Beneath Banners and Crowns

Velgard is a weathered realm of mists and mountains, once the beating heart of an empire now long broken. Its highlands fall away to grey coasts and pine-forests, its valleys carved by ancient wars and forgotten kings. The people are proud, suspicious of outsiders, and bound by an older code than the court’s—honor forged in the dark between wars.

The kingdom’s power once radiated from the capital, but now it bleeds away at the borders. There, on the storm-torn edges known as the Marches, men like Tristan de Caerwyn still hold the line.

The realm of Velgard lies between three forces of nature.
🏛️ Government and Court 🏛️
🛡️ Seat of Power 🛡️
🗺️ Trade and High Roads 🗺️
✨ Trade and Travel ✨

To describe the Northern Marches, one would say it is "wilderness country of heather moors, wolf-forests, ravine, and ruined abbeys where the wind never stills". The Marches stretch from the River Liyr to the jagged Ironspine Mountains, marking the last human stronghold before the cold, harsh, and dangerous Wylds of the north to the North Sea.

💥 The Marches are divided…
The Wylds -:-- also known as The Skeld :: 💥 Chief Seat -:- Varosk Hold
💥 Faith -:- The Old Ways … the worship of storm and bone.

Life in the Marches ::
💥 Law rides on horseback and wears steel.
💥 Keeps are built into cliffs and caves rather than upon them.
💥 Trade travels by torchlight… wool, iron, salt, and rumor.
💥 Language ~ The common folk speak an older dialect and still leave offerings at standing stones.

Velgard, The Northern Heartlands is a kingdom of hereditary monarchy, led by a sovereign whose authority extends over noble lords, border Marches, and fortified keeps. The High Chamber, composed of lords, bishops, and guild-magisters, wields much of the practical power, while the crown’s influence wanes at the edges. Loyalty, martial duty, and adherence to the ancient codes of honor define both governance and society in the north.
A realm of misty mountains, storm-lashed coasts, and wild northern Marches, Velgard is shaped by honor, duty, and survival. Its narrow valleys and fortified keeps shelter a proud people who live by ancient codes, defending their borders against both man and nature. Martial tradition, vigilant watch, and loyalty to crown and clan define the northern lands, where storms and wolf-song are as constant as the blood of history.


🌿 Faith :~:
📖 Languages :~:
🔮 Customs :~:

💥 The Elessan line has ruled Velgard for five centuries, descended from the High Lords of the Old Empire. Once reformers and conquerors, they have since become caretakers of a realm they can no longer fully command. King Rowan III—the Ashen Crown—is a man worn thin by politics and illness. He has no legitimate sons, only one daughter betrothed to a foreign prince, and a half-brother—Lord Tobias Elessan, Duke of Wrenthal—whose ambitions are the kingdom’s quiet doom. The Elessans are emblematic of fading majesty: luminous in name, but surrounded by corruption and whispers of decline.



💥 Steeped in law and bureaucracy, the Merrowens are the architects of the Crown’s taxation and governance. Lord Chancellor Edric Merrowen is the King’s most trusted... but least loved... advisor. His family controls the royal mint and the merchant guilds. Though despised by soldiers and Marcher knights for their stinginess, the Merrowens keep the realm solvent.
💥The Merrowens are neutral in public, but sell their influence quietly to whichever side promises stability.



💥 Descended from crusaders of the Solar Synod, the Rhendalls are fanatically loyal to the faith and the King.
💥 Their knights serve as inquisitors, purifiers, and executioners in the name of the Radiant One.
💥 They view the Marches as godless wilds and House Caerwyn as “wolves guarding wolves.”
💥 Their patriarch, Lord Garan Rhendall, is a zealot and Tobias’s quiet ally, united by mutual disdain for the Marcher Lords.



💥 The Ardynnes feed the realm. Their lands in the Halden Valley are fertile, their peasants loyal, and their soldiers disciplined.
💥 They are practical, moderate, and too often caught between factions.
💥 Lady Mera Ardynne, widowed matriarch, supports peace with the Marches and distrusts Tobias deeply... but fears the cost of open defiance.



💥 Merchants, spies, and soldiers, the Talvanes command the eastern trade routes and the first line of defense against Ardenthal’s mercenary incursions.
💥 They are pragmatic to the point of cynicism; loyalty, for them, is an investment.
💥 Their young lord, Calyen Talvane, is a friend to neither Tobias nor the King... and respects Tristan for his honesty..



💥 Once a family of scholars and astronomers, the Veyraults have become spymasters and mystics.
💥 They control the King’s intelligence network and the archives of prophecy kept beneath the capital.
💥 They are feared, respected, and distrusted in equal measure.
💥 Their matron, Lady Sylenne Veyrault, counsels the King directly ... and may be one of the few who knows how close Tobias’s ambitions have come to treason.

💥 Born to Duke Phillip de Costa and Duchess Sophia de Costa ( formerly Clarke of Illvamory), both deceased.
💥 Through cunning and gold, he commands a private army, a spy network, and the loyalty of half the southern nobility.
💥 He claims to serve the Crown; in truth, he undermines it. His rivalry with Tristan de Caerwyn is infamous: the border knight versus the court’s serpent.
💥 Tobias believes the Marches should be abandoned, their defenders brought to heel or exiled.
💥 He is a statesman of silk and shadow... where Tristan bleeds for oaths, Tobias buys them.

