A History of the Knights of Dreiton

*P. R. Grimwalker & S. M. Filius-Brogg*

*with Merien Jennings & Co.*

*Produced for and with permission from the Commonwealth and the Free City of Dreiton*

***For Academic Purposes***

*Dreiton, Sidon Square Publishing House*

*Highharveste, 7th dusk, 4852*

The Most Sacred & Ancient Order of the Blackshield, more commonly known as the Knights of Dreiton, has existed as a knightly brotherhood for almost 1000 years. It has its origins in the city of Dreiton itself. Since the conquests of Makrozoia and the arrival of Ren Dreitonicus to the southern Aphelian continent, the history of the warrior-monks has progressed congruently with that of the state of Dreiton. Indeed, a history of the Knights is a history of Dreiton. Even today the brotherhood, amongst the oldest still in existence, continues to have an impact on the Commonwealth as we now know it. This comprehensive work, the first of its kind in scope and goal, will aim to provide a rough overview of the Order's history, from its conception to the modern day, and shed light on its extraordinary nature.

Production of this two-part volume would not have been possible without the consistent support and cooperation from the National Exchange Mandate of the Commonwealth and the Free City of Dreiton, with special thanks to its leading Council members [**REDACTED**], [**REDACTED**], Co-Director Bartomus Flintwalker, and [**REDACTED**], who have all lent personal funds to directly sponsor this project; from the East Kilranian Sovereignty of Bobyrujsk and the city of Aragon, who have provided us unprecedented access to one of Aquila's most complete databases on early Aphelian history; and from the Knights of Dreiton themselves, with special thanks to Lord Commander Octavian Valis and Order Librarian Gorgos Bryn, who likewise provided us access to the Order's own expansive archives and histories.

## Part I: Rise of the Knights of Dreiton

### Dreitonicus and The Nightmare Legion

The Knights of Dreiton are the direct descendants of the Nightmare Legion, a renowned battalion of elite soldiers under the personal command of Ren Dreitonicus, one of Makrozoia's topmost generals. On orders of the Mad King himself, Dreitonicus and the Nightmare Legion arrived in southern Aphelion in 3948 AD, with the goal of settling the shadowy continent. Landing on what is now the Dreitonian Peninsula, Dreitonicus and his legion built a large stone fortress on the beachhead, and the general named the castle as well as the new land after himself. They soon encountered the native Nglui peoples. Primitive Nglui warriors attempted to ward off the foreigners, but were no match for the Nightmare Legion. According to legend, on the night before doing battle with the Nglui warriors, Dreitonicus prayed to the Old Gods for a swift victory, and for a sign of their devotion; he glared up into the dark night sky to see two comets intersect each other, their blazing white tails leaving a perfect cross. The next morning, before battle, he told his soldiers of what he had seen, and ordered them to paint their shields as black as the night sky, superseded with the white cross. The Nightmare Legion, despite being outnumbered 10 to 1, won a crushing victory against the Nglui. The historian Argis of Aragon claims that Dreitonicus spent the next year hunting down and annihilating every last member of the Nglui people, whilst Caronis of Sidon asserts that only the warriors were killed on Dreitonicus's orders - he was more merciful toward the Nglui women and children, who were forced to relocate to Dreiton as means to populate the new settlement.

Dreitonicus made forays into the Rift, an even darker and more mysterious continent across the Dreitonese Straits, from whence sprang rumours of black magic, horrible maladies, and treacherous creatures. His expeditions ended in failure, with several legionnaires lost, as well as his own sanity. Returning to Dreiton, Dreitonicus, upon hearing about Makrozoia's preoccupation with the Khotani, declared himself king of a new and independent kingdom centred on the new settlement. He reigned for almost half a century, nearly destroying Dreiton through his own brutality and ineptitude as brought about by his increasing insanity. Upon his death from brain rot in 3992, his lieutenants, known as 'the Apostles', vied for power in the resulting power vacuum.

During Dreitonicus's reign, Dreiton's population never exceeded a few dozen families. There were no more than one hundred soldiers in Dreitonicus's service at any one time. It is believed that these soldiers either intermarried with the local surviving Nglui peoples, or relied on the occasional arrival of Kilranian civilians as means to keep the new settlement alive. Most habitation was limited to the tip of the peninsula and the area closest to the shores of the South Dreitonese Strait, in the form of small wooden houses built along or inside the walls of Castle Dreiton. Dreitonicus made several expeditions into the dense forests and open plains surrounding Dreiton, in an attempt to find and kill any remaining Nglui settlements. In this he was very successful; it is believed that the Nglui ceased to exist as a distinct people-group roughly ten years before Dreitonicus's reign ended.

### The Apostles and the Reign of Carus the Opportune

On his deathbed, Dreitonicus, amidst his incoherent mutterings and nonsensical ramblings, named his chief lieutenant, the young and popular Carus Carinus, as his successor as king of Dreiton. After the death of the mad general, the high officers of the Nightmare Legion declared an end to Dreitonicus's tyrannical rule; determined not to make the same mistakes, they resolved to divide the power of the kingdom and prevent one individual from holding supreme control over the land. Per Dreitonicus's wish, Carus was named King of Dreiton and tasked with overseeing the rule of the land, whilst another of Dreitonicus's high-ranking officers, Ser Stavros Brennicus, was elected commander of Castle Dreiton. As this was not the same Nightmare Legion that had arrived on the Aphelion shores half a century earlier, and since Makrozoia had declared the unit dissolved due to Dreitonicus's treason anyway, Brennicus's first task was to rebrand. He renamed his unit of knights to 'the Order of the Blackshield of Dreiton,' due to the black shields they had carried since the night of Dreitonicus's vision. It did not take long for the order to become known more colloquially as the Knights of Dreiton.

Brennicus died a few years later, supposedly from the same brain rot acquired in the Rift that had killed Dreitonicus. His successor, another 'Apostle' by the name of Warres Makrinus, made further reforms. He took the title 'Lord Commander of Castle Dreiton' and attempted to increase his own powers at the expense of the king's. This created heightened tension between Carus and the Lord Commander. Makrinus was very elderly (he was one of the original officers of the Nightmare Legion who had arrived in Aphelion almost sixty years prior) and his reign lasted only seven years. His successor, Morvin Nerus, was also old and afflicted with a mysterious illness that caused his tenure to be the same length.

The election of Portius Vhersicus was one done wisely, as he was significantly younger and healthier. However, he continued the policy of his predecessors of expanding the Lord Commander's influence in Dreiton at the expense of the King, which he believed should be a largely ceremonial position. This caused division in the ranks of the Knights of Dreiton, and soon the Carusian loyalists took up arms against Vhersicus and the bulk of the officer corps. After several weeks of bitter infighting, Vhersicus was killed, likely in the heat of battle against Carus's soldiers, though Argis of Aragon claims that the Lord Commander was poisoned on the King's orders. Whatever the case, he was the first Lord Commander to be killed by his fellow knights.

With Vhersicus and many of his loyal officers dead, Carus assumed control of the Knights of Dreiton himself, taking the dual title of King and Lord Commander. He reigned for a decade and a half, until succumbing to illness in his 83rd year. His reign was neither particularly harsh nor benevolent. He was silently seen as a usurper and tyrant by those members of the Order who believed the roles of Lord Commander and King ought to remain separate, as Brennicus and the original Apostles had envisioned. Carus passed on both the throne as well as control of the Knights to his forty year old son, the mentally inept Carus II, called the 'Ill-Bred' due to rumours that his mother was the former King's own sister. Carus II was extremely unpopular, and his reign was cut short when the Order's officers plotted his assassination. In early 4035 the King-Lord Commander was stabbed to death by a cohort of Knights as he slept in Castle Dreiton's Grand Tower. The same officers immediately elected one of their own - Ser Baros Mirbeck - to succeed him as Lord Commander, and also elected a new king: the Aragonese merchant-settler and financial ally of the Order, Grenor Brevent. Styled as Grenor I, he became the first elected king, and the first king not to be a member of the Knights.

