Talor

Talor is a country situated on the north bank of the Trade Lake. Its neighbours are Dalfore and Kafetra to the west and Satï in the east.

The population of Talor is split evenly between those in the Vestr region, who want change and unity with Talor's neighbours, and conservative loyalists in the eastern capital, who stick to the Old Talorian language and seek relations with their racial kin in Ulgard, Scanbrough and Omeland.

Talor mainly produces wood and fish, with marble being the most lucrative of the smaller exports. Talor also imports iron from Savanor and converts it to high-quality steel before exporting again, this time mainly to Satï and Ulgard.

## History

Talor was founded during the Great Gap, and in the year 403 was defined as an absolute monarchy with Cyng Horik Kingmaker at the helm. However, this was a fledgling nation encompassing only Eorlsburh and its surrounds. In addition, there were several very powerful noble families in the city, all of which desired the throne for themselves. As such, Horik's hand was forced.

Cyng Horik chose to implement an elective monarchy system to appease the noblemen, allowing them all a 'fair' chance at the throne - on the condition that this succession law was never changed. He then rigged the system to favour his son Byrnhorn Ironhands, and embarked on wars of expansion to the northeast and west. Horik died on campaign in 410, and as planned Byrnhorn succeeded in attaining the throne.

Byrnhorn was not quite so shrewd, and focused on the expansion of the realm. By 415, he had established Talor as a regional power, with much the same geographical borders as today - with the exception that the town of Safaburgh is not currently part of the country.

The Ironhands Wars, while successful, were supremely unpopular with everyone but the monarch. Byrnhorn died in 418 under suspicious circumstances, and the throne passed to House Gothelm. From then on, Talor took a more conservative, peaceful stance. It signed treaties with the Maan tribes to the east and with several Kafetran tribes as well - promising not to invade as long as the tribes did not raid.

Talor wanted nothing to do with the Tungrids during their invasion in the early 6th Century, but allowed the Fallen Company passage when they marched home in the aftermath. Several decades later, the Fallen Company was offered settlement in western Talor by the Cyng of the time, Dagheard the Welcoming, resulting in the foundation of the Talorian region of Vestr.

After Varhold collapsed following the Battle of Vorgebirge, several Talorian Cyngs successively stood against Varholdian raids into Talor. Cyng Allnoth the Wall fell in battle against a particularly strong party of ex-Varholdian raiders, and his successor Aethelhere Strongmace avenged him two years later in the Sack of Jyltheim, razing the raiders' headquarters to the ground and executing the survivors. When word of this action spread, Varhodian raiders stopped attacking Talor almost entirely.

Talor did lose ground in the northwest of the country, though. The Cyngs of Talor demanded its return several times but were denied, leading to the Red Plains War in the 520's. Here Talor was forced to renounce its claims by the new confederation of Kafetran tribes known as Astarcia. Astarcia is long gone now and Talor has good relations with Kafetra which now owns the land. This has assuaged the bitterness of the defeat - at least the land is in the hands of a friend rather than a foe.

## Geography

### **Location**

Talor lies on the northern shore of the Trade Lake with most of its land being between the Hurva and Greenstream rivers. A small portion of Talor is east of the Greenstream, though this comprises a negligible area of the country itself. No part of Talor is more than twenty leagues from the Trade Lake.

### **Climate**

Talor has a mild climate, ranging from 0-20 degrees for most of the year. Snow is rare, though rain common. The north shore of the Trade Lake suffers much heavier and more frequent rain than the southern shore, making a case for Scanbroughan stereotypes of Talorians as mud-people.

### **Administrative Regions**

Talor can be split into three general regions: the west is the region of Vestr, governed from Fenwich and containing the towns of Hydale, Upmoor, Ganruck and Trelham. This region is ethnically different from the rest of Talor as it was never fully settled by Talorians and is also home to the many descendants of the settled Fallen Company, of Lacrivian lineage.

The centre of Talor is the forested region of the Cwylming, with two administrative centers at Wealton and Mearhus. The towns in the Cwylming are Seameer, Eordwald, Meditun, Fladh, Laefal and Cynrheorst. This is a sparsely-populated region, focusing on fishing and hunting for survival.

The capital of Talor, Eorlsburh, is the government seat of the easternmost region. This is the industrial centre of Talor, and comprises the towns of Orthgent, Cenholme, Ribohame, Alning and Fiscwicke.

