The+Six+Kingdoms+of+Glamering

__**Glamering**__ In many ways, the Six Kingdoms are to individual warriors what the Siege Lands are to armies: a proving ground. Each share martial excellence and a certain code of behavior, but there are important differences between them. Though the rulers (not all are kings) are veteran warriors of skill and undeniable valor, the true post of honor for all below royal status is the position of one of the Six Champions of Glamering. The kings are ineligible for the honor once they ascend to their throne, often after having vacated the position of champion held for many years. The post of High Champion is held by Valant himself. There is no High King. In addition to the many qualifying tourneys held during each season, the Six Kingdoms each hold a Grand Tourney in High Summer to determine the champions for the year. The winner gains the honor of battling the current champion in the finale of each tourney. Once healed, the champions then gather at the confluence of the Melawn and Vaana Rivers where they merge amidst the mountains and the game rich forests to form the Silver Lake before diverging again and running in their separate paths into the Glittering Sea. It is said that the area surrounding the Silver Lake is the most beautiful in the Kingdoms, and they are the ancestral lands of Sir Alisander Valant himself. There are no cities here, but there are keeps and towers and several castles perched upon the peaks, or nestled in the lovely valleys and forests. These places are held by the loyal retainers of the Valant family, brave knights in the own right, and some of the most celebrated in the realm. However, like their lord, they are not often at home, traveling the world as do all the Questing Knights, the order dedicated to valiant deeds, great challenges to their fortitude, code, and sword arms, and to the idea of the noble adventure. Valant himself is said to travel the world clothed as a simple knight errant, ever searching for ways to test his strength of arms, (others say he goes into the borderlands of the Ravening Hills, the Rotted Lands, and other such places to face the worst he can find and slay it). However, he always returns in time for the High Summer Tourney of the Grand Champion he hosts in his lands. It is a two week affair with many feasts, jousts, grand melees, singing competitions, and a host of other games and contests. His lands provide for all, whether noble lord, or peasant retainer, and it is certainly the high point of the year for all who can attend, and its tales circulate for at least a year, and sometimes much longer. The Tourney of the Grand Champion is the finale of the festivities, with lots drawn by each of the six champions of the kingdoms. They are then paired off, the three winners advancing. One of three is chosen by Lady Evangeline, the current lady of Valant’s seat, the Castle of the Falcon, so named for the ancient symbol of the Valant line, a speeding black falcon on a blue background. The other two fight each other, but the one chosen by her ladyship has the honor of fighting Valant’s Master-at-Arms, Sir Marbry Hew. After the third round is complete, the winner is feted and celebrated for a day until he faces Valant himself, considered the greatest honor a man from Glamering can hope to achieve in his lifetime. Many an old knight is comforted in his retirement by the memories of crossing swords with Sir Alisander, some even convincing themselves that had their thrust been just a bit quicker they would have had him. “That sword scratched the shield of Valant, boy,” cannot be said by many, but for those families it is an heirloom without price. Each young squire dreams of such a feat, or even to have scratched the very armor of Valant, laurels won by only the greatest knights ever to have lived. They also dare to dream of surpassing all, and of actually defeating Sir Alisander and assume his position.

Each of the Six Kingdoms has its own ways and traditions left from the days when they served as the Watch Kingdoms of the East, but all honor the martial prowess and the nobility of spirit Sir Alisander epitomizes, though they interpret the last in varying ways. The rule of each is determined by the feudal lords of their lands or the militant orders, or a combination of both.
 * __Structure of the Six Kingdoms__**

//**The Six Kingdoms**// are:

Eldinor is the oldest of the Six Kingdoms, and the first to be designated as a Watch Kingdom long ago. Its history is dark and rarely pleasant, tied as it is to the Rotted Lands, with whom it has often been at war over the many centuries. There now lies a bleak borderland between Greevis’s realm and the kingdom, but the grim Lords of the Watch (known as the Lantern Keepers), the feudal liegemen of Rykus, are ever vigilant. As ever, they are too few and the dangers too many for them to keep all wickedness at bay. There is also an outpost of the Order of the Ebon Cross, famed hunters of the restless dead and other horrors, headquartered in a lonely tower upon a crag along the border. The Eldinorians are a dour, grim people as hard as the stone lands in which they live.
 * Eldinor**: King Rykus, the Thirty-Seventh of His Line

Tarum is a land composed of the curving peninsula and numerous island settlements that compose the westernmost boundaries of Glamering. Best known for its famed Griffon riders, it is men are also the most skilled in sea-borne combat in the kingdoms, practice they often get from the wild tribes of raiders that haunt the long coasts from the Twilight Trees south.
 * Tarum:** King Joran III, lord of the Saltkeep, whose family motto is “We will hold.”