### The First and Second Mage Wars

Baros Mirbeck, a shrewd, energetic, Andovian-born knight, represented a new generation in the Knights of Dreiton. The ethos of decay, tyranny, and infighting that had plagued the Order since its conception now seemed to dissipate. King and Lord Commander enjoyed lengthy reigns side by side, with few disputes between them. Dreiton itself gradually began to grow, and so too did the Knights' own numbers. With the order of state secure and peace in Dreiton more or less guaranteed, the Knights under Lord Baros 'the Wise' were able to focus on their original goals: protecting Aquila from the dark evils that plagued the southern continents. All ideas of venturing into the Rift were scrapped due to a lack of funds, as well as the general fear that was associated with the shadowy continent. Besides, the Knights had enemies on their own soil, in the trees and mountains just beyond Dreiton's limits.

The mages of Aphelion were not unique from other mages found elsewhere in Aquila; it's believed that the covens and cults which had thrived in southern and mid-Aphelion had arrived a few centuries prior from neighbouring Voshe. Argis of Aragon reports that upon his arrival in 3948, Dreitonicus had fought a small cell of mages which had allied themselves with the Nglui warriors. But for the most part they had watched from hiding as the Knights had built up Dreiton on the strait shores, and the Knights would only hear occasional rumours of mysterious beings residing outside Dreiton, practicing sorcery, alchemy, necromancy, and a number of other black magicks. By the mid-late 4000s, however, they had gotten the attention of the Knights of Dreiton, when a Dreitonese farmer reported to the Order that a mage from the forest had caused all his crops to fail and had brutally mutilated and scorched all of his cattle for ceremonial purposes. That same year, over the span of several months, six young Dreitonese maidens were found dismembered along the banks of the River Dreiton, and the son of a wealthy landowner was stricken with a mysterious malady which caused his limbs to turn black and fall from his body. The incantations of the sinister mages were immediately suspected. Hoping to quell the increasing public hysteria, Lord Mirbeck declared a crusade against the south Aphelion mages in 4066, in what would become known as the First Mage War.

Mirbeck himself led a small expedition into the Occult Forest, and established a small fortified base-camp on the site that would eventually become the town of Barsina. The Knights captured a duo of mage foragers, and forced them to lead them to their coven, located in one of the forest's deep and treacherous grottoes. The subsequent battle would prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Order; almost the entire mage coven was destroyed, but several Knights fell in the intense battle that pitted sword and shield and arrow against virulent curses and fatal charms. Mirbeck himself was badly burned by a mage's fire. He was removed back to Castle Dreiton, and his lieutenant, the hot-headed Ser Jorvik Maripol, carried on with the campaign. With the remaining Knights, he drove deeper into the forest to find and rout out more covens, but did so with very minimal success; supplies were running short and the mage-filled forest was incredibly hostile. The Knights returned to Dreiton, and the First Mage War ended in 4068.

Old and unable to recover from his burns, Lord Mirbeck was confined to Castle Dreiton for the few remaining years of his life, but he remained a wise and popular leader until his death in 4071. King Grenor I died the very next year. Mirbeck's successor, the elderly Lord Verat, oversaw the election of King Keric I, who, although of Aragonese blood, was the first King born on Dreitonese soil. Verat's term as Lord Commander lasted only ten years before he died of natural causes. He was succeeded by Maripol, known as Lord Jorvik 'the Foreigner' due to his roots in far-off Vicis. The veteran of the First Mage War made clear his intention to renew hostilities against the mages, whom he still deemed a paramount threat to Dreitonese society. In 4083 he began the Second Mage War, marching a force even larger than the first even deeper into the Occult Forest. It is believed he got as far as the foothills of the Kantoon Mountains. The mage covens, up until now wishing to avoid meeting the Knights in open combat, descended upon Jorvik from the mountains in waves and decimated the Order's force in an event now known as 'the Battle of Jorvik's Folly'. Jorvik and the surviving Knights fled back into the Occult Forest, but were regularly harassed by the mages all along the retreat to Dreiton. Jorvik managed to return to Castle Dreiton, but died mysteriously and suddenly a few years after the campaign's end; some sources indicate it was a venomous hex set on him by a mage years ago that killed him, whilst others suggest the Lord Commander was poisoned by his officers. Whatever the case, the Second Mage War ended in 4085 in total defeat for the Knights of Dreiton.

### Era of Reform

Despite the failure of the Second Mage War, the Knights quickly recovered and resolved to set aside the 'Mage Question' for the time being. Focus was instead put on strengthening the Order itself. Lord Commander Feris Brax oversaw a substantial reconstruction of Castle Dreiton; the castle's fortifications, now well over 100 years old, were updated, and the Great Hall was expanded. His successor, Lord Renmor Ilferant, restructured and improved the Order's ranking systems and modernised the castle's arsenal. Wishing to carry on the legacy of Ren Dreitonicus, Ilferant is better known, however, for making the first attempt in over a century to sail to the Rift. He set out in 4109 at the head of an expeditionary party consisting of over a dozen Knights. None of them were heard from again and no official cause of death is reported for Ilferant.

It is Ilferant's successor, Lord Holsig Sartis, that would be remembered as the greatest of the early reformers. One of the few surviving veterans of the Second Mage War, Sartis was a formidable fighter but even more renowned as a thinker and philosopher. The learned Knight spent much of his youth as a scholar's apprentice in his native Belial before enlisting in the Knights of Dreiton as means to learn more about the Order. He quickly rose through the ranks and, upon being declared Lord Commander when Ilferant was deemed lost, applied much of his knowledge in the fields of law, politics, diplomacy, and warfare to improve not only the Knights of Dreiton, but the Kingdom of Dreiton as a whole. Because of this 'overstepping', he was often at odds with the new king, Elsid II.

Arguably Sartis's greatest forte was in legal codification. Firstly, he rewrote the Order's officers' code, which, among several other modifications, called for trials by military tribunal. It also slackened punishment for oath breakers in the Order. In Dreiton itself, he did much to improve the welfare of the kingdom's non-patrician citizens and peasants (which, by now, numbered roughly 2000 souls). Wishing to lend a voice to the town's poorest and most struggling inhabitants, he laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the Citizen's Concordat, a lower-chambered assembly which allowed the peasantry a say on vital decisions, including the election of the king. Through these efforts between Lord Commander and the vox populi, Dreiton's first modern legal code was established. Today it is known commonly as the Sartisian Code, and elements of it still exist in Dreiton's present constitution.

Elsid II, wary of royal authority slipping from his fingers, conspired with a number of conservative officers of the Order, who were also unhappy with Sartis's sweeping populist reforms. One night in 4124, during a conclave of the Order's officers, four of the royalist conspirators rose from the table, approached the aged Lord Commander, drew their daggers, and stabbed him to death. Sartis's own son, Lorrick Sartis, was killed in the ensuing melee, as was the Lord Commander's deputy and likely successor, Jeres Mallistor. The four conspirators were eventually apprehended by the loyalist officers, and the very next day Orry Taraesus, Sartis's longtime steward, was elected the new Lord Commander. His first order was the public execution of the four assassins, as well as three other officers indicted in the conspiracy. He then opened a secret investigation into the role of the king in Sartis's death. Elsid II, fearing that Taraesus would uncover evidence of his involvement, attempted to flee from Dreiton, but his ship mysteriously sank as it was leaving the harbour, and his corpse was found amidst the shipwreck. A few years passed before evidence came to light that Lord Taraesus had sabotaged the king's vessel, directly causing his death. Knight and Dreitonian alike were disgruntled at the Lord Commander, whose brutal hand and extra-judicial killings were perceived at the most as lust for greater power, and at the least as a betrayal of Sartis's ideals of harmony between the Order and the King. Ashamed, Taraesus abdicated the Lord Commandership and left the Order in 4133 - the first Lord Commander to do so. He lived out the rest of his days back in his native Xolumir, before dying five years later when, ironically, his pleasure barge sank some ten miles off the Kilranian coast.