## Politics

### **Government**

*Main Article: Cyng of Talor*

Talor has an elective monarchy - that is, there are a dozen royal houses all over the country and, when a monarch is to be elected, each house puts its candidate forth and the upper class votes for the new monarch. For the last century, the country has been dominated by house Fylning. Talorian monarchs are called Cyngs if male, and though there has never been a female monarch it is generally agreed that the feminine form of Cyng is Cwynn.

### **Legal System**

The Talorian legal system is a simple one in that the royal houses are responsible for ensuring the law is carrying out in their home regions. This means that heavily populated places like Eorlsburh, home to five royal houses, have virtually no crime due to five separate forces of Fyrdmen policing, while house Herewulf, the only house in the Cwylming, has an incredibly difficult time maintaining crime in the region.

## Economy

### **Agriculture**

Most agriculture is carried out in central Vestr and near Eorlsburh, though many towns in the Cwylming have cleared enough forest to provide for themselves. Primary crops include wheat, millet and barley. The land east of the Greenstream river is also heavily used for hops and malt, supplying materials to the brewers' town of Alning.

### **Transport**

Talorians tend to travel by foot, using animals to carry goods instead of riding. The roads in Talor tend to be nothing more than packed-earth tracks, though several are paved, especially around the main centres of Eorlsburh, Mearhus and Fenwich.

There is a project underway to fully pave the coastal road that runs through Talor, but this has met with opposition from a couple of richer houses which are expected to financially back the project.

### **Currency**

Talor trades in silver coins, minted in Cenholme and its surrounds. Coins are inlaid with copper for decoration and display the Talorian virtues of glory, honour, humility and courage on the tails side. The Cyng's portrait is normally depicted on the reverse.

Talorian coins are sought as a trustworthy currency, and has been found as far afield as Lastornia. It is also the de facto currency in several less organised states such as Satï and Kafetra.

## Demographics

### **Appearance**

Talorians are tall, standing between six and six and a half feet on average. Hair colours range from dirty blond to dark brown, though the Lacrivian blood in the Vestr region causes people in the area to be shorter, ruddier and have lighter hair.

### **Class Division**

There are twelve noble houses in Talor, listed by region:

* House Fylning, based in Eorlsburh
* House Norrhelm, based in Eorlsburh
* House Wiccsteg, based in Eorlsburh
* House Atheling, based in Eorlsburh
* House Eorlfric, based in Eorlsburh
* House Ricfriding, based in Eorlsburh
* House Herewulf, based in Cynrheorst
* House Hardwalden, based in Fenwich
* House Wihtgil, based in Mearhus
* House Leodwalding, based in Fiscwicke
* House Gothelm, based in Ribohame
* House Heidael, based in Hydale

There was a thirteenth, house Higwalding, a royal house based in Cenholme before house Heidael existed. The Higwaldings were exiled in the early 5th Century due to conteition over the murder of Cyng Beohrtsige Bellringer, and sought asylum in Scanbrough.

## Military

### **Strength**

The Talorian professional army consists of the Fyrdmen, the personal guards of the royal houses. These number from fifty to three hundred depending on the particular house, and the total force numbers around two thousand. They almost never cooperate, however, and have not been assembled together in living memory. Even with the advent of the War of the South Lake, only nine of the twelve Fyrdmen forces have been raised - houses Wihtgil, Eorlfric and Norrhelm have abstained from participating for various reasons.

In addition, the villages of Talor will voluntarily raise warbands in times of peril. These are undisciplined groups of men who take up arms from whatever job they previously held and, as such, have varying levels of weaponry, armour and training. The strength of the warbands has always been relatively unknown as Talor is rarely in need of them, though they tend to number up to a thousand men each, drawn from villages and the surrounding farmlands. They are led by captains taken from the ranks of the Fyrdmen most of the time, though this rule has been broken frequently.

During the current War of the South Lake, Talor is fielding the Fyrdmen as a professional core, as well as several dozen warbands. This force is estimated at around ten thousand.

### **Equipment**

The warbands, as stated above, have varying levels of weaponry and training. They tend to be classifiable depending on their origin: Vestrian warbands have access to plentiful armour and weapons as the region was heavily settled by the Fallen Company. They tend to be well-drilled, though not to the standard of professionals.

Warbands from the Cwylming are smaller and are often missile units. They are excellent woodsmen, though undisciplined and rowdy; perfectly suited to guerrilla warfare.

By contrast, warbands from near the capital have neither tradition nor nature behind them. They are regarded as arrow-fodder by most other Talorian soldiers. If nothing else, warbands from the capital region often have access to boats, and two warbands raised in Fiscwicke currently sail in donated Satyan longships as part of the Dalforean League's raiding fleet.

