Establishing Arkland

*"We came from nothing, a group of starving, weary adventurers on boats, escaping a desperate land. When we got here, we had to fight for our lives, not once, not twice, but three times. And we did it. Then, we had to learn how to establish ourselves, to become powerful, and rich. We had to do this under the watchful eye of a foreign government to the West, and we had to do it, largely, without Spirits. We know hardship. We were made in it. We have lived it, let it put us to sleep at night and wake us before the light of the dawn each day. If our ancestors could see how mighty Arkland has become, they would rejoice. Their dedication and their hard work were not lost but instead have finally blossomed into the great jewel that is the Kingdom of Arkland. We are the most powerful nation on Indagar. We command great armies and the most powerful navy in the world. We are rich. We are well fed. We are ready to create a new world in our image."* - **Previous Baron of King's Crossing, PC 4.**

## Journey at Sea

The original settlers of Arkland came from Montilliare, a large and mostly volcanic continent to the south-west of Indagar. They came by boat, a rag-tag navy put together during a desperate time as a blight causing famine was gripping the people of Montilliare. They were forced to put their sons and daughters on ships, else be forced to watch them starve, and through tears, they had to wave good-bye as they knew that they would never see their children again. They sailed north towards a recently discovered land far away from the plight of Montilliare.

The journey took over a month. With a famine in place, it was very difficult to requisition enough food for this long sea voyage, especially since putting food on a boat for a trip that may yet fail was a difficult sell to the people who were hungry and having to stay behind. Many mothers and fathers gave up what little food they had to help requisition the voyage, knowing that they would likely die for it. The ships were cramped both with supplies but also with people. Although Montilliare had maintained ships for a long time, being connected to the sea a large part of their lives, it had never had need to build a fleet of that size to make a voyage of that degree. As such, most of the original fleet was nothing more than outfitted fishing vessels. Some of the boats sank before their arrival in Indagar, failing to be sea worthy for such a long time, and this caused even more crowding as supplies and people were pushed onto other boats.

The original settlers were mostly very young. This was because their parents had chosen to place them on the vessels to escape the famine. A better part of a generation was placed on the boats for the voyage with but a few aged and wise individuals there to guide them. They brought with them food stores, seeds, tools, and all the equipment that would need to establish a new colony and hope for the best. They also brought weapons, taken as a precaution but also foreshadowing their fate once they arrived on Indagar. The journey began with nearly 100 ships, but by the end, there was just over 80.

## Landing in the Bay of Kings

The great convoy at last arrived at Indagar and sailed into the Bay of Kings. They sailed as far inland as they could, coming to rest in the calm waters of the Arkland Peninsula. They began offloading their ships and organizing the colonists as best they could to begin the hard work of setting up a temporary encampment which would become their homes. A communal government was at first established with the leaders of the convoy taking pivotal positions and directing the young populace to the hard work of construction. Those elder farmers among them immediately organized expeditions inland to try and discover the best places to start the planting of fields. Should they not get seed in the ground within the month, they would not have enough food stores to make it to harvest.

Further, expeditions were formed to scout the land, and it was through these expeditions that they first came into contact with the native people of the Stars of Ixohtl. Unsure of them and unable to speak their language, the settlers quickly learned to steer clear of the native people who were clearly hostile. They had no way of knowing, but the Stars had been watching the settlers since their ships first entered the Bay of Kings, and the native peoples considered these new, dark-skinned people, invaders.

There was little timber available directly on the Arkland Peninsula so the settlers quickly organized themselves to sail back into the Bay of Kings to the area around the King's Wald in order to harvest lumber for construction. Within a week, with strong backs, a make-shift city was constructed on the Arkland Peninsula and the people could stop living in tents or onboard ships.