Other notable reformers from this era included Lord Moris Longveil, who laid the groundwork of the Order's navy, and Lord Marien Saaklar. In addition to being the first Lord Commander hailing from outside of Kilran, Saaklar is well-known for standardising the Order's uniform, which is still in use today: steel armour of a dark lustrous grey, worn with the appropriate coloured cape.

### The Third Mage War and the Reign of Rhasar the Cruel

In 4149, Lord Commander Warres ly Carrent once again opened hostilities against the mages of South Aphelion. At the head of an expeditionary force some 100 strong, Carrent marched deep into the Occult Forest. They located and refortified the derelict encampment first built by Lord Mirbeck nearly a century earlier. Carrent called the area around the small base 'Barsina', as the wooded marshy region reminded him of a small hamlet of the same name located outside of his native Aragon. The expeditionary force spent four years based in the encampment, continuously raiding the vicinity for mage covens. Argis of Aragon, Carrent's biographer and historian of the Order, had accompanied the Lord Commander on the expedition. Whilst the Order's official archives indicate that at least two dozen mages were found and killed between 4149 and 4153, Argis notes Carrent's constant frustration during the campaign for its perceived failure. Argis also estimates that roughly 40 men, or almost 50% of the expeditionary force, died due to starvation or disease during the four years. The historian himself was wounded in an attack by an unknown forest creature whilst out hunting for food with a group of Knights, and had to return to Castle Dreiton.

In 4153 Lord Carrent ordered the encampment in Barsina to be abandoned and for the Knights (now numbering less than 50) to march northwest through the Occult Forest. They proceeded along the banks of the River Rus toward the town of Omsk, the only other major settlement in southeast Aphelion. Up until that point contact between the Omskites and the Dreitonians had been nearly non-existent, but rumours were abound that the small city and its surroundings was a haven for several mage cults. When the Knights were halfway there, they were ambushed by a large coven of mages - finally, Carrent saw his opportunity to meet them in combat. In his impetuous haste for glory, he ordered the Knights of Dreiton to charge headlong at the robed sorcerers. The result was a catastrophe for the Knights. The so-called Battle of the Rus ended with only a handful of Knights able to escape. Lord Carrent himself was slain in a vicious duel with several mages, and he thus became the first Lord Commander to die in battle. His body was recovered three weeks later when a Dreitonese forager found it floating down the River Rus not far outside the city. The Third Mage War ended in total defeat.

Lord Carrent's brother, Arsin ly Carrent, succeeded him as Lord Commander, in a short and largely uneventful reign. Following him was the previously mentioned Cydonian knight, Lord Saklaar, who enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign. The Lord Commander to succeed him, however, would prove to be one of the most infamous in the Order's history.

Rhasar Vint was the Xolumir-born son of an Aquilan imperial minister, who had sent Rhasar to join the Knights of Dreiton when he was twelve years old. He had risen through the ranks quickly, obtaining knighthood in only three years (and without the need of a gate coin), and every Lord Commander had commented on the young man's promising potential. He was one of only fourteen surviving veterans of the Third Mage War, and there was a notable difference in his demeanour when he returned from the Battle of the Rus. The young knight grew increasingly paranoid and became prone to occasional fits of rage, but he nevertheless remained in the good graces of the Order's high command, for he was named officer in 4165. When Lord Saklaar passed away in 4171, Vint was one of the top two contenders to become the new Lord Commander, along with his fellow officer, the Tempine knight Ser Jon Harbold. When Vint won the election, Harbold challenged it by bringing Vint's mental state into question. The next morning, Harbold's body was found lying at the base of Castle Dreiton's walls. He had apparently fallen whilst on patrol.

In his short reign, Vint ruled the Order and the city of Dreiton with an iron fist. When the feeble King Elsid III passed away in 4172 (though there were rumours, of course, that the king's death was anything but natural), Vint forced through the election of the toddler King Alasor II, whom could easily be manipulated by the Lord Commander (more rumours still suggested that Alasor was Vint's own bastard son). Any Knight that had voiced opposition to the election was found dead in the following weeks, and it did not take long for the officers to realise who was behind the murders. The height of Vint's lust for blood, though, came in 4174 during the Peasant's Revolt. A loose coalition of farmers, miners, and fishermen, gathered in Dreiton's central square to protest Vint's increased tax plan imposed on the city's poorest citizens. Accompanied by twenty mounted Knights, Vint ordered the crowd of peasants to be 'disbursed or killed'. Vint and his Knights charged into the mob, slashing and slaughtering dozens. The massacre soon turned into a battle as the demonstrators retaliated, and then into a riot. Angered from the slaughter of protesters, the poorest citizens of Dreiton took up arms that night, and burned down nearly half the city as Knights, on their Lord Commander's orders, were sent in waves to quash them. Lord Vint himself, having retreated back to Castle Dreiton, watched the city burn from atop the Great Tower and, according to the Andovian historian Cassius Res, 'shot flaming arrows into the heavens, whilst laughing gleefully.'

After the revolt was quelled, any feeling of goodwill toward the Lord Commander immediately vanished in the Order. The leading officers conspired for his murder, and in 4176, Lord Vint was strangled to death in his bath by his steward, who had collaborated with the conspirators. He was succeeded by the leader of the conspiring officers, Ser Heron Wysim.

Lord Wysim immediately set about undoing all of the damage done by Vint to Dreiton and the Order, but only six weeks into his reign, was suddenly struck with a mysterious illness. He died four days later. At 49 days, his reign as Lord Commander was the shortest in the history of the Knights of Dreiton. It is likely he had contracted the illness whilst personally overseeing the reconstruction of Dreiton in the dead of winter, but others were certain that it was the ghost of 'Lord Rhasar the Cruel' come to seek his revenge.

### The Fourth Mage War and the Reign of Matos the Good

Lord Wysim was succeeded in 4176 by Paron Ferringold, notable as the first Lord Commander to formally establish diplomatic relations between Dreiton and the small town of Omsk to the northeast. In 4185, the two city-states exchanged envoys. Included in the Dreitonian delegation was a young Tempine Knight named Matos Carigol. Ferringold reigned for 13 years, before dying of wounds gained in a riding accident.

More dramatic tension befell the Order in 4196 when the new Lord Commander, Jon Presfield, conspired with a group of his officers to assassinate King Alasor II, and merge the roles of King and Lord Commander. The plot was unveiled by another officer, the same Ser Matos Carigol, who, with Alasor's support, successfully unseated Lord Presfield in a popular coup, and, at the urging of the King and the majority of the Order, hesitantly became Lord Commander himself. Rather than execute Presfield and his officers for treason to the kingdom, Carigol mercifully allowed Presfield and his officers to resign from the Order and go into self-imposed exile. The incident became known as the Corvine Conspiracy, as all five of the officers conspiring with Presfield hailed from the Sivisean city-state of Corvus. Through the controversy Carigol emerged as Lord Commander, and would remain in that role until his death almost four decades later.

Lord Carigol hailed from Belial. Unlike most other Knights, he came from a family of fishermen, rather than nobles. He first came to prominence as part of the delegation to Omsk, and single-handedly negotiated Dreiton's first foreign trade and military agreements with that city. In 4199, after being elected Lord Commander, word was received of a major regime change in Omsk. Previously, the Omskites had been tolerant toward (and even occasionally a safe haven for) mages, but a bad crop season and string of mysterious deaths in Omsk drove the people into a frenzied phobia. A new government was put in place with the singular goal of driving out the mages from Omsk and its rural territory, which stretched from the eastern Aphelion coast to the base of the Kantoon Mountains in the interior. Wishing to take advantage of the alliance made with the Dreitonians years earlier, the Omskites reached out to the Order for military assistance against the mages, which Lord Carigol promptly offered. The Fourth Mage War had begun.

