Kingdom of Thyssen

## Thyssen

A kingdom in northern Magnia, situated in the valleys of the Lowan Mountains and the north-western highlands of the Great Magnian Plain. Thyssen is ruled by King Esterad Ambrose, his coat of arms, a bull's skull, bone white with golden horns, on a field of black.

Thyssen is known for its valleys and rugged mountains, concealing systems of caves and caverns, and with only a few, easily-defensible passes through the mountains, making most of the country nearly impenetrable to outsiders. To the east, Oxcross blocks any entry from Carinthia, to the west, defenders can easily deny Corveaux access through Wendish Way, and in the south, a linear defensive earthen work of guarded walls and trenches, 30 kilometres long and 3-6 metres high, separates Thyssen from the Westerlands.

## Culture

Thanes are often pale with blond, golden, or red hair and blue eyes. They are typically taller than Central Magnians and more broadly built, and are considered independent and fierce. Thanes worship the Menkhu Faith, which is believed to have originated in the Thyssen lands, and they are infamous traditionalists, value strength, and keep close to their ancient roots. Their king or queen is elected by a great council, called a Folkmoot, where each candidate may try to sway their fellow lords with speeches and gifts, until a majority of all landowners in the country has agreed on their next ruler.

## Economy

Although Thyssen is not a fertile land, it is perhaps the richest in Magnia. Its mountains and crags are laden with gold and silver, and from mines all over the country pour the finest metals and gemstones, which have made it one of the most formidable economies in the world, and Kastamir Castle the most extravagant in Magnia. They also export amber, lumber, walnut, and charcoal.

## History

### Early History

In the late 8th century, the Lowan Mountains were inhabited by four distinct tribes, the largest of which were the Thanes, named after the Thane river from where they originated. All four tribes were prominent explorers, traders, and warriors, who were first noted by other early civilizations when they began to undertake large-scale raiding and conquering in Central Magnia between the 8th and 11th. Many scholars believe the motivation for their sudden expansion was an inexplicable lack of women. By boat, they sailed down the Nirou River and into Turokh's Eye and down the Wrynova River, where they pillaged and plundered the people on the banks and coastlines and made it as far as the Skahazadani coast.

The first ruler of Thyssen, Ydreth Bloodeye, established her kingdom on the Thane river in the year 962, at Kaest Myr, meaning Queen's Rock, upon which Kastamir Castle stands today. Her brother Eyke was chosen as her successor in 986 and by the year 1013, he had managed to gather all the mountain clans under his dominion. He died the year after during an invasion of Carinthia while his eldest son Estyr, was far to the south, going up the Kurow River with a fleet of ships. The invasion failed and when Estyr was unable to attend the Folkmoot, his brother Vistyr was chosen as King of Thyssen.

With the help from Myroson Bulwer, Estyr rallied a new fleet and returned to Carinthia in 1015, where the Carinthians allegiance were divided between their current Duke, his sons, and the other nobles. Before Estyr arrived at the capital of Kurow in 1016, the Carinthian duke died and his son Loran was chosen by the lords of Kurow, while most of Carinthia pledged allegiance to Estyr, who laid siege to the city until he and Loran struck an agreement. Loran would retain the lands around the Kurow river, while Estyr would rule all of the Riverlands. Estyr began the construction of a castle at Svorza to make his seat and when Loran died not long after, Estyr was made king of all of Carinthia. In 1018, he cemented his power after marrying Loran's widow, Emma. Back in Thyssen, King Vistyr died in 1024, leaving the country without a ruler, and when Estyr journied to Kastimir for the Folkmoot, the Kingdom of Vichin, afraid of the prospects of a combined Thyssen-Carinthian Kingdom, took advantage of Estyr's absence to attack Carinthia in 1025, but Estyr managed to repel the Vichinians in 1026.

