Noslith

**Alignment:** Lawful

**Capital:** Agrawel (81,662)

**Notable Settlements:** Ayles (1,824), Bregate (26,131),
Caer Sól (65,330), Deminster (3,762), Maycott (4,130), Mirfield (1,094),
 Newport (10,452), Ryfall (4,180), Swindon (2,606), Swampton (1,200),
Wallow (2,896)

**Ruler:** King Richard II of the Great House Arvendon

**Government:** Feudal Monarchy

**Languages:** Common

**Religion:** Solism

Set against rugged highland and ancient woodland, the realm of
**Noslith** sits astride the Sea of Saints, one of the largest kingdoms in
the Shrinelands. The arable land and many rivers around the holy Lake
Loinnir have allowed for its great prosperity, while the massive
cathedral city of Caer Sól has attracted crusaders and servants of God
from across Frey to the rising kingdom. Although this has made the realm
 a symbol of civilization’s return, Noslith is not without its
wildlands, and its great mountains and old forests are home to numerous
humanoids and dangerous monsters, making knights-errant and adventurers a
 common sight.

## History

The known history of Noslith stretches back to the days after the
collapse of the Shadowmaker’s empire. After the rise of the Phoenix and
the resulting First Crusade, only the crusaders were left to trudge
through the ashes and rebuild. As in the North, many of the crusaders
used their war spoils to found small feudal kingdoms of their own. The
former slaves of Shadowthrone had little choice but to serve their new
crusader kings, for great danger lurked still in Frey, danger even
greater now that the old order had fallen utterly.

#### Bregate and Agrawel

Among the crusader kings were Islwyn Gardner and Elric Thrussell, who
 founded their neighboring realms of Bregate and Agrawel in 732 and 790,
 respectively. Islwyn formed his kingdom with holy guidance from St.
Arathir, one of the first cardinals of the reformed Solist church, who
sought to protect the holy city of Caer Sól from foreign invasions. When
 Agrawel began to rise, Islwyn II rode to Elric’s palace, and the two
formed a valuable alliance; successfully defeating multiple Nordling
invasions. Islwyn II would later marry Elric’s daughter, who would give
birth to Aeron.
Throughout most of the ninth century, the two kingdoms would be allies.
The only exception was the occupation of Bregate by Ghamorz, in which
Elric II refused to aid Aeron in defeating his army of ten thousand
orcs. The end of the ninth century, however, brought the end of peace.
In 907, the heroic warrior Ardal Arvendon would rise to save the city of
 Agrawel from the powerful necromancer and lich, Theseus; in the
aftermath, Ardal staged a non-violent coup and usurped the throne from
Elric IV, who had failed to defend his kingdom. Ardal then set off to
form the kingdom of Noslith; by 913, Ardal would be successful in
uniting much of the Shrinelands, conquering Bregate and stretching his
realm from the Cumber River in the north to the Savage Mountains in the
south, and from the shores of the Sea of Saints in the west to the
Ethereal Mountains in the east.

#### The Arvendon Dynasty

After Ardal’s death, the Arvendon dynasty was established; some of
its greatest kings would include Doran, the secondborn son of Ardal who
lead the Second Crusade against demihuman religion before his
assassination at the hands of the Black Brace; Alastar, who ruled in
1097 when the Phoenix arose and joined Dragomir III
 in his Third Crusade; Rodric, the mad tyrant who took the throne at the
 end of the Third Crusade who laughed while Noslith burned until his
brother Gerwyn slew him; and Robert, who successfully defeated the
united barbarians in the Andarian Wars.
Today, Richard II of House Arvendon rules as King in troubled times. The
 Half-Moon Heresy, a full-blown invasion of the Shrinelands by
lycanthropes, nearly tore the realm apart, while the first outbreak
decimated the kingdom’s revenue and population. Only fourteen when he
took the throne, Richard II is now nearing fifty, and now relies more on
 his courtiers, while his new Archmage, Tegwen, who was controversially
appointed after the end of the first appearance of the Rasping pox, is
granted even greater agency. Now, the return of the plague spells doom
for the kingdom’s squabbling aristocracy and its beleaguered peasantry.

