Cilfant

**Cilfant** mysterious dwarven coastal forest cheiftandom famed for druids and clerics.

Panvold and Argoken

Cilfant is much like some of the other more natural nations across the continent, only being ratified in the wake of the last as an area that was unable to be conquered by Raggnloth, Kalev or even neighbouring Ringiff. The Dwarves that live in the two villages have one high king, Boru Cilfant, whose name was ratified as the nation at the first Kalev city council. King Boru has ruled for just over 400 years, and despite being sound of mind, is certainly reaching the end of his days. The Cifant dwarves are surprisingly not related to the bramble dwarves of Yeroifox, The Clifant dwarves are less fey touched and more grim and fatalistic than their north western kinsfolk. The dwarves of Clifant are devoted to Takamul in her dwarven form of Tasdryn the rock maker and Leholimo in her dwarven form of Logbelyan the orderkeeper. While most dwarves of maligon avoid naming Etolik, Clifant dwarves call her Ebelle, and venerate her in their triplicate godess shrines. These notions of nature, order and death weigh heavily on the clifant culture.

The two settlements are almost innaccessible to anyone unfamiliar with the thick evergreen forest routes. Panvold the western village is where the throne king Boru sits. Walled with a small ramshackle drystack walls, it is centered around a the round high king’s hall and church of the three goddesses. A large four tiered carved wooden building with a thatched roof that houses the throne room, the courts, the libary of the king, the church and the treasury. The kings librarian is a deaf runespeaker mage called Oddon Leadbeard. Around the the High King’s hall are modest thatched cottages with attached farmlands and the drinking hall, butcher and smokehouse called as the Saltstone ran by Sisters Magni and Magno Anvil. The wealth of Panvold is beneath it. An enormous freshwater river and vast underwater lake. Plumbing deeper, as most sons and daughters of lumthonom are want to do, The older high kings discovered metal deposites and rare gemstones in fissures and trenches. While the natural caves seem to head in a north westernly direction, nothing seems to indicate that the Cilfant cave system links with ancestral lumthonom. Where and how deep the Cilfant caves go, no one knows for sure and no explorers have lived to tell the tale.

Argoken is a spectacular to look upon from the south eastern sea, a stone hewn village worked into a eight hundred feet cliff face. The cliff is covered with elaborate cranes, pullies and lifts transport the dwarves down to the sea, or lift the lobster cages and eel pots that the Argoken fishermen lower. Visible to those who know where to look from the shore, there are many small cell windows from within the cliff. This is the monastary of the triplacate goddesses, another example of the specifc way cilfant dwarves approach the pantheon. There those the faith of Tasdryn, Logbelyan and Ebelle work to collect natural knowledge and produce medical poteses, unique foods and pancea collected from the forests around by the wandering dwarven monks. The current high druid of the monastary is a two hundred year old master healer called Ingres Gobreherk. There is some friction between Druid Gobreherk and High King Cilfant, both from respected families and both remember ruling the forest before being forced by Grand Kalev to declare themselves as a nation. Gobreherk wishes to work to reunite the dwarves across the cog, to bring honour back to the children of lumthonom. The High king however makes no bones that he considers those who remained in Lumthonom failures and those who live within the trees of yeroifox to be failing their heritage. These philosophical divisions are not split convieniantly down the two towns. The plain speaking Cilfant dwarves are often to be found somewhat angrily disputing in the public houses that spring up in the communites when a fresh family brew is produced. It is well known that the King’s librarian Oddon sympathetises much more with the druidess than his king. Outside of the subterraneal monastery, Argoken is a strange rocky looking town with dry stone huts between natural and carved pillars of stone. To the east of the town proper is the area known as Tasdryn’s bounty. the landscape is Layers and layers of sedimentary rock building up to karst of both jagged limestone towers and flat rocks with deep cracks that produce flowers unique to the area. To the north, a mile from the Argoken walls proper are some of the denses evergreen forest of firs across the whole cog. During the day, the druids and rangers of Argoken make their solitary tracks through the forest, collecting and cultivating the wilderness they protect.

Cilfant is the most natural and untouched wildernesses of the south, its flora is prized across the cog, and its fauna is diverse and extensive. Kestrals, eagles, crows and ravens, badgers, foxes and stoats, Otters live along the coast, as do grey seals, Porpoises, and the Argoken dolphins are common to see.