There's not much to be said about me. I'm a college student from California, I'm into Warhammer 40k, Warcraft, NWN, and DnD, and I'm not a very good writer. I really love the lore of Warcraft, Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k), and other fantasy and sci-fi settings.

Current Projects

Whirlwind - My first fanfic, and it shows. It's bad. As in really bad. It's poorly written and thought out. It's currently dead and I don't have any plans on continuing it in the foreseeable future. If you value your sanity I advise against reading it.

Second Chances - A story that takes place in the Kingdom of Halcyon, an original, if a bit mundane, setting that I created for a campaign that I ran a while back. It follows the exploits of four convicts who have been given one last shot at redemption.

A map of Halcyon and the surrounding area can be found here:

http://mediocrates.deviantart.com/art/Once-more-with-feeling-78308199

The History of Halcyon

~2000 years Before Landfall: Long before humans ever set foot in the land of Halcyon, the precursors of the high elves, wood elves, and dark elves fought a long a brutal war on another world. So violent was the conflict that it literally torn their world apart, forcing the elves to abandon the planet. Using a series of portals the early elves fled their dying home to Halcyon, but the magic was imperfect and scattered them across the land. Most of the elves died, but those who survived emerged into a world ripe for the conquest. The majority of the high elves were deposited on the wind swept Stormreaver Coast, where they set to work rebuilding their magical empire. The wood elves arrived deep within the Eldanari Woods, where they quickly came to blows with the native centaurs. After a short and bloody conflict the elves drove them out of the woods to dwell on the Howling Steppes, a vast, open grassland to the southeast, where they remain to this day. The dark elves were never seen, and though the wood elves and high elves both believe that they had also fled to Halcyon through portals of their own, ultimately all that remains of them are stories passed down by the survivors of the cataclysm.

~1800 BL: The high elves and the wood elves, after recovering sufficiently to concern themselves with such things, continued where they left off. The war, though fierce, was ultimately nothing compared to the original in terms of sheer destructiveness. However, with the dark elves out of play, the high elves had little real opposition in the arena of magic and the war ended in a decisive high elven victory. The high elves established the Eldanari Commonwealth in the wake of the war, integrating the defeated wood elves into the population.

~800 BL: In the face of their impending extinction, the dwarven clans of the Bergelmir Mountains begrudgingly, though ultimately only temporarily, set aside their differences and united to drive the orcs from the mountains. The patriarch (though that would eventually change) of the Ironhand Clan led this coalition and after a brutal war they broke and scattered the orcs, sending them fleeing in all directions. Unfortunately this has the unintended side effect of forcing all of the neighboring powers to deal with the fallout. Marauding bands of orcs, fleeing from their crushing defeat in the Bergelmir Mountains, descended upon the Rookwood, the Eldanari Woods, the Howling Steppes, and the southern desert, attempting to wrest the lands from their native populations. Though each group was able to repulse the orcish invasion/migration, it was not a promising start for the new dwarven nation and the enmity it created would be the cause of much of the hostility that the rest of continent shows to it in the present day. To make matters worse, with the orcs gone the coalition of clans began to dissolve. Several clans, with the immediate threat gone, attempted to break away from the burgeoning dwarven state. The Ironhand Clan, arguing that even with the orcs gone the new threat from the surrounding powers warranted maintaining the coalition, attempted to prevent the fragmentation. Though they succeeded in almost all cases, one failure would continue to vex the Imperium for centuries to come. The Duergan Clan, which had long been the second most powerful dwarven clan, was able to break away and establish itself as an independent nation in caverns and tunnels far below the new Imperium. It would retain its independence until the end of the Forge War in 216 AL, when it was finally subsumed into the Ironhand Imperium.

0 years After Landfall: Gargantuan arks bearing the ancestors of the inhabitants of the present day Kingdom of Halcyon arrived in Providence Bay. The immense fleet sailed down the coast, the settlers it carried unwilling to land in the inhospitable marshland of the Vipermurk, and eventually reached the mouth of the Sreng River. There they founded the first of many future cities, a metropolis that would later become known as Morgan’s Rest. Roughly thirty thousand people, humans all, survived the journey though legends say that more than twice that number were present when they first set out. The ships themselves were disassembled to serve as the first of many towns that would come to dot the plains. The newcomers, their spirits high after successfully completing the long and grueling voyage, attempted to create upon Halcyon Field a utopia where all might live in harmony.