Leading a force of 250 Knights, Lord Carigol rendezvoused with the Omskite host near Barsina, which had grown over the years into a small town in its own right. The Omskites, numbering close to 1000, were under the command of Omsk's national leader, Consul Malvis Stormwalker. Command of the combined army was given to Carigol, who wasted no time scouring the Omskite countryside for rogue mages. A heavily fortified coven was discovered near the base of the Kantoon Mountains, many days' march west of Omsk. In the final weeks of 4212, Lord Carigol laid siege to the mage fortress, which eventually capitulated after fierce resistance. Several mages escaped deeper into the mountains. According to Geoffrey of Albion, an argument broke between Carigol and Stormwalker after the siege, over whether or not to pursue the fleeing mages. The large and unseasoned Omskite army was unfit for mountain combat, so the Knights under Carigol resolved to give chase on their own. The Omskites remained garrisoned at the captured mage fortress, which they renamed Placia, from the Omskite word *Plachori*, or “victory”.

Once in the Kantoon Mountains, Carigol realised the need for a new base of operations from which the Knights could continue their search. Over the next three years the Knights toiled as they constructed a sizable fortress nestled atop a flat mountain summit. Its high towers offered strategic visibility over the range, but more importantly, its thick walls provided protection amidst the treacherous and ominous mountains. The fortress was named Kantoon Keep, but after Lord Carigol's death in 4235, it would be renamed in his honour.

The Kantoon Mountains were then, much as they are now, an unsettled and mysterious place. They were known to be a source of dark magic, thus making them an attractive place for mages. As the Knights would soon discover, the biggest source of dark magic came from the mage citadel of Fhara Vos, a fortified coven-town built partially into one of the range's tallest peaks. In 4219, after years of scouting the mountains with little to show for it, the Knights located the mountaintop fortress and attacked. In the ensuing Battle of Fhara Vos, the Knights and the mages were equally matched. The Knights had learned the tactics of the mages, and how to best defend themselves against their curses and incantations. At Carigol's insistence, more reliance was put on archers and mounted knights rather than foot soldiers. But this strategy became void as the fighting intensified. Carigol himself was thrown from his horse and resorted to fighting blade in hand, using his hefty black iron shield to stop fire blasts. After several hours of fighting in the city, Lord Carigol led the charge on the mage's central citadel. His deputy, Ser Geralt Crix, was the first to enter, and personally slayed the cult master in single combat.

The defeat of the mages at Fhara Vos was the first victory for the Order since 4067, and would also prove to be their most triumphant victory. Only a dozen or so Knights had fallen, compared to upwards of a hundred mages. Fhara Vos itself was razed and looted of treasures, but its civilian population was permitted to leave peacefully and settle elsewhere. Carigol returned to Dreiton a hero, and a month later, received the Omskite consul in Castle Dreiton, in what would be the first visit of a foreign head of state to the city. Consul Stormwalker reasserted Omsk's alliance with Dreiton.

The remainder of Lord Carigol's reign was one of peace. He dedicated many years to improving Dreiton's infrastructure, strengthening the Order's defences, and constructing additional farms and houses (in what is today the New Husavik quarter) as means to accommodate the city's modestly growing population. He also oversaw the election of Olev Grenwalker as King Olev I, a wealthy but elderly Dreitonian patriarch of a vast family of which five members would subsequently be elected kings themselves, thus establishing a stable dynasty. Lord Matos 'the Good' died peacefully in his bed in 4235. Many feared that the death of the influential and much-loved Lord Commander would signal a time of strife and infighting, but on the contrary, Carigol had insured that he left Dreiton a secure society - at least for now. His reign would only mark the beginning of an age of prosperity.

### The 'Augustan Century'

Following an ill-fated expedition to the Rift, and the untimely death of Lord Commander Kyrin Morfell, Geralt Crix was elected Lord Commander in 4242. The Mage War veteran and 'Hero of Fhara Vos' was extremely popular amongst Knight and cityfolk alike, and was the first of five consecutive Lord Commanders to hail from the Sivisean city of Mt Augusta. For this reason, the five are commonly called the Augustan Lords, and the collective era of their reign the 'Augustan Century' (though they only reigned for 74 years altogether). Though a time of almost constant warfare, the Augustan Century would prove to be the closest thing resembling a golden age in the Order's thousand-year history. It would, however, immediately give way to a time of constant crises.

In 4246, word was received that the mage covens of central Aphelion had coalesced and declared a new state based in the recovered ruins of Fhara Vos, rebuilt as the new citadel of Rhelan Vos. Their leader, Vesparion the Black, warned of an imminent invasion of Dreiton and Omsk. Thus, that same year, Lord Crix declared the start of the 5th Mage War. He marched out with a force roughly the same size that Lord Carigol's had been, and reinforced the Omskites at Placia. But a week later he received a plea for help from Kantoon Keep, since renamed Carigol Keep, which had maintained a small garrison of about 50 Knights. The mages had anticipated a strong army at Placia, so instead had laid siege to the less-defended mountaintop fortress. Crix arrived a week later and lifted the siege, routing the mage army, but not before Carigol Keep's commandant, Ser Rolin ly Treusse, had been killed in the fighting. Crix's men were exhausted from the battle and the weeks of marching, so rather than press on to Rhelan Vos, they returned to Placia. Lord Crix left his son, Ser Harrald Crix, in control of Carigol Keep with 30 additional men and immediately withdrew. A second mage attack, this time led by Vesparion the Black personally, targeted Placia, but was thwarted by the Knights and Omskites in the climatic First Battle of Placia. Suffering from a lack of funds and manpower to carry on the campaign, Crix convinced Placia’s Omskite commander to make peace with the defeated Vesparion. The end of the war was declared in 4249, with no territorial gains for either side.

Crix did not return to Dreiton for the rest of his reign. He spent his time in Placia, at Carigol Keep, or traversing the Aphelion heartlands, erecting new defences and fortifications for future conflicts against the mages. In 4257, he was ambushed and killed by mages in the forests between Barsina and the Kantoon Mountains. He was succeeded by his deputy and fellow Augustan, Emmanuel Sant, then stationed at Placia. Rumours were abound that the Omskites had grown wary of Dreitonese dominance in the area, and had arranged for the mages to kill the Lord Commander, but Lord Sant blamed the Mage Lord, Vesparion's son and successor, Tyzurion the Red. Sant declared the start of the 6th Mage War and rode out with a sizable force toward Barsina, intending to find and defeat the mages who had killed Crix. Lord Crix's son, Ser Harrald, in a fit of rage at his father's death, marched toward Rhelan Vos with the entire garrison of Carigol behind him. When Sant learned this, he immediately turned his army around and made quickly for the mountains to prevent Harrald's folly. With the small force of Knights, Ser Harrald laid siege to the mage citadel, tricking Tyzurion into believing his numbers were larger than they were. However, in 4258, Tyzurion the Red gave battle to Crix's small force of Knights, at Sin Dhar Pass just outside Rhelan Vos. For several hours the Carigol garrison managed to hold the much larger force of mages at bay, until, by miraculous fate, Sant arrived at the last minute and, with superior numbers, overwhelmed the mages. Tyzurion was killed, as was Ser Harrald Crix, but Lord Sant had won the Battle of Sin Dhar Pass, and the city of Rhelan Vos capitulated. With the war thus over, Sant entered Dreiton for the first time as Lord Commander, and was unanimously confirmed in this position by his officers. He reigned for another ten successful years, which he mostly dedicated to curtailing the growing trend of piracy in the South Dreitonese Straits, by strengthening the Order's naval capabilities. He died of an unknown disease in 4269.

