's line came to be the de facto rulers of the land in a military dictatorship that developed over generations into the current feudal state.

The Empire's current ruler is Herrott (Kheroth) of the Pirostar (Phiroshtar) Dynasty. sometimes called "Golden Helm" for brightly polished helmet he wears in battle. Herrott was the second son and given command of the elite guard of the Emperor, but ascended to the throne upon the death of his older brother in a riding accident. While his father's rule was occupied with internal struggles, Herrott turns his eyes toward expanding the empire, but he is cautious and not prone to rash action. He is an avid falconer as well as rider and pampers his prize animals.

Atata, his Empress, is descended form the old Oyarostar line. She has little taste for court gossip or petty intrigues and is judged as aloof and perhaps even severe by her ladies in waiting. Like all Muetarian elite she takes part in the rituals of the martial cult of Anshar (who has absorbed much of the folio and importance of the supreme god Taquamenau in the Muetarian ascendance), but supports a policy of religious tolerance in the Empire. She is an advocate for the poor and is said to use her influence to protect the more moderate clerics of Huisinga--this despite the peasant uprising blamed on radical members of the Sankari sect during the reign of Herrott's father, Maasa. 

Atata is also a patron of the arts and has even brought Ponian theater to the court of Muetar.

Minaria: Immer

Immer is a hinterland compared to the grander, more civilized nations to the south like Mivior and Muetar. However humble its settlements, simple its castles, or rustic its lords, it still serves an important strategic purpose both as a buffer against the elves and goblins and as a rich source of natural resources.

The kingdom of Immer has its origins in the Vidvarnii adventurers who traveled north from Lake Lorimer to hunt and trap and trade with natives of the wilderness. They supplied the lands to the south with furs, honey, and beeswax. Eventually a stockade fortress and trading post was established at Muscaster, which would grow into the town as settlers followed the woodsmen north.

The nominal king (or Grand Prince, more accurately) of Immer is Euwint I, often called "Euwint of the Marshes" which he fancies as a byname to commemorate his dubious victory over a Muetarian sortie in the Wrogga Lowlands, but his detractors imbue his sobriquet with a different meaning entirely. Euwint is of the line of Hrorvikid warlords who beat back the encroaching Muetarians and subdued the northern tribes, establishing modern Immer. However, his upbringing was entrusted to the wizards of the Invisible School in the modern custom. They fostered him in the household of his more tractable cousin, a border lord of the Lowlands. The lords of the north and west consider him a bit effete, perhaps even soft. 

None would ever make such a claim regarding his wife, Igweena. Though she comports yourself in the required courtly fashion, she is the daughter of the Duke of Monen who holds Gap Castle and defends the land from the approach of the goblins of Zorn through the mountain pass. Igweena, it is known, has been counselling her husband in reinforcing the North, possible in preparation of seizing the land beyond the River Rapid to secure access to the gold found therein. 

It is also whispered that Igweena, like the peasantry of her mountain home, still holds to the tripartite goddess in secret--in fact, some claim she is even a priestess--despite public allegiance to the official Ansharite cult. 

Minaria: Half-Elves

This continues the series on my version of the world of Minaria, extrapolated from the map, manuals, and pieces of the boardgame, Divine Right.

In my post about the elves of Neuth last week I neglected to discuss the Ercii or Half-elves. The name comes from a contraction of the Elvish term for "mixed blood." Half-elves have faced persecution within the forest of Neuth, alternately being expelled or limited in terms of their movements and activities.

Some Ercii, however, do perform an important function within Elven society, and members of that select group have even managed to prosper. Elven nobility finds direct engagement with financial matters beneath their station. Unwilling however, to leave these matters strictly to elves or lower station, have brought on individual Ercii or sometimes groups of them as factors or bookkeepers. Some of these have become prosperous enough to be able to act independently acted as moneylenders to other noble houses.

The Elvish Crown has also employed Ercii as ambassadors or diplomats to other lands or and allows them to operate as money changers (so long as the Crown gets its share of the profits). Some of the these Ercii have not only become wealthy but able to wield (discretely) a great deal of political power. Perhaps some times more power than the Elves know, as they are the conduit through which the kingdom interacts with the outside world.

Still, their status as second class citizens is something they are unlikely to forget. Many Ercii in service to Elven nobles were taken from their families as infants and raised as servants to the noble house. More than one has had their fortune seized by a covetous noble who claimed it was their due. Others have lost their lives for their effrontery of being a noble's creditor.

Minaria: Elfland

This is the first post in a series, perhaps. My version of Minaria, extrapolated from the map, manuals, and pieces of the boardgame, Divine Right.

Humans are not welcome in the shadowed and quiet forests of Elfland. This antipathy is ancient. In the age following the fall of the Lloroi Empire, the Elves of Neuth (as they call the great forest in their own language) viewed the primitive tribes that they encountered as they ventured from their home as little more than clever beasts. The years have taught them that those beasts can be dangerous; they have learned to be wary of humans, but not to respect them.

The Elves believe themselves to the heirs to the Lloroi, possibly even a direct continuation of that great race. They take pride in being the only culture to withstand the Cataclysm without a reversion to barbarism. They prefer not to discuss the crumbling spires of their half-buried, ancient capital of Letho or the much reduced extent of their lands.

The Great Forest is relatively unspoiled by human standards. Their craft and science (they do not call it magic) is such that their communities often blend into their surroundings. Only another elf might know that they were there.

Humans who have dared to enter the forest easily become lost and often have returned with their memories completely gone. Those are the ones that return at all. Elven rangers patrol the wood with hounds whose howls are uncannily like human voices in lamentation and whose all too human faces hold horror in their eyes. Few elven settlements would give shelter to human stranger, raised as every elf is on tales of the malice of the beast Man.

"One day," say the elven lords to their knights when they are feasting in their hidden halls. "One day our host will ride forth and scatter the human rabble before us."