The smallest of the kingdoms, and the one least scarred directly by war, it is a heavily forested land with many rivers and lakes. Largely idyllic, its knights have nonetheless gone forth for generations in search of trouble, and have never failed to succeed in their quests. It is said by some that the greatest lore masters in Glamering come from Ussel. It is here that the hereditary lands of the Falcon, Sir Alisander Valant lie.
 * Ussel:** Regent Viscount Skirril Thorn, the Firesigil, scion of the keep and library of ancient lore known as the Grange. The Thorns have held the throne in regency since the disappearance of the last heir to the throne nine-hundred years past, in the hope that royal blood will one day reclaim its rightful place.

Vindaire is what most people imagine when they think of Glamering. It is a land of feudal lords with vast estates tended by peasant farmers, innumerable knights seeking glory and the favor of lovely ladies, troubadors, inns, bandit-haunted forests and idyllic glades. It also had the largest standing army, and mines of gold, silver, and precious gemstones to make most lands flush with envy. It is here that some of the most beautiful architecture in the world is to be found, most designed as monuments to the sacrifices of great men from Vindaire's storied history, for in spite of its courtly appearance, the Beautiful Kingdom is also a land of stout fighting men with a lineage of valor to match any rival. It is the largest kingdom, touching all the other five, and its land tends to resemble those the closer to the borders between kingdoms one gets. It has a particularly strong presence along the southern borders of the Ravening Hills, and it is there that its young knights are often first bloodied, many staying to fight for years against the endless supply of enemies. Some do not return.
 * Vindaire:** King Eosin the XVI, Lord of the Palace of Stars

It is here, along the broad promontory of land stretching from the convergence of Vindaire and Loegria into the Eternal Sea, and reaching for the otherworldly Ghostlands, that the folk of Gilphin live. They are an aloof and odd lot by the standards of the Six Kingdoms, and though they too have their heavy cavalry and clanking foot knights, they also have large numbers of foresters that prowl the dense conifer woods and high hills of their lands, lands notoriously populated by fell creatures. The Brown Bishop, a humble if bold and powerful monster hunter in his own right, is a ruler with a practical approach, eschewing the courtly graces of lands such as Vindaire. Gilphin has the feel of a wilderness outpost rather than anything else, and the creatures and hauntings, both blamed on the continent to the north, keep the warriors of all kinds very active.
 * Gilphin**: Bardolph, the Brown Bishop

Among Loegria's broken valleys and pine forests the March Lords and their valiant monarch wage war against the masses from the Ravening Hills. Somewhere along the border a battle is sure to be in full swing, even if only among the outposts. More commonly, armies are at each others' throats. The Badger's Teeth, a line of fortresses that form the bulwark of Loegria's defensive line, and so-called because the emblem of Vostov's house is a rampant badger, are sometimes under siege, sometimes staging areas for armies that launch attacks against Frack's tribesmen. Many of the greatest knights of the Six Kingdoms are to be found fighting here, and many find their last battle among the echoing canyons of this war zone. Each of the other five kingdoms keep's a permanent contingent in Loegria. The commanders of each force are veteran generals that coordinate fully with the king, an acclaimed tactical and strategic genius. He is now in his eighty-sixth year, hale and hearty still, and is accounted one of the finest warmasters in all of Andavar. Even he is hard-pressed of late to hold the line against the more numerous and savage attacks of the goblin and vurvik hordes. The cause of these increases is as yet unknown to the forces of Glamering.
 * Loegria**: March King Vostov IV, the Hordebreaker