1 AL: Jonas Connla, an up-and-coming wizard, founded the Halcyon Archives, which he hoped would one day become the foremost repository of knowledge on the continent. Gathering together as much of the pre-exodus written record as they could find, he and his compatriots began copying, indexing, and adding new findings to the collection to create an intellectual foundation upon which humanity might grow and thrive.

1 AL – 24 AL: Humanity spread out, settling much of the new land and the humble beginnings of what would become the major cities of the future Kingdom were established during this time. The new arrivals quickly discovered that the resident goblin, hobgoblin, and kobold populations were less than willing to allow them to waltz into their territories and a series of brutal conflicts between the settlers and the natives occurred throughout the following decades. It was these conflicts that sowed the seeds of utter disaster for the new human utopia. Over the two decades following the arrival of humans in Halcyon, power began to pool with the captains of the vessels that carried them there. They had experience leading in an arduous environment, commanded the loyalty of the sailors, and frequently the settlers turned to them for protection from the hostile natives. Over time twenty-one High Captains emerged at the forefront of humanity, and each quickly began to eye each other with great suspicion. Some of them, having been given a taste of lordship, desired more, while others were paranoid that their fellow captains would attempt to seize what they believe they had rightfully earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Still others honestly believed that they and only they knew what was best for humanity and wished to bring all the people of Halcyon under their "enlightened" rule. Regardless of their individual beliefs, as the natives that had once been their common enemy were beaten back further into isolated areas like the Duskfang Mountains and the Rookwood, the High Captains turned more and more of their attention to each other.

24 AL: The precarious utopia finally went the way of all of its kind, in what would become known as the First Founder's War. Each High Captain moved quickly following the initial commencement of open hostilities between forces loyal to the High Captains Ulrich Vandar and Charles de Kendris to establish their own fiefdoms, many of which overlapped creating new points of contention. By the year's end the conflict had engulfed virtually all of the human holdings on the continent.

31 AL: Forces loyal to High Captain de Kendris destroyed the Halcyon Archives. Though Connla and his associates were able to save many of the scrolls and tomes stored there, many more, including the majority of the pre-exodus historical records, were destroyed.

35 AL: The First Founder’s War ended inconclusively after more than a decade of on and off conflict. The first war, which was more akin to a drawn out and barely directed riot than an actual war, accomplished little more than galvanizing the sides, which would eventually evolve into the noble houses. All sides realized that the uneasy peace that settled over Halcyon was little more than a temporary pause in the fighting to catch their breath and rearm.

38 AL: Jonas Connla attempted to rebuild the Halcyon Archives, this time under the protection of Carlos Luceron, one of the more powerful of the High Captains and the founder of House Luceron. In this way he hoped to ensure that what little written knowledge that remained from before the exodus would survive the coming storm.

47 AL: The Second Founder’s War broke out after years of preparation and reorganization following the lessons of the first war. The noble houses fielded trained soldiers, dedicated cavalry forces, and siege weapons built during the lull as opposed to the mobs of peasant militia that had characterized the first war and the more organized and efficient nature of the second war led to a much higher death toll, as eight of the noble houses were utterly eradicated. Kingdom historians estimate that nearly twenty percent of the entire human population of Halcyon died during the course of the war.

54 AL: The forces of House Avidius sacked Reaverholm's first incarnation and burned the rebuilt Halcyon Archives to the ground, this time thoroughly destroying all but a handful of the works contained within.