The week after Lord Sant's death saw the election of the new Lord Commander, Herod Tyrolt. Later that year, the elderly Consul Stormwalker of Omsk, a longtime ally of Dreiton, was ousted in his city in a bloody coup. The perpetrators were members of an extremist religious cult who abolished Omskite republicanism, replaced it with an autocratic junta, and immediately took a belligerent approach toward its neighbours. Stormwalker and his family sought refuge in Dreiton and were welcomed in the Castle by Lord Tyrolt. Due to this and ongoing disputes of borders and ideology, the new Despotate of Omsk declared war on Dreiton before the year was over. They launched a surprise attack on Barsina, a small independent town populated by both Dreitonians and Omskite republicans. Realising that Barsina was only a week's march from Dreiton and that meeting the numerically superior army in the dense Occult Forest would be risky, Lord Tyrolt resolved to rapidly fortify Dreiton and prepare for an invasion of the city itself; wooden walls were hastily erected, levies were raised among the city's peasantry, and the Order's iron reserves were melted down for additional weapons and armour. Finally, in early 4271, the Omskite forces were at Dreiton's gates, making them the first enemy army to attack Dreiton directly. Rather than lay siege (which was risky in the cold winter), the Omskites decided to assault the city, but failed after three days and many waves to breach the walls. Lord Tyrolt himself stood atop the walls, firing arrows, and on the second night, personally led a small sortie into the enemy camp to successfully burn their siege weaponry. After the third night, and a final failed Omskite push, the 1st Battle of Dreiton was over as quickly as it had started, as the enemy forces returned hastily to Omsk. An uneasy peace was forged. Exactly ten years later, however, the 2nd Omskite War broke out when the Despotate once more declared war on Dreiton. This time, Lord Tyrolt had time to gather a sizable force of Knights and citizen men-at-arms alike, and marched from Dreiton to meet the Omskites in open battle. After two full years of indecisive skirmishes and strategic manoeuverings in and around the vast woodlands between Dreiton and Omsk, the two armies finally met at Verdant Ford, a crossing in the River Rus roughly thirty miles west of Barsina. The Battle of Verdant Ford was the largest and bloodiest in Dreiton's history up to that point, and resulted in the deaths of several high-commanding officers of the Order, including Lord Tyrolt's brother and deputy, Ser Verus Tyrolt. Lord Tyrolt himself was badly wounded from an arrow to his shoulder and had to be removed from the field, his arm later amputated. Despite these casualties, the Dreitonians eventually prevailed, and the entirety of the Omskite army was either killed or captured. This included the Despot of Omsk, Rhen Vailsword, who was returned to Dreiton in chains, and later died in the dungeons beneath Castle Dreiton. Barsina, which had, over the span of the two wars, suffered the brunt of Omskite attacks, was demarcated as Dreiton's sphere of influence and repopulated with Dreitonian settlers. However, much to the Dreitonians' disappointment, the capture of the Despot of Omsk failed to anticipate a change of government in Omsk, and a new despot was declared in his place. The 2nd Omskite War had ended, but in a similar fashion of uneasy peace.

Tyrolt died a few years later due to the festering of his amputated arm, and was succeeded by yet another Augustan officer, Belorian Montes. Despite constant tensions with Omsk, the first half of Lord Montes's reign was one of great peace and prosperity for Dreiton. He constructed the Bridge-to-cross-the-River-Dreiton, and for the first time development began on the far bank of the river. Without doing much to upset the Citizens' Concordat or the complaisant King Olev IV, Montes also passed several edicts granting the office of Lord Commander even more powers, essentially reducing the king more so to a ceremonial mouthpiece. Montes, however, was well liked by Knights and Dreitonians alike, and his popularity among the latter increased tenfold when he allowed, for the first time in the Order's history, the admittance of native Dreitonians to the Knights of Dreiton.

However, the defining event of Lord Montes's reign came in 4295, when the 3rd Omskite War erupted. The Despotate of Omsk had spent the last decade recovering from the previous disastrous war, and finally saw the opportunity to strike in two simultaneous attacks. Barsina was sacked once more, an egregious action which spurred Lord Montes to mobilise a large force out of Dreiton quickly. A second Omskite assault was aimed at Carigol Keep, the Order's second holding, deep in the Kantoon Mountains. Though the Siege of Carigol lasted several weeks, the Keep's commandant, an Augustan knight by the name of Ser Haras Ordant, eventually succeeded in driving the Omskite forces off. In the planned counterattack against the Omskites, Lord Montes resolved to do something no other Lord Commander had done in previous wars: utilise the Order's growing navy. He led an army roughly 1200-strong up the eastern Aphelion coast toward Omsk, hoping to draw in the main Omskite force. Sure enough, in early 4296, the Omskites and the Dreitonians fought the Battle of the Stony Shore, named for the unique location of the conflict, not far from Barsina. Though the two sides were evenly matched, the sudden appearance of two dozen Dreitonese fireships turned the battle strongly in Montes's favour. The rout was quick to come, and the fireships pursued the retreating Omskites for over a hundred miles, slowly picking them off as they fell back to Omsk. When asked whether the Order's army should return to Dreiton, Lord Montes, according to the historian Gershwin Brybrook, supposedly spotted an Aphelian silver eagle (long a revered creature in Dreitonian culture) fly north toward Omsk. Given this sign, and the great victory he had just won, the Lord Commander thus decided to press on to Omsk. The Order's navy blockaded Omsk's harbour, thus preventing any escape from or reinforcements to the city. Two weeks later, the Dreitonian army appeared over Omsk, then only defended by the remnants of the despot's shattered army. The Dreitonese assault on Omsk was rapid and over in a matter of two days. Every Omskite soldier who did not immediately surrender was killed. The despot, Drusus Fraywalker, much like his predecessor, was returned to Dreiton in chains, only this time executed in the public square. Omsk itself was left intact, and per an agreement with Consul Malvis Stormwalker's son, Rilo Stormwalker, the city and all its holdings would become an official protectorate of Dreiton, with Stormwalker serving as its viceroy. Upon his death - it was agreed - Omsk would formally become part of Dreiton proper.

Viceroy Rilo Stormwalker never made it to Omsk, for he fell from his horse whilst en route there in 4297. Thus the Kingdom of Dreiton acquired its first foreign territory, and it would certainly not be its last.

### The End of the Augustans and the War of the Pretenders

Lord Belorion 'the Great' was succeeded in 4299 by the commandant who had successfully defended Carigol Keep from an Omskite invasion: Haras Ordant, the fifth and final of the Augustan lords. He spent much of his reign rebuilding the war-torn city of Omsk, which had been renamed to the Dreitonified Olbia. The people of Olbia, weary of more than two decades of oppressive rule by the cult-led despotate, were more or less in favour of the Dreitonian takeover of their country, and welcomed Lord Ordant when he visited the city in 4301. Construction of a small fortress in the heart of the city, intended for use by the Knights of Dreiton, was completed five years later. In acquiring this new territory, Dreiton also gained borders with two other foreign states: the Free City of Alcyon, located on a peninsula to Olbia's northwest, and the Sultanate of Dashari, whose border began opposite the River Alsir and straddled the entirety of Aphelion's great northern desert. From his court in Olbia, Lord Ordant received dignitaries from both nations, thus establishing relations.