### Reign of Estyr I and Estyr II

After the Folkmoot of 1025 chose Estyr as King of Thyssen, he divided the country into four earldoms: Soulmark around the Thane river, and with Orkmont in the east, Karpland in the south, and Rurak north of the Skyrling Pass. This decree passed with only little complication, between the Bulwers and Harkons over ownership of Orkmont. Estyr had declared Myroson Bulwer's daughter Veera as Earl, but the Harkons insisted that parts of Orkmont were their ancestral land. In 1030, Melyan Arkon raised a small army to march on Bulwer Keep, but was met with a much larger force led by Estyr's son Estyr and Melyan was defeated and killed at the Battle of Thoorn Field.

He continued to reign over both Thyssen and Carinthia until his death 1035. During the following Folkmoot, some lords spoke for Magnus Arkon, who was in the Westerlands at the time, but instead Estyr's son was chosen by majority vote. Even so, the leader of the army that had killed Melyan Arkon in 1030 went together with select noble lords to bring the young Magnus home to rule. For the next three years, Estyr II was unable to leave the country for fear that Magnus might invade to exact his revenge, and in the meantime, the Carinthian nobles grew increasingly estranged to their foreign King, whom they had yet to meet. In 1037, Carinthia broke from Thyssen and chose Emma the Oracle as their queen. Estyr II began to prepare an invasion fleet, but he died suddenty in 1042, before he could use it. Magnus Arkon then returned and took control of Thyssen by right of conquest, until 1047 when Earl Adam Ambrose of Wrymouth asked Carinthia for help and together, they expelled Magnus from Thyssen. Afterward, Adda Ambrose was almost unanimously made Queen of Thyssen in the largest ever Folkmoot.

### First Ambrose Dynasty

Queen Adda's reign was said to be long and peaceful. She focused less on expansionist policies and more on consolidating her own realm and established many of the greatest mines, still active to this day. Adda's son, Estyr III was chosen as King in 1082. Unhappy with his mother's lack of attempts to re-join Carinthia with Thyssen, he raided the Riverlands in 1085 and planned for another invasion to take the throne of an aging Queen Emma. He called up an impressively huge force, but began to realise that the taxes he had imposed on the Thane peasants and nobles to fund his army had brought his people to the verge of rebellion. It took him weeks to arrive where his fleet had assembled by Turokh's Eye, and when he arrived, he found only Bulwer men still there. Estyr thanked the Bulwers for their patience, then went from lord to lord, outlawing any man who refused to pay a fine of a farmer's yearly wages, and was forced to flee to Oxcross with a growing army of rebels at his heels, where he was killed in 1086 after a lengthy siege.

Estyr's nephew Vistyr was elected King in a year later and managed to re-establish a strong Ambrose authority over Thyssen. During his reign, Vistyr II began to forge alliances with the Maegars and Vichinians and took the name Viserad to better fit in at the courts in Central Magnia. His successor was Marienne, whose mother was Corvian, which led to a violent but short-lived civil war, until her cousin Vlodomyr the Great stabilized the country in 1131 with his election at the Folkmoot. Vlodomyr built Thyssen into a major power in Magnia which began to compete with Kingdoms of Metina and Vaskja for trade and influence over Central Magnia. He briefly gained control of the southern bank of Turokh's Eye in 1168, but lost it again in 1182 and died shortly after.

His successor, Vlodomyr II became king in 1202 and led several unsuccessful attempts to claim land in Carinthia and Vichin but after a series of Thane defeats, he gave up on this endeavor in 1227. After that, Vlodomyr turned to internal affairs of his kingdom, attempting to institute a new feudal system in which he would give property to his vassals in turn for servitude to him and his descendants. This would increase the power of his families, but effectively render the Folkmoot obsolete, so his attempts faced great opposition from the nobility and the Menkhu church. By 1241, the nobility had forced the king to write up a constitutional charter, considered the first Thane Law, to protect the sacred relation between royalty and lords, and the people's right to choose their ruler.

### Krystof the Disastrous

After his death in 1245, Eyke II Meckheart was chosen as king and ruled peacefully until his death in 1276, when his brother Krystof Meckheart was chosen as King, simply because the earls wanted a weak royal power to control. At his coronation, he was forced to sign a charter greatly limiting his right to impose taxes and disallowed him from making any decision regarding the realm without the consent of the nobility. Despite signing the charter, Krystof ruled as if did not exist. He imposed unrealistic taxes on the few people he had been allowed and began a policy of expansion to gain new territory in the war-torn Westerlands, where he quickly came into conflict with the Golden Horde.