## Government

Noslith is split into numerous counties – the largest of them the
twin dukedoms of Bregate and Agrawel. Each noble is titled and the
feudal lord of their estate, and weaker nobles often fight bloody wars
to increase their holdings. The clergy also has an active role in
governing Noslith and form the principal advisory body to the monarchy
and the aristocracy.
Noslith’s ruling house is House Arvendon, who has ruled the kingdom for
all its five-hundred some years of history. Currently, Richard II, who
took the throne in 1490 after the death of Richard I, rules as sovereign
 monarch; however, he has no male heirs, and Noslith follows the writ of
 primogeniture, meaning his daughter Calanthe would not be permitted to
take the throne lest Richard II erased the writ. Nonetheless, Noslith
was once ruled by queen Nuala after Doran’s assassination, and lead the
kingdom to greater prosperity and out of the violence of the Second
Crusade.
Richard II, now forty-five, is by all accounts a good and just king;
under his rule, Noslith has faced and defeated two dangerous threats
that could have destroyed the kingdom outright. Richard II is known for
his booming voice, friendly demeanor and gaunt face and thick dark hair.
 He still stands an imposing figure, even moreso with his enchanted
longsword Tyrung.

## Gazetteer

**Agrawel:** The metropolitan port of Agrawel is a city
of rich culture and beauty that masks a darker side underneath. In the
shadow of Castle Arvendon writhes poverty and plague, victims of
feudalism and constant warfare. Elric Thrussell founded the city of
Agrawel, yet his family lost the crown to House Arvendon, who forged the
 kingdom of Noslith with the fires of conquest. The city sprawls around
the Harbor, which enjoys the waters of the Sea of Saints and the
Westmoor River. Furthermore, the coastal plains of the Hinterlands are
ideal for pastoral farming, and the salt deposits beneath the city are
perfect for mining. While Bregate is known for its scholars and
religious vitality, and Newport for its music, dance, and wine, Agrawel
is known for its architecture, its poets and jesters, knights and
jousters, and its overwhelming sense of romance.
Today, Agrawel is ruled by the loyal Duke Eldred of House Thrussell from
 the Thrussell Manor; presided over by King Richard II and Princess
Calanthe themselves. The nobility distances themselves from the city yet
 there is hardly a week where the markets are not interrupted by a royal
 parade. Meanwhile, at the chapel of Carmarthen, built overlooking the
river, the Archbishop Harald presides over the clergy of God’s kingdom.
Agrawel’s market district is host to many guildhalls, including the
headquarters to the Guild of Artisans, a massive trading company. In
spite of being a bastion of royal wealth, power is still held by one or
more powerful cults and criminal elements lurking like roaches beneath
noble feet.

**Border Wood:** The huge Border Wood is a major forest
and an intersection between Noslith, Traewyn, and Wraemore. Far removed
from most major settlements, this dark patch of wilderness is
essentially a blank spot on the map to most of the common folk, although
 its local inhabitants know better. The Border Wood is host to numerous
gangs of highwaymen, some fringe cults, and dangerous beasts the former
give a wide berth to. It is also the site of numerous fallen battlements
 from wars past, ruins of elven cities long abandoned by their peoples,
and a great and mysterious citadel known only as the Lost Keep. Many
bandits have attempted to claim the Lost Keep for themselves; its
current inhabitants are the dangerous gang called the King’s Men, lead
by the false king Kirk the Jester. The King’s Men are one of the fastest
 growing bandit tribes in the wilds, despite numerous attempts by
Noslith to cull their numbers or remove their leader.

**Bregate:** One of the oldest cities in the
Shrinelands, Bregate was founded by Islwyn Gardner some two hundred
years before the founding of Noslith. It survived an orc occupation and
an illegitimate regency, but could not survive Ardal Arvendon, who
conquered the city after Elric IV abdicated the throne of Agrawel.
Today, it is notorious for its expansive slums, cyclically rebuilt and
destroyed in the shadow of its massive churches, priories, and noble
estates. Surrounded by high, white walls, its three districts of
Godsgrove, Lowport, and Highcrest are almost cities in and of
themselves.
Aside from its numerous thieves guilds, Bregate is also home to a
powerful branch of the Infernal Pact, hidden somewhere in the city’s
shadows, who slowly encroach on the Duke’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, old,
grieving, and incapable, Duke Duncan Gardner has been unable to stop
them, focused too much on the disappearance of his daughter, the young
and beautiful Dulcinea, leaving most of the rulership of the plagued
city in the hands of its squabbling noble houses and its newly arrived
court sorceress, the dark-haired and alluring Aeronwen.
Bregate is home to the sole university of magic in Noslith, the Arcane
Academy, headed by the capricious elf wizard Anduil Amonwel. Conflict
waxes and wanes between the Goldsworn (the elite city guard of Bregate),
 the Arcane Academy, the clergy, and the populace at large, sometimes
peaking with massive, district-wide riots. Fortunately, even against a
backdrop of chaos, Bregate maintains at least the outward appearance of
law and order.