In 4307 the aged King Olev IV passed away. Though each monarch had been accordingly elected by the officers of the Order, the previous four had all been members of the same Grenwalker clan, among the wealthiest and oldest in Dreiton, and as such the election was mostly nominal in nature. Keeping to this dynastic trend, Olev IV's young grandson, then only fourteen, was confirmed as King Olev V by the Knights. Keeping the Grenwalkers in power had been attractive to the Order as they were largely complaisant: in exchange for the security, prosperity, and power that the Augustan lords had brought upon Dreiton, the Grenwalker kings were willing to curtail their own powers at the benefit of the Lord Commander, until they were mere figureheads in their own kingdom. However, the ambitious Olev V immediately made it known that he would fight for power to be restored to the King. Crafty and shrewd despite his youth, the King quietly made alliances with groups of officers and knights within the Order, who had grown tired of Augustan supremacy. Incredibly, among those officers conspiring with the King against the Lord Commander, Brybrook identifies Lord Ordant's own half-brother, Ser Cassius Ordant-Valon. Over the next four years, tensions grew between the King's followers (the 'Royalists') and those loyal to the Lord Commander (the 'Ordantines'). Though the majority of the Order supported their Lord Commander, King Olev V had a larger number of civilian supporters. By 4311, the tension reached a boiling point. At the King's orders, four royalist officers - including Ser Cassius - broke into the Lord Commander's quarters one night, dragged Lord Ordant from his bed, beat and stabbed him mercilessly, and threw him from the tower. The assassins fled to the royal palace in the city. At an emergency conclave of the remaining officers, Ordant's deputy Carus Tyrforth was proclaimed Lord Commander. He immediately declared war on King Olev V. For the first time in history, the Knights of Dreiton, as well as Dreiton as a whole, entered a state of civil war.

In an attempt to assert his control over the Order, Olev V called for a separate election of Lord Commander. Ser Yegor Brimm, the leader of Ordant's assassins, was proclaimed as Lord Commander the same night Lord Tyrforth was. History would remember him as the first 'Lord-Pretender', in the great internal conflict dubbed the 'War of the Pretenders' due to the divide in the Order itself. In mid 4311, with several more Knights having defected to him and proclaiming Brimm the rightful Lord, King Olev V had effectively taken over control of the city and raised a peasant army with which he would storm Castle Dreiton. The siege of the castle was long and bloody, and Brimm was killed during the intense fighting, to be replaced by the second Lord-Pretender, Jarvis Forstone. Eventually the royalist forces prevailed, and Lord Tyrforth and all remaining Ordantist Knights escaped by ship to Olbia, a Dreitonese port untouched by the war. With the bulk of the Order's navy in tow, they were welcomed in the city. The Olbian militia committed itself to the Order's cause, and for the only time in their history, the Knights of Dreiton were based not in Castle Dreiton, but the Olbian Keep. Whilst an army to retake Dreiton was being assembled in Olbia, Lord Tyrforth himself rode to Carigol Keep. The garrison of Knights there had also remained loyal to the one and true Lord Commander, and immediately followed Tyrforth back to Olbia. Incredibly, along the way, the Knights even convinced a stray coven of woodland mages to join their cause. Back in Olbia, a substantial army had been raised, and the Knights had also hired contingents of Dashari and Alcyonite mercenaries. In early 4312, this army marched from Olbia to Dreiton.

The irony was not lost on the Royalists. Lord-Pretender Forstone, a veteran of the 1st Omskite War, recalled how in that conflict just forty years ago, the people of Dreiton thwarted an army invading south from Omsk, and how history would surely repeat itself. Through use of propaganda, the Royalist Knights were able to coax most of the city's population to take up arms. When the Ordantist force appeared, the Royalists saw the walls of Dreiton besieged by Olbian regulars, forest mages, Dashari freeriders, and Alcyonite sellswords, but not Tyrforth and his Knights. As the battle outside the walls commenced, a dozen ships waving the black and white flag of the Order appeared on the horizon, bound for Castle Dreiton. Tyrforth landed with all of the Ordantist Knights with him, easily took the undefended castle, secured his place there, and sent the Carigol garrison into the city to capture the royal palace. Lord-Pretender Forstone realised the deception too late, but nevertheless ordered his Knights into the city to deal with Lord Tyrforth, leaving the Dreitonese men-at-arms under King Olev to hold the wall against the Olbian army. The streets of Dreiton ran red with blood as Knight fought Knight for control of the city. Tyrforth and Forstone confronted each other outside the castle, and did battle personally, with the former eventually prevailing. When King Olev V learned of Forstone's death, he knew the battle was lost and retreated from the city with only a few of his followers in tow. He named one of his last remaining loyal officers of the Order, Ser Vikkor Ashwane, as the new Lord Commander in Forstone's place.

Lord Tyrforth wasted no time. He immediately gave chase to Olev, who had fled north to the small village of Taswell, established some decades ago as a Dreitonese lumber outpost. A week later, the two sides did battle a mile outside of the village. The Battle of Taswell was over in an hour, as the far superior forces of Lord Tyrforth's Knights crushed Olev's shattered Royalist force. Tyrforth's deputy, the Aragonese knight Ser Kyrin ly Verisa, boldly rode down the King as he attempted to flee from the battlefield on horseback, and brought his head back to Tyrforth. Lord-Pretender Ashwane, however, had managed to escape, his whereabouts unknown. Tyrforth himself had been struck with two arrows and several sword slashes during the course of the battle, and he succumbed to his wounds a day later. Ser Kyrin 'the Kingsbain' assumed the role of Lord Commander, which was confirmed upon him when he returned to Dreiton a few days later. Though Ashwane lived, Lord Verisa declared the War of the Pretenders at an end, and immediately set about rebuilding the shattered city and society of Dreiton.

In late 4312, Alasor III was elected the new King of Dreiton. The wealthy trade merchant had been a staunch ally of the Ordantists during the war, and promised to submit his kingly authority to the Lord Commander. To ensure such a crisis never came to light again, the Treaty on Royal Dominion, which put in official writing for the first time that the King was inferior to the Lord Commander, and which stipulated that any king who violated this agreement was hereby dethroned, was signed by Lord Verisa and King Alasor III. Any surviving Royalist officers of the Order were expelled from the Knights of Dreiton, free to become citizens of the city or return to their homelands. The Dreitonian citizens who had sided with the royalists in the conflict were granted amnesty out of the cause of patriotism, and in a few years Dreitonian society seemed to have returned to normal. For their heroic part in the war, the people of Olbia, hitherto inferior in status to the Dreitonians, were elevated to full citizens of the kingdom and Olbia itself made a royal city second only to Dreiton. Lord-Pretender Ashwane continued his claim to the Lord Commandership, even whilst in exile after the Battle of Taswell. He had escaped far to the north to Dashari, where he was welcomed as a political refugee. All attempts made by him to gather a force large enough to march on Dreiton were in vain. Still using the title 'Lord Commander', he died of poisoning in 4319; it is unknown whether his Dashari hosts had grown tired of him and killed him, or whether Lord Verisa's spies had finally tracked him down.

### The First Imperial Era

Despite the bloody drama of the War of the Pretenders, the Kingdom of Dreiton remained elusive and irrelevant on the world stage. Seldom was the fledgling state in south Aphelion thought about by the people of far away Kilran, Sivistys, Audax, or Occa, except as the final destination for all young second-born nobles wishing to enlist in the Knights of Dreiton, or for petty convicts doing the same. From the perspective of most, Dreiton remained a shadowy, forgotten corner of Aquila, good for little more than serving as a buffer between the civilised world and the shadowy realm of the Rift. Nevertheless, after the acquisition of Omsk and much of the southeastern quarter of the continent, this did not prevent contemporary Dreitonians from referring to the decades that followed as the city's first 'imperial era', and the men of the Order from trying to capitalise on this fervor of conquest. The reigns of the Lord Commanders following the War of the Pretenders were characterised by political stability bordering on domestic insipidness, and the urge to expand Dreiton's regional influence further. This was done with varying degrees of success.