In 1326, Krystof was overthrown by an alliance of Thane noblemen. He was forced to abdicate the throne and was exiled, while the 12-year-old Vlodomyr III Goors was made king, with Earl Veera Bulwer as Queen Regent. Earl Esterad Nierdomir took Rurak for himself, against the agreement he had struck with the other barons in the region, and squabbling over the rest of Thyssen broke down the alliance which had forced Krystof out. In 1329, the growing chaos gave Krystof a chance to seize the throne. Suddenly, with the help of Anton Naggy, he marched on Heath with an army of 2000 Westermen. However, they were quickly routed by Melianne Ambrose. After a peasant uprising in Rurak, which was ruthlessly crushed by Lord Niedomir, the people of Thyssen begged for Melianne to rule them, but Krystof returned a second time to take the throne by force. After his death in 1332, Thyssen had no ruler for eight years and was instead controlled by the earls, until Melianne was made Queen of Soulmark at a Folkmoot in 1340 and slowly began to reclaim the land, aided by an outbreak of Weeping Pleague. In 1360, she finally reunited all of Thyssen into one Kingdom.

### Second Ambrose Dynasty

Queen Melianne was a competent diplomat and throughout her reign, she forged strong ties with Carinthia and Corveaux, and settled several generational disputes between the noble houses of Thyssen. She was revered across the kingdom. Not a single war was fought on Thyssen ground and it was a great national tragedy when she died in 1412. Her successor, Eyke III, known as the Kneeler, lacked Melianne's skill and thus directly caused the breakup of nearly every alliance made by his mother. He managed to retain a standing relation with Corveaux, but only because Melianne had married his daughter to the young King Louis XIV of Corveaux.

Although he was known as an amiable and jovial man, Eyke was the laughing stock of the Thane court, weak willed, eager to please, and too trusting. He was jokingly called the Hornless Bull by his vassals and it became common sport to see how far they could push him and how many gifts they could shake from him. In 1418, he allied himself with Anton Nagy III of the Golden Horde as a show of strength, but only two years later, during the Golden War, Vichin defeated the Horde and King Florence II forced Eyke to swear fealty to him as punishment for backing Anton Nagy. Thus, Eyke became known as Eyke the Kneeler. He was allowed to retain a certain level of autonomy, but was denoted from King to Prince of Thyssen.

### The Thyssen War of Succession

On the 21st of August 1428, at the start of the Western War between Vichin and Corveaux, an army of 20.000 Corvians under Count Ludwick Valois marched on Thyssen to attack the Vichinian provinces. The night before they planned to cross the border, Prince Eyke fell from the walls of Kastamir Castle and the following morning, his 13-year-old son Esterad declared that he would allow the Corvian troops to pass through his lands and into Carinthia, if they were to recognise Thyssen as an independent Kingdom once again. Louis XIV agreed and Esterad was later chosen as King at the Folkmoot, over his cousin Rickard Ambrose, who looked weak to the Thane lords, having recently sustained severe injuries during a tourney on the Isle of Pyor. Unhappy, Rickard and his father Lancel Ambrose rode home to Wrymouth and called their banners in open rebellion, declaring Rickard the true King of Thyssen and initiating a brutal ongoing conflict called the Thyssen War of Succession.

## Administrative Divisions

Thyssen is divided into four Earldoms, exactly as they were during the reign of Estyr I, and each ruled by an Earl. Unlike in Corveaux, all titles of landowners are hereditary and only the king is chosen by majority vote. The earldoms are:

* **Soulmark,** ruled by Alexander Nydomir.
* **Karpland,** ruled by Anna Meckheart.
* **Orkmont,** ruled by Elysan Bulwer.
* **Rurak,** ruled by Rickard Ambrose.

Each earldom is divided into a number of baronies. Currently, Rurak is in open rebellion against the crown, supporting Rickard Ambrose as the King of Thyssen.