**Caer Sól:** Few know how, or why, or when the ancient
citadel of Caer Sól was built against Mount Loinnir, or even who built
it, except perhaps the seven Cardinals who live in the deepest part of
its halls, for much of the castle’s ancient archives were plundered or
lost when Shadowthrone rose. Yet, when the brilliant Phoenix was born –
or reborn – within the holy city of the sun god Sól, none could deny its
 brightness, and the resulting First Crusade that destroyed the
Shadowmaker and dismantled his empire created a golden age of worship of
 Sól across Frey.
Today, Caer Sól is even greater than it was before the Shadowmaker rose
to power. It supports the church’s three arms; the Inquisition, the
knights, and the clergy; it also supports one of the largest urban
populations in the Shrinelands. Unlike other cities in Noslith, it is
not ruled by nobility, but instead by clergy; with the First Cardinal,
an old, wizened and cryptic man named Iorwerth, leading both church and
city. Caer Sól is not legitimately part of Noslith, and is technically
its own independent state.

**Ethereal Mountains:** This eerie mountain range forms
the bulk of Noslith’s eastern border, shared with Traewyn. The Ethereal
Mountains once provided for both the defense and prosperity of Noslith,
with its labyrinthine caverns containing massive natural mithril
deposits. Allied with the mages of the Academy, the nobility of Bregate
filled their coffers by producing mithril weapons and armor en masse
while defended by arcane guardians called golems. The golems protected
the miners against dangerous humanoids and aberrations, come to the
surface by way of the Underdark, until a trickster named Rhuddlan stole
the golems’ arcane controller and traded it to the Troll King, Hakon the
 Many-Clawed. Now, the mountains are ruled by monsters again.

**Glass Isles:** Within close reach of the Noslithic
coast are the Glass Isles, a chain of three large, wild islands in the
shadows of the southern highland and its great mountain ranges. The
Glass Isles are largely unexplored yet supposedly the Shadowmaker had
special interest in the region; since, adventurers have mentioned
finding their way into undead infested ruins with strange, northern
iconography. The Isles also seem to have ancient religious significance,
 containing three towers dedicated to the old elemental gods of Fire,
Earth, and Air. Of these legendary towers little is known, for the
intrepid travelers who venture beyond their doors never return.

**Isle Merfin:** Local legends hold that the lords of
Merfin fell to their own folly; in the year 1311, the ruler of the isle,
 Murtagh Flann, kidnapped the Princess Deirdre and proclaimed himself
sovereign and independent from Noslithic rule. In response, Alfred II
attempted to cross the sea, yet his fleet was lost in a terrible storm.
Murtagh decided that god had granted him rule over all of Noslith, and
so he prepared to attack a defenseless Agrawel; yet instead the storm
grew, and fell upon the isle, wreaking destruction and causing the
deaths of Murtagh and Deirdre and countless other innocents. Those who
survived fled to the mainland, and Merfin was called cursed, forbidden
for assuming the will of god was on their side. Since, few have made
expeditions to the forbidden isle, and even fewer have returned.

**Newport:** A small city on the Sea of Saints, Newport
is a key part of the kingdom’s economy, as it allows imports from across
 Frey to be sent up the Cold River to Bregate. Saint Carrick founded the
 port during King Rodric’s rule, near the end of his reign in 1142, when
 the paranoid ruler closed the ports of Agrawel and sealed himself
within Castle Arvendon. Today, the Marquess William Norwood is lord of
Newport, a distant descendant of Saint Carrick. The handsome ruler is
said to be friendly and display a kind heart to all visitors of
Carrick’s Hall, but rumors portend that the lusty lord is unfaithful to
his lady Alyce, dallying with the maidens of his hall and the whores of
his city’s brothels.
The road across the Swampland to Newport is dangerous, but Newport is
known across the Shrinelands for its massive, popular festivals that
often draw bards and harlequins from across Noslith. It is also known
for its vineyards, which have made winemaking an important part of the
city’s culture; it is said that winemakers are treated like nobility,
and wine treated much like gold, something the clergy despises. Below
Newport lies its labyrinthine sewer system, and even deeper lies its
nest of catacombs and tombs, once carefully patrolled, but now lost to
disrepair and monster infestation, and now whispers say that the darkest
 shadows of the Newport underground conceal great evil – and possibly an
 entrance to the Underdark.

