Yvaereth

> "Any others who do not speak will feel the Yzerren's whip... Those who survive the lashings are an insult to the great Seer, and will have their eyes taken out to please him." - *Duncan Wysteria, The Plight of Steel, Chapter 24*
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Yvaereth is the smallest kingdom-continent in the country of Deyeron, ruled by the brutal Wysteria family. Their sigil is a wyvern coiled around a spear, it's tip baring the eye of the Seer.

## Geography

Yvaereth is a barren desert of red sand, where high plateaus of crimson rock drop off into deep chasms of dry heat and dust. The kingdom is often beaten by brutal sand storms that can shroud visibility in all directions for miles. Water is scarce, usually found only when the kingdom's inhabitants dig wells deep into the earth, for no rivers run over the surface.

To the North and South are the Dragon Islands, which join Yvaereth with Windspeak and Riverfall. Along these islands, the Yzerren slave drivers pull their prison carts, searching for travelers to take back to Karthymere Fortress as slaves for their queen. The shores of the kingdom, which Cassara Vendyros wrecks upon in The Plight of Steel, are mostly covered by beaches. These beaches lead up to high walls of red stone, into which the first explorers had to carve stairways and ramps in order to move inland.

## The Ruling Family

The Wysteria family rules the kingdom - a clan known for their sadistic brutality. Duncan Wysteria is most notorious among them, and takes pleasure in the pain of others. In The Plight of Steel, he keeps Cassara Vendyros as his own personal plaything, torturing her and subjecting her to both physical and mental trauma, all for his own amusement. Outside of the books, he has done more wicked things, such as feeding young children to the wyverns kept in cages outside the castle, drowning prisoners in animal urine, and beheading slaves who did not pass his initial examination, then spiking their heads on spears placed outside the cells of the remaining prisoners.

His sister Romani is not as sadistic as him, yet she does nothing to curb his behavior. They constantly fight with each other over control of the kingdom, as their father, Winmore Wysteria, is close to death, sick with the Verglas.

## Significant Locations

* Karthymere Fortress *(And the Karthymere arena)*
* Statue of the Great Seer

## History

Everitt Wysteria came to Deyeron from somewhere in the unknown regions of the East. Along with him came his children, Zaros, and Scarlett. Not long after the construction of Karthymere fortress, they devised a plan to build a slave-trading empire, selling to nobles, dukes, and royalty throughout the Known World. Scarlett Wysteria, only eighteen years old at the time, was captain of a massive galleon called The Seer's Requiem, and assisted in the construction of their slave empire by sailing around the world, raiding villages and capturing prisoners. Zaros would join her, as he was twenty, and made sure she was never in danger of being killed, though she never required his assistance.

Scarlett never married, though she bore a son at nineteen named Winmore. She would abuse him both mentally and physically, and so he developed a weak heart. When Zaros and Scarlett mysteriously vanished one day, taking their galleon with them, Winmore was left to rule Yvaereth. His grandfather retained control mostly, even as his grandson wore the crown, for Winmore was too frightened to lead.

Winmore married Marsail Highmore - a troll of a woman who severely abused both him, as well as their children, Duncan and Romani. Everitt soon passed, and on the same afternoon, Winmore developed a strange illness. Marsail was left to parent her children, as her husband was indisposed, and gradually increased the severity of her abuse towards her son and daughter. Duncan, sick of his mother's treatment of him, killed her with a knife - an action that would cement his love for the weapon and his desire to practice throwing them.

Duncan and Romani then went to their father, who chose to coronate Romani as queen of Yvaereth, and to instate Duncan as High Commander of the Yzerren.

## Name Origin

When the Wysteria family got to their new kingdom, an indigenous race of men with red eyes was already living there. They had a rough language that Everitt took a liking to. These men, he employed as his Yzerren, then he named the kingdom after their word for *Blood Desert -* Yvaereth.