59 AL: The Second Founder’s War ground to a halt and from the bloodshed House Vandar emerged victorious, though not unscarred. It united the twelve other surviving noble houses, who combined would have been a very difficult and painful meal, beneath it and created the Kingdom of Halcyon. Morgan Vandar II crowned himself the first King of Halcyon and established the national capitol in the city of Vandia. Jonas Connla, seeking to avoid the horrific loss of knowledge that occurred over the course of the Founder's Wars, founded an order dedicated to the preservation and protection of knowledge. This organization of magi and mercenaries would eventually become known as "the Connla Syndicate."

80 AL: After leading his Syndicate for more than twenty years, Jonas Connla vanished. His disappearance touched off the first major power struggle within the Syndicate hierarchy, and though its resolution left Connla's old guard firmly in control it did showcase a growing dissatisfaction with the organization's relative neutrality in regards to Kingdom politics, particularly among the younger, more radical magi.

98 AL: In the period following its establishment the Kingdom of Halcyon expanded outward and eventually attempted to wrest the Eldanari Wood from the elves in what would become known as the Great Eastern War. The war was limited primarily to the edges of the Eldanari Wood, as neither side was able to mount an effective foray into the opponent's homeland. Human cavalry, numbers, and experience with formation warfare gave them an advantage on open ground, but were next to useless in dense woodland. Likewise, the elves were highly skilled individually, but were outnumbered and lacking in heavy cavalry, putting them at a severe disadvantage if caught in the open. The border region quickly degenerated into a hellish meat grinder with little in the way of real gains made by either side, and though the Kingdom attempted at several points to slash and burn their way into Eldanari, the druids of the Commonwealth were able to slow these advances to slow and costly crawls. The war would mark the emergence of the Connla Syndicate on the political stage, having previously limited its dealings to House Luceron, by committing its battle-mages to supporting the King's armies throughout the conflict.

115 AL: The Great Eastern War ended inconclusively and though casualties on both sides were atrociously high, neither had much to show for it. An uneasy peace agreement was reached between the two powers, but the notoriously long memory of the elves and the large amount of enmity between the races continue to complicate relations between the Kingdom and the Commonwealth after nearly two centuries.

116 AL – 131 AL: The aftermath of the Great Eastern War was especially hard on the Kingdom. A large number of the young, fit men had died, and the blow this dealt to the Kingdom's ability to grow food resulted in a severe famine that lasted for several years. Though it did eventually pass, the combination of this and the losses in the war fundamentally shook the foundation of the nobility's claim to legitimacy. Up until that point the noble houses held power because of their ability to keep the people alive. "We keep you safe" was the reason they gave for being in power, and the war and the famine that followed brutally demonstrated how much of a lie that was. The peasants were beginning to wonder if they might be better off with a different set of rulers, and this terrified the nobles. As a result the noble houses, particularly House Vandar, scrabbled to resolidify their powerbase by cracking down on the growing number of dissenters, being far stricter in enforcing existing laws, and attempting to enforce cultural unity within the territories of each noble house. Inevitably the justification for holding power that they settled on was "Because we have it in the first place." At the forefront of this effort were the Royal Vandian Crusaders, who, though hardly alone, were responsible by some of the largest and most violent purges of the post-war era.

124: Geoffrey Blake, a Syndicate battle-mage and veteran of the Great Eastern War, became the leader of the Connla Syndicate. Under his direction the organization played a far more active role in the Kingdom's politics, primarily by taking control of many of Halcyon's criminal elements in order to secure the Syndicate's position. With the Kingdom's nobility scrabbling to reinforce its own legitimacy with high and heavy-handed tactics, it proved easy for the Syndicate to find a home amongst Halcyon's underworld. Many of the prostitution, slavery, and smuggling rings saw the widespread crackdown as an immense and terrifying threat to their continued existence, and the sudden appearance of an order of highly skilled and disciplined warrior-magi able to "protect" them from it seemed like a gift from the gods. These elements would go on to become integral parts of the Syndicate's new dominion and, over the course of the following century and a half, this criminal empire eventually became less a guarantee of its continued survival and influence and more an end in and of itself.