**Ryfall:** Built around the battlements of Galadhor’s
Keep, a garrison during the Second Crusade, Ryfall is a walled-in town
in the White Forest defined by deep-seated racial conflicts and
tensions. It was founded by Sir Rayne of the White Rose in the crusade’s
 aftermath, and his descendant, Earl Piaras Rayne, rules the city today
beside his wife, a beautiful Traewynian noble named Isabella, and the
Argent Guard, a divinely inspired order of town guardsmen. Abbot Layton,
 an aging man, has watched over the Ryfall Priory for generations of
students, while Father Braden cares for the town’s congregation. Ryfall
is known for its logging industry, and also for its surprisingly large
demihuman population who are constantly at odds with the rule of House
Rayne. Supposedly, the Black Brace, a dangerous militant group of
demihumans, is still alive and well in Ryfall, as are Second Crusade
sympathizers. Ryfall is also not far from the famous headquarters of the
 Holy Chivalric Order of the White Rose, founded in antiquity by
Cadogan.

**Savage Mountains:** The highlands of southern Bregate
are rough and dangerous, forming two sister mountain ranges that sprawl
to the east above the King’s River Valley collectively dubbed the Savage
 Mountains. These mountains, along with the King’s River, form the
southern border of Noslith, shared with Wraemore, forming a natural wall
 between the two civilizations. The northern range of the Savage
Mountains is dotted with the ruins of giant strongholds, massive
citadels rivaling the size of the great mountains they are built upon.
The most famous of these is Tarragon Citadel, now apparently the domain
of a fearsome red dragon, the old wyrm Thargaryx. Meanwhile, legend
tells that the southern Savage Mountains contain ancient dwarven ruins
within their stony husks. Both ranges, however, and the King’s River,
are infested with orc tribes, the most prominent among them the huge
Broken Tooth, Splintered Spine, and Blood Wolf tribes.

**Sylvan Forest:** This stretch of charred forest lies
past the Ethereal Mountains at the very fringe of Noslith. Few who
travel to the Sylvan Forest return, and those who do come with stories
of impossible things; describing its wooded paths changing before their
eyes, its trees walking and staring back at them, and wisps of light
leading them into certain death. This fey-haunted forest is one of the
oldest in the world, and one of the most dangerous to those who lack
cold iron arms, yet promises great wealth to those who can traverse the
ancient weald and find the ruined elven capital of Gilariel.

**Swampland:** This massive stretch of marshland sits in
 the shadow of the fierce Savage Mountains and forms a huge part of the
former kingdom of Bregate. It is said that before the rise of Bregate, a
 teeming lizardfolk civilization sat here, now left in shambles after
the rise of man. The village of Swampton, and its lord Aevan Taggart’s
castle, Caer Tegan, were built for this purpose: to defend Bregate from
the rise of the dreadful swamp and its inhabitants. The fortification
was also built to watch over the dangerous humanoids of the Savage
Mountains that sit above the marsh. Today, Swampton mostly serves as a
gathering of the rejects of Noslith, a place where people are less
discriminatory, and thus it has the largest demihuman and nonhuman
populations in the kingdom, something Baron Aevan tolerates only out of
obligation to tradition.

**Western Weald:** The Western Weald was host to three
deciding battles of King Ardal’s conquest of Bregate. These battles were
 so destructive and bloody that the forest has still not entirely
recovered; indeed, even today the woodland serves as more of a mass
grave, with its ancient fallen castles acting now as old crypts. The
Weald is a forbidden, haunted grove, yet it also plays host to many of
Noslith’s sacred tombs, its monuments to paladins fallen. St. Cadogan
the Dragonslayer, the paladin who fought alongside King Ardal and
founded the Order of the White Rose, was the first to buried here after
he succumbed to wounds suffered during their final battle against
Theseus, though the location of his tomb is now lost, along with all the
 holy artifacts contained within.

**Wosswood:** The Wosswood is an ancient forest filled
with magic south of Lake Loinnir. Its aged, gnarled trees are thousands
of years old, sitting in the shadow of Mt. Loinnir to the north and at
the seat of Mt. Rann to the south. Legends say that the forest itself is
 alive, its branches and paths moving to confuse or trap wayward
travelers. Other legends tell of ancient ruins of dwarven and elven
architecture from before the rise of man, lying within the forest and in
 the stony caverns of Mt. Rann. Supposedly, the wood was once infested
with humanoids, but a group of adventurers from Noslith culled the
dangerous kobold and goblin populations. The nearby village of
Blackbridge sits still on the Black River, under the careful guard of
Father Balthasar and the rule of Baron Vern Denholm, who lives with his
children William and Leah. Meanwhile, the village of Newstone, just
outside the forest, has fallen to the wrath of the plague, and refugees
tell tales of the walking dead emerging from Castle Corlach.