Baylor Kaulden

**Baylor Kaulden** (**8A78-9A25**), also known as "**Baylor the Savior**", was the king of Nordain from **9A00** until his death. He was the son of the late Naranna Kaulden, husband of the late Rowan Kaulden, and father of Renley Kaulden.

## Background

Around the beginning of the Ninth Age, he freed Nordain from the rule of the Maudesian Empire and restored the Kaulden family as the ruling family of Nordain with the help of his queen, Rowan, and close friend Ornand Dhunne.

Baylor was lost at sea on a voyage to Gusten in **9A25**, and was declared dead. Ornand searched for him for two years, to no avail. Rumors persisted however, that Baylor was alive, being held in an Maudesian prison.

## Involvement

Shortly after witnessing the murder of his mother during the Nordish Rebellion, while fleeing for his own life, the eighteen year old Baylor encountered the young outlaw Ornand of Croftdale. Ornand offered to let him stay at his father's rebel camp, unaware of his heritage. Thane Arnnolf's men, in pursuit of Baylor, discovered the rebel camp and slaughtered most of the rebels. Baylor was able to escape with Ornand into the Welserine Wilds. While traveling through the Wilds, Ornand and Baylor were captured by a clan of Sylvan elves who turned them over to the Witch of the Wilds. The Witch helped Baylor in exchange for his making an unknown promise that he must fulfill at a future date. He could not reveal what this promise was to anyone. She also gave two warnings to Baylor: that a Scourge would one day occur in Nordain, and that Ornand would betray Baylor if the young king kept him close, "each time worse than the last".

Baylor was able to find the remainder of the rebel army and his betrothed, Rowan, who fought with them. He spent years with the army and eventually helped lead them to victory at Dhunne. Here he met and fell in love with Amarille, who unbeknownst to him, was a spy for Barrault, a mage and servant of the usurper King Alain. Based on her false information, Baylor's rebel army was nearly routed at the battle of South Hill and Baylor only narrowly escaped with the aid of Rowan, Ornand and Amarille, who had genuinely fallen in love with him and came to regret her treachery. Unable to return to Dhunne to regroup with the rest of the army safely due to the usurper's army blocking the roads leading to Dhunne on the surface, they journey underground through the Underways, a route suggested by Amarille who, as a bard, knew the whereabouts of an entrance.

Journeying through the Underways with help from Amarille and the Legion of the Dead, they narrowly survived attacks by Corrupted spiders and fiends, and managed to return to Dhunne to reunite with the now greatly reduced remaining army. After a successful defense of Dhunne during another attack by the usurper's army, Ornand informed Baylor that he and Rowan had conspired to spy on Amarille, and thus learned of her dealings with the usurper's mage. Goaded into a blind rage, Baylor confronted Amarille and unthinkingly ran her through with his sword. Only later did he learn that Amarille had truly loved him and severed ties with Barrault; a fact that Ornand had known from his spies' reports, and deliberately withheld from Baylor. Baylor would forever regret his part in Amarille's death, as well as never giving her the chance to tell her side of events.

Later, at a village temple in the Thaneholds, Baylor and Ornand killed Thane Arnnolf and four other traitors responsible for the rebel queen's murder. In the final confrontation against the usurper's armies at the Battle of Tolamir River, Rowan and Ornand commanded the final assault while Baylor snuck into the mage Barrault's camp and assassinated him, eliminating the greatest threat to the rebels. Following three more years of war, the rebel army besieged Dersoden and Baylor killed Alain in single combat atop Fort Volantus, where Alain and his few remaining supporters had fled. Eventually, with Nordain's freedom secured, Baylor married Rowan and became a popular king.

Eight years after freeing Nordain from the Maudesians, and eleven years after last venturing into the Underways, Baylor was approached by Roselyne, Commander of the Grey Order in Maudet. Roselyne's brother, Ignace, had been captured by fiends and, she believed, that he was being held near the Urmmek Hewnhold; Ignace possessed knowledge of where the Deceivers were buried, knowledge the fiendish horde could use to trigger a Scourge in Morgaea. With Baylor and Ornand having been the only two living people to have ventured that way, and Baylor, despondent with grief following his wife's death, fleeing from what he saw as his failure as a father to his five-year-old son, Renley, and remembering the witch's prophetic warning of a coming Scourge, volunteered to guide a band of Rangers to the Urmmek Hewnhold. Once they returned to the surface, Baylor officially allowed the Grey Order to return to Nordain, after 200 years of exile, despite the protests of Ornand and others.

King Baylor disappeared at sea, presumed dead, while en route to Gusten in **9A25**. He was to attend a gathering of the Freemark lords in an attempt to forge a union in the south, and when he failed to appear, the Freemarks fell back into the petty squabbling that they are infamous for.

Baylor's memory continues to influence Nordain's politics even many years after his apparent death.