132 AL: Widespread civil unrest amongst the peasants, much of the blame for which can ironically be laid at the feet of the Royal Vandian Crusaders, their heavy-handed tactics in maintaining order during the post-war famine, and the brutality with which they conducted their purges, culminated in the Brother’s War. A local militia group, which had been supplied with arms, armor, and horses by the renegade noble Adrian Vandar, clashed with and defeated a detachment from the Royal Army outside a village east of Drakenheim. Their startling victory emboldened other groups dissatisfied with the current regime enough to rise up and begin their own campaigns of armed resistance. Nearly a decade of bloody civil war followed between the Royalists, lead by King Michael, and a coalition of dissenting groups known as the Populists. The various noble houses each fell into one of the two camps, with Houses Luceron and de Kendris, both of whom had a vested interest in seeing Michael's regime toppled, throwing their weight behind the Populists while most of the others supported Michael. Adrian Vandar, one of the Populists' largest backers, came to be the face of the movement and in this way it hoped to win over those who, while certainly not supporters of King Michael, were still reluctant to completely tear down the old order.

137 AL: The Commonwealth, still nursing a grudge from the Great Eastern War, began providing supplies and shelter to Populist forces. They did not honestly believe that the Populists had any chance of winning, instead doing so in the hopes of further destabilizing the Kingdom by making the conflict drag on as long as possible, thus weakening their human neighbor.

139 AL: A bloody coup within House Avidius, orchestrated by the Connla Syndicate, devastated the House and ended with the death of nearly all of its members. The new House Prince and only male heir left alive by the Syndicate, Damian Avidius, quickly moved to secure his new fiefdom by withdrawing his house from the Brother's War, shifting the balance of power firmly in the Populists' favor. Prince Damian was, for all intents and purposes, a Syndicate agent and was suspected to have survived only because he took an active role in the annihilation of the rest of his house. House Avidius has been a major backer of the Syndicate ever since, though it would never reach quite the same status within the Syndicate hierarchy as House Luceron.

141 AL: After nearly ten years of strife and anarchy the Brother’s War ended in a Populist victory and Adrian Vandar took the throne. His ascension was a sort of compromise between Houses de Kendris and Luceron, as both wanted to take the throne for themselves and they ultimately agreed to place Adrian on the throne in a sort of "quit while you're ahead" move to prevent another war that might jeopardize their hard won victory. By all records Adrian was something of an idealist, and both houses believed that they would be able to manipulate him more easily than his more cynical and politically savvy brother Michael. However, Adrian would ultimately prove to be difficult to control and in fact went on to become one of the most radical Kings in Halcyon's history, fulfilling many of the promises he made to the commoners during the course of the war. His first act as King was to dissolve the Royal Vandian Crusaders, however this was mostly a symbolic act as the Crusaders were all but annihilated in the final year of the war. The Vindicator Corps, an organization of more stereotypical paladins, was founded in their place. The Commonwealth was more than a little miffed by the outcome, though it played along in the hopes of winning influence in the new regime.

153 AL: The Forge War, the final conflict between the dwarves of the Ironhand Imperium and the neighboring Duergan Empire, began. Few non-dwarves know or care how or why it began, as the war quite literally never saw the light of day, but it kept the southern lands embroiled in even fiercer war than usual for more than fifty years.

201 AL: On that year's winter solstice the actors of Worry's Requiem, a popular theatre in Vandia, preformed a showing of The Sorcerer of Crystania, a play that roundly mocked the Kingdom's nobility, including several members of House Vandar. Gabriel Vandar responded by closing the theatre, ordering all copies of the play destroyed, and having all those involved in the production arrested and imprisoned. Though this had been common practice before the Brother's War, after Adrian's victory the Requiem had enjoyed a great deal of freedom regarding what the works it could perform and the King's actions touched off an immense uproar amongst the city's inhabitants. Many of the people of Vandia feared that King Gabriel was trying to turn back time to before the Brother's War, and that fear snowballed into a riot on the streets of Vandia. The rioters stormed and burned down roughly a third of Crystania, the noble's district in Vandia, before the Vindicator Corps was able to calm and disperse the rioters. Those imprisoned over the production were released and the Requiem was reopened, but the theatre has been careful about its plays ever since.