The Fyrdmen, the professional soldiers, are constantly active in duty either as soldiers, bodyguards or policemen. They are mostly clad in scale or chainmail, wielding long one-handed swords and round wooden shields. The Fyrdmen of house Atheling carry heavy javelins as well as this standard equipment, and house Ricfriding issues short spears. These quirks in equipment are due respectively to the weapon preferences of Cyngs drawn from these houses: Cyng Ekkehard 'the Thunderbolt' was known to be skilled with the javelin, while Eomer Bonespear is fabled to have killed the Cwylboar with an improvised short spear made of dragon bone.

## Culture

### **Folktales**

Talorian policy is to glorify their Cyngs to an often ridiculous extent: each Cyng is given an epithet based on a feat he had accomplished. The origins of some are fairly obvious - Dagheard the Welcoming was the Cyng who let the Fallen Company into Talor, for instance. Others form popular folktales, often blown far out of proportion. Eomer Bonespear, for example, is said to have used a spear of dragon bone to slay the Cwylboar, a beast eight feet at the shoulder that terrorised the Cwylming. This story does not take into account that Cyneheah Boarslayer is remembered for exactly the same reason, and there is no factual evidence to prove the Cwylboar ever existed. Such folktales are likely grounded in the reality of a regular boar hunt, but this does not deter Talorians from exaggerating tales of their Cyngs' deeds into the realm of myth and legend.

### **Arts**

Metalwork is valued highly in Talor; craftsmen gather at Cenholme to inlay copper into silver coins as well as crafting sets of scale armour and decorating ornamental weapons. Given that warrior culture is valued highly in the upper classes of Talor, this is a lucrative industry, and it is common for even a small village to have several blacksmiths or metalworkers.

### **Sports**

Sports in Talor consist mostly of war games - mock battles are held in Wealton annually as part of a larger tournament that meets once every three years.

Near the coast, it is common for towns to hold races for boats of all sizes, from small skiffs to warships. The most famous of these is the Fiscwicke Meet, boasting over a hundred ships. Often ships from Satï are also welcomed to the meets, and more rarely Ulgardian ships will arrive to take part.

The Dalforean towns of Prensie and Galusar on the Talorian border often take part in both the above events, referred to as the Browns and Greens respectively. They each have a large Talorian following, with fan rivalries being nearly as fierce as that between the towns themselves.

### **Ideology**

Talorians can be split into two broad groups: those who can afford to worry about the future, and those who cannot. The upper classes tend to be concerned with the Talorian virtues of glory, honour, humility and courage. Most are keen for Talor to rise to new heights, but as in all populations there is a division of the upper classes that cannot let go of long-standing grudges - another part of Talorian culture - and attempt to hold Talor back for their own personal gain.

The lower classes are mostly more down-to-earth. They are some of the friendliest folk on the north shore of the Trade Lake, and tend to stick together through crises when they arise. This gives rise to the Talorian concept of a warband and of its peacetime counterpart, the folkband.

In the Vestr region Lacrivian culture is still partially ingrained, leading to Vestrian people of all classes being slightly more arrogant, condescending, and less reasonable than other Talorians.

### **Religion**

Most Talorians follow Talrycg, a branch of spirit worship alleging that all objects have souls and, as such, it is ineffective to pray to any omnipotent beings as none exist. Instead, Talorians follow their faith by treating their environment with the utmost respect. Over time, some spirits have naturally become more important than others, so deities have sprung up regionally, though their identities and powers are highly localised, creating, in effect, a patchwork of thousands of semi-important deities throughout Talor and Satï. An example of this is the spirit of Talorian Fang, the royal sword that supposedly protects the Cyngs and maintains order in the realm.

In the Vestr region, always slightly different from greater Talor, many citizens are Urcanists, followers of a monotheistic religion which is a recent offshoot of Ekdianism.

### **Flag**

Talor has no official flag - it is represented in peace and war by the arms of its ruling house. The traditional Talorian banner, flown into battle alongside the flag, is at the top of the article and comprises the word 'Talor', surrounded clockwise from top-right by 'honour', 'humility', 'glory' and 'courage', all in Old Talorian script. The flag itself is a dark blue and the text is grey.

Flags and emblems in most of Talor tend to be based on flora and fauna - oak leaves are a common motif, as are boars, horses and trees. In the Vestr region, being closer in ethnicity to Lacrivians, flags are often more heraldic than natural. The banner of house Heidael, for example, is 'Vair Argent and Azure, a bear rampant Sable armed Gules, above two swords crossed in saltire Or', which is a style rare elsewhere in Talor.