Lord Gyorgos Haak, who assumed leadership of the Order following Verisa's death, renewed interest in the Rift. Of course, it had long been the Knights' stated original goal to protect the world from whatever dark evils would emerge from the shadowy southern continent, but up until now no such dangers had revealed themselves, and, with the exception of a few intrepid Lord Commanders, the Rift had been largely ignored. But after a bad harvest brought about by drought in 4329, only to be followed the next year by a series of horrible storms that ravaged the city for months, several Dreitonians considered these strange and disastrous weather patterns to be the result of dark magic at work in the Rift. Chief among these was Lord Haak, who, in 4332, led an expedition to the feared continent. After weeks of sailing the rough and stormy waters of the South Dreitonese Straits, land was spotted and the Order's small fleet came ashore on the Rift. Haak founded two small settlements - Tyrforth and Verisa, named for his two predecessors - and immediately set about learning the mysteries of the continent. He sent out convoys of up to a dozen knights to explore the Rift's interior, but when months passed and none returned, he ceased further expeditions. Attempts were made by the Order's cartographers to map the continent's rigid coastline, but this too was met with no successful result. The land upon which the two settlements had been built was rocky and the soil infertile. No living things had yet to be spotted, least of all wild game, and even the black seas seemed to be void of any fish. The Knights in the two settlements began to die of starvation, especially when food shipments from Dreiton failed to arrive on schedule. Many others died of mysterious diseases, likely the same brainrot that had taken Lord Dreitonnicus several centuries prior. Only a few years after arriving, Lord Haak deemed the expedition a failure and opted to return to Dreiton with all his remaining men. By 4340, both settlements had been completely abandoned, left to decay in the harsh environment. Despite the attempt at colonisation being a failure, Haak was the first Lord Commander since Dreitonnicus to journey to the Rift and return to Dreiton alive. He was the first to successfully build two settlements on the shadowy continent, however temporary they might have been, and his endeavours would inspire his successors.

Both Lords Haak and Verisa had also succeeded in finalising peace treaties with the Mage Kingdom, both signed at a summit of the Mage and Order leaders at Carigol Keep. For the first time in Dreiton's history, Mage and Knight engaged in formal diplomatic relations. The political landscape of Dreiton's dwindling interior sorcerers changed, however, in 4343 when the large Mage Kingdom split amidst a bloody civil war. The Ancient Mage King Arsifex the Grey, ruling from his citadel in Rhelan Vos, died that year, leaving behind two twin sons in their early twenties. The brothers, Kherion the Green and Alborys the White, both claimed to be the successor of their late father. Kherion was eventually defeated in battle by Alborys, but managed to escape with his followers and establish his own kingdom in the vast Occult Forest between the Kantoon Mountains and Dreiton. Thus was created the Arcane Mountain Kingdom and the Arcane Forest Kingdom, as called by the Dreitonians. Eager to expand his new territory, Kherion looked to the forestlands of Dreiton proper as well as its Olbian holdings. In 4345, the 7th Mage War was officially declared when Kherion's army ambushed and took the town of Placia.

Attempts by the Forest Mages to convince the Mountain Mages to attack Carigol Keep failed, and soon the Order's Carigol garrison appeared over Placia and laid siege in the hope of winning back the town. The new Lord Commander in Dreiton, Lord Jerod Selva, sent a small relief force toward Placia to meet and aid the Carigol garrison, but this was ambushed and routed by Kherion's mages. With the main bulk of the Order's force under his command, Lord Selva marched north into the Occult Forest, raiding and burning every mage settlement he came across. Only a few weeks passed until the Knights took the Forest Kingdom's capital, the small forest village known as Grotomere, colloquially called 'the Grotto' by the invading Knights, due to its name but also the fact that the Mage citadel was built into a labyrinthine series of dark stone caverns, hidden beneath the leafy underbrush. No sooner had they taken the mage capital when word was received that the Carigol garrison, under the command of one Ser Baros Verrt, was decisively defeated by Kherion the Green outside of Placia. With the garrison obliterated, and Carigol Keep thus undefended, Kherion abandoned Placia and marched north into the mountains to take the fortress. En route he was met by a Mountain Mage army under the command of his brother, King Alborys the White, who had hitherto been neutral in the 7th Mage War, but now resolved to hold up the alliance his father had previously made with Dreiton. The dramatic Battle of Kantoon pitted mage against mage and brother against brother, but ultimately the forest mages of Kherion the Green were defeated, and Kherion himself was captured and burned alive by the Mountain King.

Whilst Lord Selva was still making his way up toward Placia, Alborys marched to the Olbian town to receive the Lord Commander, whilst also sending a small detachment of mages to secure Carigol. When Selva arrived and learned of Kherion's demise, the Lord Commander and the Mountain King were faced with the task of deciding the fate of the Arcane Forest Kingdom. Per Alborys's proposal, Dreiton would regain Placia and receive the entirety of Kherion's kingdom, including Grotomere and the other parts of the Occult Forest already conquered, which would essentially double the size of Dreiton's territory. In return, the Mountain King asked only for Carigol Keep. Seeing as the garrison had just been destroyed, it was Lord Selva's opinion that the mountain fortress had outgrown its purpose, and it would be costly to try to revive the old keep any further. He thus agreed to the terms and returned to Dreiton. Reception of the Treaty of Placia was mixed: King Alasor III and most Dreitonian citizens praised the Lord Commander for greatly expanding the kingdom's realm, but many within the Order itself felt betrayed that the Lord Commander had handed off Carigol Keep, a strategic base of great historical importance for the Knights, to the mages. The tension within the Order eventually forced Lord Selva to resign from the Lord Commandership in 4361, and he lived out the rest of his days as a humble woodsman in the Occult Forest, on territory he had conquered for the realm fifteen years prior.

The death of Makrozoia, the 'Mad King' hitherto thought to be immortal, in 4353, did little to affect the day-to-day functioning of Dreiton, which had long been politically disconnected from the Aquilan Empire. Lord Selva, however, did send envoys, many of whom were Knights of Dreiton, to the various new nations and city-states that emerged in the Empire's collapse, as a way to foster diplomatic relations abroad and ensure the continued steady flow of foreign conscripts to the Order. He also met with the Sultana, leader of the Dashari people of Aphelion's vast northern desert, in a diplomatic summit in Olbia. This was the first time that the leaders of the two nations met. Relations were normalised, and in 4360 two young Dashari warriors became the first of their people to become Knights of Dreiton.

Selva was succeeded by the aged Isidor Arhen, who had long served as the Order's cleric superior. A devout man who cared more for the gods than for warfare or even governance, he was quickly nicknamed Lord Isidor 'the Pious' by the Knights who served him. He was perhaps best known for the numerous religious public projects he undertook around Dreiton, including laying the groundwork of the Quartz Temple, today the city's most remarkable place of worship. Just five years into his reign, the Lord Commander embarked on a pilgrimage, far to the north, going first to the ancient Aquilan capital of Xolumir (since renamed Apollyon), and then to the sacred isle of Basilica. One of his lieutenants, the Providental knight Ser Adriaan Grenfield, was left in command of the Order in Arhen's absence. When word was received that Lord Arhen had died during his pilgrimage, Grenfield was immediately confirmed as the new Lord Commander, thus becoming the first Occan to hold that title.

### The Taswell Mutiny and the Reign of Iryn the Bloody

Under Grenfield’s command, the small, semi-independent village of Taswell , long under Dreitonian suzerainty, was officially annexed by the kingdom in 4370. The Lord Commander appointed one of his lieutenants, Ser Iryn Araxes, to govern the new territory alongside a small detachment of Knights. Certainly one of the Order's more active Lord Commanders, Grenfield spent most of his reign outside of Dreiton, leading diplomacy missions to Alcyon, the Dashari Marches, Rhelan Vos, and the small, newly-declared Kingdom of Dorama, north of the Kantoon Mountains. During one such extended absence in 4376, Ser Araxes and a cabal of other ambitious officers plotted to take control not only of the Order, but the entire Kingdom. It would take a year before they had garnered the resources they needed to launch the coup, with Araxes using his position as governor in Taswell to radicalise the village's inhabitants. Finally, one night in early 4377, the conspirators struck. Araxes had previously dispatched an urgent message to Lord Grenfield claiming that Taswell was under attack by a coven of rogue mages. When Grenfield hurried to the small village to ward off the mages, he discovered too late that the dispatch had been a lie. He and the few Knights riding with him were massacred by Araxes and his followers. The collaborators' plan was coordinated so that before news of the Lord Commander's death could spread, Araxes's co-conspirators in Dreiton would have already secured the city. Only hours after Grenfield's death, just before dawn, a young Sidonese knight named Haralt Narva slipped into the royal palace and cut the throat of the sleeping Dreitonian king, Elsid V, who had been elected the new king by Grenfield only two years prior.