## First War of the Stars

Unbeknownst to the settlers, who after several months on Indagar had learned to steer clear of the native inhabitants, Star Necaxaual come into their area having received word of foreign invaders in her territory. She came just as winter started, and the harvest had been completed. She led a horde of nearly 20,000 warriors. Her horde was spotted by inland expeditions, and they quickly reported it back to the settlement on the Arkland Peninsula. Realizing that they had no hope of defeating the Star in open battle, with so many young, inexperienced fighters, the knights that had sailed with them to act as protectors drew up a plan to defend the Arkland Peninsula by constructing a wall across the narrow strip of land that connected it to Indagar. One thing that the settlers had that Star Necaxaual could do nothing about was their ships, and with them, they could supply the settlement for a long time through fishing and by sending hunting and trapping expeditions across the bay.

The knights gathered their metal weapons and armor, something that Necaxaual had never seen, and they began to quickly muster and train the young men and women of the colony. The war was visceral and brutal. Star Necaxaual, unwilling to simply starve out the invaders, demanded that they been throw back into the sea. She was confident in her vastly superior numbers that they could crush the invaders via a direct, frontal assault. However, the strong fortification and steel of the settlers would prove to be more than a match as the horse armies of Necaxaual had little advantage attacking a fortification as they would have had on open ground. The fighting was brutal and intense as Star Necaxaual would regularly launch attacks onto the settlement. Realizing that she could not break them directly, the war dragged on for years. When driven back, the people of what was to become Arkland would gather and construct more fortifications further up the peninsula, digging trenches and building walls. In this manner, they slowly gained ground inward, giving them room to expand. Meanwhile, their still functioning fleets served to keep them fed and with plenty of raw materials to continue the fight. Eventually, they had carved out enough land on the peninsula to plant more fields, and as the years of war drifted ceaselessly onward, with Star Necaxaual becoming ever more frustrated, the power of the settlers continued to grow.

Finally, in it's sixth year, having been unable to dislodge the settlers, Star Necaxaual herself led the final battle. She was killed and her people were scattered by the now, well seasoned soldiers who were once simple colonists.

It was during this extremely harsh time that the initial government of Arkland began to truly take shape. As the people needed to be well organized to survive, slowly, the makings of a feudal system began to grow. An elder warrior was nominated the first king, and the knights became his barons. Such was the hardship of the first war of the stars that the people were more than willing to succumb to the political control of a kingdom rather than die at the hands of the Stars.

When the war was won, the settlement had grown as far inland as the end of the Arkland Peninsula. With fortifications in place, the ruling leadership declared this new land to become the site of their new city, named King's Crossing and the Kingdom of Arkland was officially established.

## Ironwood

Six years after the establishment of King's Crossing, the new Kingdom of Arkland had expanded inland a great deal. A new generation of settlers had been born and were approaching their teenage years. Their parents, hardened by the previous decade into driven individuals, taught their young the new way of life and that success would be driven not by hand outs but by simple, unending, hard work. They began establishing a normalcy to life, and the culture of colonist led them onward to more expansion. In 112 BF, lumberjacks who had been arriving for years by boat in the area that would be known as King's Wald were forced to travel far enough inland to find lumber that they discovered the great Ironwood forests. This would change everything for Arkland.

Ironwood is an extremely malleable and very strong type of wood that can only be found in that region. Its uses are myriad as it allows a carpenter to make ornate and very strong furniture and homes, but it also is ideally suited for shipbuilding, something which the settlers were very familiar with. With access to this seemingly miracle material, Arkland constructed a shipyard at the Arkland Peninsula and began the process of bolstering its aging, ragged fleet. They soon discovered that boats built of Ironwood not only could be made cheaply and efficiently but also were nearly unsinkable.

In only a year, the first ships made of Ironwood sailed back to Montilliare which had some years ago overcome its famine. They brought with them Ironwood and word that the Kingdom of Arkland was alive and well. With such fine shipping vessels, the people of Arkland were able to re-establish a trading relationship with their homeland. Many settlers actually returned home, wary of the hard life of the bay. However, many more also now came from Montilliare, seeking a new life in the new world.

 Return to Arkland Back Story

--Neil (talk) 23:01, 18 October 2016 (AST)