Kyldor: Geographical Regions
Hello and welcome once again to Nefarious Knowledge, the weekly article where we dish out the dirt on all the people, places, and things that show up in our various products, including Liber Vampyr, available as a free download here. Today’s article is a slight departure from the norm, because it is about something that was not originally mentioned in any of our products. The Immortal Empire of Kyldor was first mentioned in a Nefarious Knowledge article dealing with the blood college. The nation of Kyldor is a large topic, however, and this article is the first of several which will discuss it.
Regions
As an Empire, Kyldor has expanded by conquering and incorporating other nations into itself. As a result, the Immortal Empire of Kyldor can be divided largely into four sections, based on political bent and, to a certain extent, ethnicity. These four regions are Claustor, Kyldora, Algoria, and the borderlands.
Kyldora
The heart of the empire, this is the region in which the Immortal Empire got its start (see below for more details on the origins of Kyldor.) The seat of the empire, also creatively named Kyldor, is located in the heart of this region, which buts up against the Kralonar mountain range to the East and has a disputed border with Nitra to the south.
This region of the empire is home to the largest number of temples, shrines and monastic orders. The capital city itself houses no less than 200 temples of varying sorts, though this fact is somewhat misleading, since many of these temples double as something else, such as a library, barracks, college, brewery, or, in some of the more peculiar cases, even as inns or jails.
Though the same can’t quite be said for the rest of the region, the capital is one of the most beautiful cities a person will ever see, with many of its buildings plated in gold or silver and no expense spared on architecture—for the temples, at least. Though this may lead some outsiders to believe that the inflated number of temples is due to some kind of monetary gain (and it’s true that the empire does pay to ensure that temples in the capital live up to the appropriate standards of beauty) the fact is that this is simply not so. The requirements and standards a building has to maintain to keep temple status are rigorous, and even considering the benefit of the renovations, most businesses that choose to become a temple lose money over it.
The rest of the region is primarily agrarian farmland, with a few larger settlements scattered about. The region is almost always home to at least three legions of soldiers, less to protect the homeland (which hasn’t been attacked in generations) but rather because compulsory military service is less objectionable when it’s in the heartland, and while Kyldor currently has little unrest (at least in this region), the First Lord Dosimir Kylian intends to keep it that way.
Claustor
Located to the north and northwest of Kyldora, Claustor forms the northern region of the empire, though the furthest reaches to the north have only so much in common with the rest of the region. Conquered and incorporated into the empire only 77 years ago, Claustor has not yet fully integrated into the empire.
Before it was conquered, it was known as The Republic of Claustor, and was ruled pseudo-democratically via a senate whose members were elected for life. A warrior people, Claustorans were (and still are) well known for their strict warrior code of honor. Also known as the Horselords, Claustorans typically fell into one of three categories: those who worked, those who fought, and the philosophers (a group which included the various senators)
Post-conquest Claustor isn’t that terribly different from pre-conquest Claustor, but that doesn’t seem to stop the Claustorans from being upset about it. Though taxes now go to the capital in Kyldor, and are slightly higher than they were before, they’re hardly exorbitant and Claustor even sees some amount of return on this investment in the form of imperial investment, especially an increase in the number of temples and colleges in the region.
Still, most people in Claustor resent the constant presence of at least two legions, and further resent the fact that most of the members of these legions are from other parts of the empire, even though the youths of Claustor are also forced to enlist for four years of military service. They resent the forced military service as well, as it rubs the wrong way against their cultural heritage, where warriors and knights served a liege-lord they believed in and trusted in exchange for land and titles, rather than serving a far off and impersonal First Lord in exchange for rations and meager pay. They also resent the imposition of the Kyldoran religion, having previously been predominately ancestor-worshippers.
Rich in natural resources, Claustor’s main exports are lumber and ore, though its next largest export in recent years is mercenaries. Claustoran smiths are not the best on the continent, but they are still well known for their skill, especially in axes, barding and heavy armors.
