King Jerlon Penacor

When he first came to the throne in the year 286, King Jerlon Penacor of Talindon showed every sign of proving worthy of the crown. His capable queen, Riya, was celebrated at court for her intelligence and charm, and their infant sons, Farrengol and Farrendon, showed every sign of becoming fine princes of the Penacor line.

## Lorimor's Betrayal

Love tore the realm apart, however, as it is ever wont to do. By all accounts, Queen Riya and the king’s greatest friend and highest councilor, Rusticar Lorimor, had fallen deeply for each other, despite their respective vows to husband and throne. When the king learned of this, his priests and advisors begged him to show no clemency, warning him that to tolerate such a betrayal flew in the face of the will of the gods and made him weak in the eyes of his people. But King Jerlon still loved his queen, and he grew melancholic rather than wrathful. He annulled his marriage and forever banished Riya and Rusticar from the nascent kingdom.

A large group of the king’s subjects joined Rusticar and Riya in exile, a strange happenstance that leads some to wonder if there was more to the betrayal than mere love. King Jerlon seems to have had trouble commanding the loyalty of his subjects, and this speaks to a lack of charisma or other weakness of character. Whatever the truth, Rusticar was to prove a great leader and Riya at least his equal in all matters. Shortly after arriving on the shores of the western ocean, they founded a legacy of their own that rivaled anything the Penacor line produced. This is, of course, the Lorimor Empire.

In Talindon, King Jerlon lamented his lost love. He refused to countenance taking another queen. Behind his back, Jerlon’s courtiers began to call him the King of Grief.

## The Wayward Son

Prince Farrengol had always been a boisterous child, but with his mother exiled and his father lost to melancholy, he now lacked any sort of parental hand. Farrengol took to training in the tiltyard with some of the coarser members of his father’s household guard, and an unwise bond of mutual support was forged. The guards taught the young prince how to ride and fight, but they also brought him along when they secretly raided far-flung farmsteads for their own merriment. For his part, the prince made sure that his friends never had to face any serious consequences for their wicked behavior.

On the occasion of the prince’s sixteenth birthday, the court jester performed a verse penned for the occasion. When Farrengol realized that the first letter of each line spelled out the word “bastard,” he flew into a fierce rage and summoned his friends. They galloped from the castle, calling for a pox to take the morose king and his gossiping court. They did not return.

In time, news spread of vicious outlaws who set upon travelers and isolated farms in the north of the country, around the borders and wild lands of Nerekhall. Reports of their crimes were grave and only increased in frequency, but the gloomy King of Grief would not rouse himself to order their capture. It was thus left up to the Lord of Nerekhall to place a bounty on the heads of the outlaws. Roving knights soon tracked the outlaws down to a farmstead. The scene within was one of unspeakable horror.

The next morning, a narrow file of knights arrived at the gates of the Lord of Nerekhall’s castle. They carried a number of long poles from which dangled a score of heads. Under the dried blood and grime of the road, some of the heads could be recognized as members of the household guard who had ridden out with Prince Farrengol. The prince was there, too. He and his closest companions had been taken alive, and now they sat astride the knights’ spare horses, their hands and feet held fast in iron fetters.

Prince Farrengol and his companions were interred within the Prison Tower of Nerekhall and left there to wait for the King, for the Lord of Nerekhall was too circumspect to dare pass judgment on a Penacor. In the dark nights in the tower, the group is said to have discovered the secret behind the tower’s ill repute: a Daewyl portal nestled in an attic nook, and within an Ynfernael shade. Farrengol no sooner encountered the demon than he promised it fealty if only it might somehow grant him freedom.

When King Jerlon arrived at the keep of the Lord of Nerekhall, he was presented with evidence of his son’s crimes and the heads of his household guard. The King wasted little time in condemning Prince Farrengol to death. He ordered the outlaws to be hanged from the Tower of Nerek and their bodies taken from the borders of Talindon and cast into the mires of the northeastern swampland.

## Death and Succession

The King of Grief returned to his castle, and there, he eked out a few more miserable years, dying a lonely and largely unmourned monarch. His surviving son, Farrendon, shared none of his father’s frailties and displayed more of the robust spirit associated with the Penacor line.