Araxes rode for Dreiton accompanied by his Taswell guardsmen, and was immediately declared King and Lord Commander upon his arrival, making him the first person in over three centuries to hold both titles. Several officers in the Order, chief among them the stalwart Albion-born Ser Richard Fenian, remained true to the deceased Lord Grenfield, and challenged Araxes's power-grab, but not enough that the ensuing conflict could be considered a civil war in the Order. Fenian and his fellow loyal officers escaped Dreiton aboard one of the Order's frigates, and sought refuge first on Canine Isle (an island not far south of Dreiton), before continuing on to Dashari. There they hoped to build up an army to take back Dreiton from Araxes the usurper, but this plan never came to fruition. Loyal to Dreiton, with whom they had just signed a peace agreement a few years prior, the Dashari sultana only entertained the Knightly refugees for a few weeks, before having them killed. When Fenian's head was sent back to Araxes, the Lord Commander-King, who had wanted to kill the 'traitor' himself, was reportedly so angered that he severed a fellow Knight's arm at the shoulder in his rage.

And thus Iryn Araxes reigned as Lord Commander and King for 14 years, considered by many historians to be amongst the most brutal in Dreiton's history. Any ranking members either of the Order or Dreiton itself who opposed his reign, and had not fled with Ser Fenian, were rounded up and executed for conspiracy and treason. Following the political purges, several other harsh decrees were put in place by the Lord Commander-King, mostly aimed at Dreiton’s struggling peasantry. Farmers who failed to reach their annual harvest quota, merchants and craftsmen who were unable to pay the King’s outrageously high taxes, and masons who didn’t complete their massive construction projects in the short time allotted, were killed en masse for ineptitude and ‘sabotaging the state’. When, in 4386, the people of Taswell (the newly acquired territory from whence Araxes had launched his coup) rose up in rebellion, the Lord Commander-King had every able-bodied man in the village killed, thus ensuring its poverty for years to come. Common memory turned to the tyrannical reign two hundred years earlier of Lord Rhasar ‘the Cruel’; Ser Alasor Trebonnis, the Order’s librarian at the time, called Araxes ‘Rhasar’s natural successor… only far more severe’ due to his control of Order and kingdom alike. Trebonnis was executed in 4387, on accusations of attempting to overthrow Araxes.

The height of Araxes’s madness came in the final years of his reign, when old age only exacerbated his cruel insanity. In 4390, he declared a surprise war on the Arcane Mountain Kingdom, up until then a complaisant ally of Dreiton. He accused the mages, of whom he had a lifelong distrust, for cursing Dreiton and causing years of misfortune. Thus the 8th Mage War began. With a large force at his side, the elderly, psychotic Lord Commander-King marched toward Taswell, where a mage army under the leadership of the Mountain King, Mherigesoris the Red, met him in a disastrous battle. Nearly half the Order’s army was destroyed, and the remaining half retreated whilst Mherigesoris took Taswell. In 4391, whilst regrouping his forces in Barsina, Lord Commander-King Iryn ‘the Bloody’ suddenly died. Though Araxes’s death is attributed to natural causes, many still suspect that the aged and bloodthirsty tyrant was smothered to death in his tent, by a disillusioned officer.

### The Eighth and Ninth Mage Wars and the Reign of Haralt the Fair-Haired

Araxes was succeeded as both Lord Commander and King of Dreiton by his loyal - but younger and more aptly-minded - lieutenant, Haralt Narva, the same Knight who had personally slain King Elsid V fourteen years earlier. Unlike Araxes, Lord Narva was an able commander and generally well-liked; like Araxes, he also had no love for mages and had no intention of ending the 8th Mage War. A brutish but effective general, he spent the following year at Barsina rebuilding the army shattered under Araxes, calling up arms not only from the Order, but militias from Dreiton, Olbia, Stormhal, and Barsina itself. In late 4392 he retook Taswell from the mountain mages in a bloodless force of surrender. He then pressed on into the Mountain Kingdom, hoping to meet the main army of Mherigesoris the Red. A staunch revanchist, Narva’s main goal was not the Mage capital of Rhelan Vos, but rather Carigol Keep, the mountain fortress sold to the Mages some forty years earlier, in what was considered by Narva and several others as one of the more embarrassing moments in the Order’s history. In 4394 he laid siege to Carigol for two weeks, before it capitulated and the Knights once more reclaimed their keep. Mherigesoris, who had wholly expected the Lord Commander-King to try to take Rhelan Vos and so had positioned his army there, marched on Carigol Keep and laid siege to it himself. Knowing that the Knights did not have the munitions to survive another prolonged siege, Lord Narva opted for an immediate battle. The Battle of Carigol was bloody and lasted for two days and two nights, but ultimately resulted in a Dreitonian victory. On his deathbed, the mortally wounded Mountain King, Mherigesoris the Red, negotiated a peace agreement with Narva for the good of the two kingdoms, and the 8th Mage War came to a close.

But Narva did not return to Dreiton. He would ultimately become the first King and Lord Commander never to step foot in Dreiton during his reign. Instead, he set up court in the newly reclaimed Carigol Keep, ordering his men to rebuild its damaged walls, and to strengthen and modernise its fortifications. He ruled his kingdom from there, wishing to keep a wary eye on the Mountain Mages, as well as on the uncertain ambitions of the Doramans and Dashari.

The Mountain Kingdom, now under the leadership of Mherigesoris’s son, King Rhavoxis the Brown, had been severely crippled by the destruction of the mage army and the retaking of Carigol, and Narva’s constant presence made the arcane kingdom fear for its continued existence. The Lord Commander-King was fully aware of Dreiton’s imminent dominance over the Arcane Mountain Kingdom, and in 4402 he decided to capitalise on the situation. Citing the reported reemergence of mage covens in the Occult Forest, as well as the settling of mountain mage clans on Dreitonian territory, Narva declared the start of the 9th Mage War, only eight years after the previous one had ended.

The war only lasted half a year. Rhelan Vos fell to Narva’s army in an anti-climatic whimper of surrender. Few mages resisted the Dreitonian invasion; those that did were quickly put to the sword. The Mountain Kingdom fell, and Rhavoxis, the final Mountain King, was sent back to Dreiton in chains and paraded through the capital’s streets, before dying in the dungeons of Castle Dreiton. All mage territory now fell to Dreiton, and for the first time the small kingdom now controlled the entirety of the Kantoon Mountain range. Lord Narva was hailed as a great conqueror, but rather than return to Dreiton for a triumph, he split his time between Carigol and the subdued citadel of Rhelan Vos, overseeing progress in the kingdom’s newest territory. He would reign for another decade, before succumbing to frostbite he had gotten whilst hunting in the snowy cliffs surrounding Carigol Keep.

## Appendices

### Appendix I: Lord Commanders of the Knights of Dreiton

*Note: Those marked with an asterisk indicate Pretender-Lords.*

### Appendix II: Membership of the Knights of Dreiton by place of origin

*Note: Beginning in the fifth year of the lord-commandership of Baros Mirbeck (4040), a census of the Knights of Dreiton was carried out regularly every 20 years, with the total membership and place of origin recorded for every knight. No census was carried out in 4380, as the census was suspended during the purges of King Iryn I. Prior to 4040, we have been able to construct accurate censuses for sporadic years due to reliable information available.*