💥 Born to Duke Phillip de Costa and Duchess Sophia de Costa ( formerly Clarke of Illvamory), both deceased. Younger sister to Tobias de Costa.
💥 The de Costas trace their line to Velgard’s maritime age, when the kingdom first turned its gaze westward across the Sea of Calesh. They rose as navigators, traders, and admirals, earning their ducal charter after funding the Crown’s naval conquests against the Free Isles two centuries past.
💥 Illvamory’s port, half castle, half shipyard, made them stewards of the western coast, commanding fleets, salt-mines, and pearl fisheries.
💥By the time of King Rowan III, Caer de Costa had become the cultured face of Velgard’s nobility: generous patrons of art, law, and faith. Yet beneath that polish lay quiet fractures—rivalries with the inland houses and debts to the crown’s wars.

⚖️ Lands and Influence ⚖️
Illvamory lies leeward of the Ironspine Range, where sea-winds soften and the River Liyr empties into the Gulf of Rhosyn.
Its lands form Velgard’s westernmost duchy—fertile lowlands rich with orchards, linen, and vineyards. 💥 The de Costa fleet remains unmatched... swift white galleons and black-hulled corsairs once crewed by Marcher sailors seeking better pay.

🕯️ House Temperament 🕯️
💥 Polished and courtly, yet quietly proud, the de Costas value dignity above all.
💥 They are known for their eloquence, their patronage of learning, and the distinctive swan-emblem signifying grace in peril.
💥 But with the deaths of Duke Phillip and Duchess Sophia, the house turned inward. Tobias de Costa, the new duke, has adopted a more severe and pragmatic rule... less art, more armament...

🛡️ Relations and Alliances 🛡️
💥 Allied :: Caer Merrowen (trade and taxation charters)
💥 Tense :: Caer Veyrault (coastal espionage)
💥 Opposed :: House Caerwyn (until Alexandria’s defection)
💥 Suspected Alliance :: Caer Wrenthal (Tobias de Costa and Tobias Elessan)

🕯 Reputation in the Marches 🕯
💥 To Marcher knights, the Swans of Illvamory are soft courtiers playing at nobility, yet their gold built many Marcher forges and funded royal campaigns that starved the frontier of men.
💥 Tristan de Caerwyn’s rescue of Alexandria thus holds poetic symmetry... the iron of the Marches protecting the grace of the coast... two halves of Velgard the crown could never reconcile.

🕊️ Lady Alexandria Margarete de Costa 🕊️ "the Swan Who Flew North"
💥 The last light of her house’s former gentility, Alexandria embodies the grace her ancestors prized yet rejects the gilded cage of court.
💥 Her education was broad.... philosophy, theology, languages... but she loved most the open fields and the freedom of a horse’s gallop.
💥 Her departure from Illvamory after her parents’ deaths... and her later exile from her brother’s ambition... became quiet scandal in Veydrall.
💥 When she vanished from the capital in the company of Sir Tristan de Caerwyn, poets began calling her the Swan Who Flew North.

💥 Guardians of the northern frontier, mediators between Velgard and the Wylds..
💥 Guardians of the northern Marches, steeped in honor and martial tradition. Loyalty, vigilance, and duty define the house, whose members embody the harsh codes of Velgard’s frontier.
💥 They are feared, respected, and distrusted in equal measure.

Heraldic Identity
💥 Sigil (Coat of Arms) 💥 Blazon (heraldic description) -:- Azure, a wolf rampant argent clutching a broken sword sable and a torch or, within a bordure gules.
💥 Banner
💥 Motto -:-- “By Oath and Vigil, We Endure.”
💥 Alternative shortened war cry “Endure!” shouted before a charge.

💥 Immediate Family:
💥 Tristan's Extended Family
💥 Other Family Connections
💥 How This Shapes Tristan
💥 Allies
💥 Enemies

💥 House Darlthyln’s name is synonymous with the Marches themselves. Founded by Ser Rory Darlthyln, first Warden of the North, the line has guarded Velgard’s northern border for six generations. Their knights swear oaths not before the king’s altar, but before the flame in the hall, pledging to keep the wild from crossing south.
💥 Independent border defenders who swear oaths to the flame of their hall rather than the crown. Known for endurance, martial skill, and survival in the wild Marches.
💥 Defenders of the northern Marches, independent of courtly influence.
💥 Three tiers of curtain wall guard its descent to the river. A great beacon tower stands at the highest point; when lit, its flame can be seen for thirty miles. Traders from the south who dare north of the Marches, speak of it with awe; soldiers call it “the edge of the world.”

💥 The Ruins of Varrhold, swallowed by forest since the War of the Wolves, its stones now a haunt for smugglers and the superstitious.
💥 The Liyr River Crossing, an ancient stone bridge with half its arches fallen; caravans still risk its span.
💥 The Frostmere Abbey, where monks record prophecies in salt and ash… half myth, half warning.