Collen Basin

Part of the larger nation of Mallon, despite a long and storied history of rebelling against and eventually getting recaptured by Mallish forces. Regional capital is the plateau city of Collen.

## History

900-ish years ago, a blight fell on the Collen Basin farmlands. Nethermancers tried to force the plants to grow, but killed them instead. Starving, the Basin people stole from their Mallon neighbors causing a war. At least, that's what the Mallish want the Collen Basin people to believe.

What really happened was, Collen Basin and Mallon use to be on friendly and traded freely. During this time, the Basin was at war with the Almers, a long gone kingdom. Collen Basin and Almers eventually came to a trade agreement to stop the feuding for good. That spring, there was no rain and a blight killed all the crops in the Basin area. The nethermancers tried to grow more, but only managed to make it worse. The ground withered and died. The people started to go hungry within the year. To keep peace between themselves and the Almers, Collen Basin continued to trade with them while becoming indebted to the Mallon. Starving, the Basin people started to pillage the Mallon farms. The Mallon empire grew angry and war started between the two by the end of the year and has never truly ended.

During the war with the Almers, Collen Basin was able to convince the Kolody people to give them armor in exchange for Almers' land. Kolody was 300 miles away, past what was then called the Horned Hills, but was connected via the River Common. With the first instalment of armor, the Kolody people made their way through the Horned Hills, but were ambushed by Almers soldiers and killed.

Dante reveals that the Horned Mountains were once the Horned Hills and were accidently raised when the Woden was created and was the cause of the lack of rain.

## Kon, the White-Haired

A powerful nethermancer that was made absolute ruler of Collen Basin 80 years before the Second Scour and 482 years before the events of The Silver Thief. Kon ruled over Collen Basin and kept the Mallon at bay for 17 years thanks to his incredible skill with the nether. After two battle free years, Elder Franic of Bressal marched on Collen Basin. He won fight after fight all the way to Collen. There, he met with major resistence and was almost forced to retreat. As Kon and Franic fought, Star Eaters appeared and started killing whoever was closest. Both sides blame the other for the creation. Nothing but ether would hurt the creatures, so the Mallon were able to steer them towards the city. As the Colleners fought the Mallish, Kon focused all his efforts on the Star-Eaters. This lasted for 3 days. With no end in sight, Kon told his army he had an idea to defeat the Star-Eaters. He entered the Reborn Shrine and was never seen again. Without him, Collen fell to the Star-Eaters and Mallon. It is unknown what happened to the Star-Eaters.

Some speculate it was Mallish priests that summoned the creatures, but it was actually Kon himself. He created the Star-Eaters to defeat the Mallish once and for all, but he had no control over it. He confessed this in a scroll/letter that ended up in Narashtovik.

## The Wheel (weapon)

A favorite weapon among the Collen Basin. It is a 7 feet long wooden pole with a metal pointed tip on one end and a metal ball the size of a fist on the other. A practice wheel has no metal and a bag of pebbles to represent the metal ball. The point of this weapon is to smash the armor or knock down heavily armored infantry. There is no explanation to why it is called a wheel.