Algoria
Algoria is a long, relatively thin region of Kyldor which makes up most of the Empire’s western, coastal border. The home of such large and influential trade ports as Aitil, Vonetisti, and Sarsorim, Algoria is somewhat less martially inclined than the rest of the empire. It also boasts the most diverse population, racially and culturally.
Originally, most of the territory that comprises modern-day Algoria belonged to the gnomish nation of Argo, a loosely-organized collection of plutocratic city-states which were vaguely connected by a number of trans-city guilds and crafts-unions. Even then, Argo still consisted primarily of large trade-ports which were quite prosperous, and like most trade-ports, a lot of disparate groups of people found themselves rubbing shoulders on the streets of these merchant cities.
When, 243 years ago, First Lord Borys Kylian decided to invade Argo and convert them over to the Kyldoran way of life, things could have turned out very badly for the gnomes of Argo. Though they weren’t completely incapable of fighting, they had no prayer of defeating the highly trained and disciplined legions of Kyldor and they knew it. So, when Kyldor’s armies arrived on the doorstep of Sarsorim, the largest of Argo’s ports, they were met by a contingent of ambassadors gathered from every city-state in the region, who negotiated the terms of their surrender.
Among these terms are a number of special rights and privileges for the people of Argo (which was renamed as Algoria due to an error by the scribe who drafted the treaty), including the ability to avoid conscription into the military by paying a fine of 2,000 gold, the right to control their own taxes and tariffs (so long as the demands of the crown, which are updated every 10 years or so, are met), and the right to police their own cities. Though they did not manage to keep the right to free religion or the right to their own court system or criminal laws, the gnomes have adapted well. While all citizens of the region are nominally followers of Kyldor’s religion, many Algorians aren’t very devout about it and while any matter which makes it to court will be governed by strict Kyldorian law, many crimes are dealt with directly (and very quietly) by the Algorian guardsmen who police the cities.
Algoria’s chief imports and exports are the same: more or less everything. The population has shifted somewhat from the time of Argo, and the makeup is now roughly 40% gnome, 35% human, and 15% dwarven, with the remaining 10% being a variety of different races from across the globe.
The Borderlands
The outskirts of the Empire, this is actually more than one area geographically, as the northern, southern, and, to a lesser extent, eastern borders of the Empire are very similar. These lands are constantly under attack from an outside force, whether the Tevijan to the north, the Nitrans to the south, or occasionally raiders from Kralonar mountain range or even from the Neshai badlands to the east. These are rugged frontier regions, and though they are protected by the legions, the legions can’t be everywhere at once, meaning that Kyldorans in these areas learn to be more self-sufficient than Kyldorans in other parts of the empire.
Generally speaking, these regions only came to be part of the empire relatively recently—the last fifty years or so—and so most of the inhabitants of the region are settlers. These settlers are well-praised in more civilized parts of Kyldor for the suffering that they endure in order to expand the empire’s influence further out into the world. While many of the settlers are in the borderlands for such lofty and religious reasons, many are here because, for whatever reason, they were unable to fit in in Kyldor proper, and were forced to head out into the semi-wild borderlands to find a place for themselves.
Among the latter type are the vast majority of the Empire’s orcs and half-orcs. The Empire’s anti-slavery laws do not extend to orc-kind, and Kyldor regularly captures or purchases large numbers of “wild” orcs from the lands to the southeast of Kyldor, forcing them into military service in the legions for twenty years before granting them citizenship and releasing them with a holding on the edges of the Empire (almost always the northern edge, far from their ancestral home). Changed by their years of military service, and knowing that their orcish kin will not accept them back after being so tainted by the Kyldorans, most ex-slave orcs eventually take the offer. Most half-orcs in the Empire’s borders were born inside them, and are the offspring of at least one Citizen of the Empire, and so they are typically not ex-slaves, though they are still expected to perform military service like everyone else.