203 AL: Following the unmitigated disaster with the Requiem 201 AL, King Gabriel revived the Royal Vandian Crusaders, though the Vindicator Corps was by that point too well entrenched in both the bureaucracy and the national culture to be removed by anything short of a war. With neither side seeking to start another Brother's War, the Crusaders because the Corps had enough popular support that the latter might actually win and the Vindicators because of how many people would die in such a war, the two diametrically opposed groups were forced to coexist, albeit reluctantly. In order to prevent a riot similar to what occurred in 201 AL, the King spent a great deal of time, money, and effort to ensure that the news seeped out gradually and only well after the fact. This ultimately proved successful, and by the time Gabriel died in 228 AL the Royal Vandain Crusaders had openly returned to their former duties as the mailed fist of the monarchy.

216 AL: The Forge War ended. Though the exact results are unknown outside of the participating nations, the duergar ceased to exist as a unified, independent nation after the conflict’s end and were predominantly integrated into the population of the Imperium.

259 AL: The discovery of a cache of magical artifacts believed to have belonged to Jonas Connla sparked a vicious power struggle within the Connla Syndicate, with several factions each scrambling to claim as many of the relics as possible in a brutal yet primarily behind the scenes conflict later called the Hidden War.

263 AL: The Hidden War spilled out into the Kingdom's underworld, with a number of Syndicate factions attempting to utilize the artifacts in their possession to assert their dominance over the entire criminal organization. It is at this point that the war became something of public knowledge, though the vast majority of the Kingdom's population remained unaffected by it.

270 AL: The Hidden War ended with the annihilation of most of the fringe Syndicate factions and the group's reunification. The fates of the majority of the artifacts that had sparked the war remain unknown to most outside the upper echelons of the Syndicate, though it is known that many of the artifacts were lost or destroyed during the war while still others found their way into the hands of non-Syndicate groups such as the Vindicator Corps and the Royal Vandian Crusaders.

272 AL: Richard Vandar, the current King of Halcyon, took the throne after the death of his father Gregory.

276 AL: An archmage named Elcmar, a veteran of the Hidden War, seizes power within the Connla Syndicate after the death of his predecessor and the murder of his major rivals in the bloody power struggle that followed.

289 AL: Bellicosia, a nation that was up to that point unknown to the people of Halcyon, launched their invasion of the Kingdom from across the Sea of Woe and quickly conquered most of western Halcyon. King Richard Vandar botched the initial response to the invasion and three of the twelve noble houses, including House Elgin, were crushed and absorbed by the Bellicosians before the King finally marshaled the full might of the Halcyon military. The Eldanari Commonwealth, still nursing the same grudge that led them to throw their lot in with the Populists during the Brother’s War, refused to aid Halcyon and even began openly negotiating and trading with the Bellicosians.

290 AL: The Halcyon Royal Army and Navy suffer a crushing defeat while attempting to retake Wrathguard Keep and reopen the Straights.

291 AL: Our story begins.

The Powers That Be

The Kingdom of Halcyon – Halcyon is a feudal kingdom with a central monarch surrounded by twelve noble houses. Each house is led by a House Prince and maintains dominion over a section of the Kingdom, though House Vandar directly controls the capitol city of Vandia and much of the central Kingdom. The Kingdom currently encompasses Halcyon Field, the Duskfang Mountains, most of the Red Sky Flats, and the Vipermurk, though no one can be said to truly control the festering marsh as next to no one dwells there in the first place.

King Vandar – The Kingom of Halcyon utilizes a system of patrilineal primogeniture to select a monarch from amongst the central line of House Vandar. The current King of Halcyon, Richard Vandar is a stereotypical Vandar monarch. He cares little for local level issues, preferring instead to focus on the constant internal power struggles that have characterized the Kingdom’s elite since its creation while leaving the actual governance of House Vandar's fiefdom to his sons, nephews, and younger siblings. He has so far displayed remarkable skill at keeping the noble houses bickering amongst themselves instead of attempting to expand their own power base. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the situation with Bellicosia. Without any set precedent to look back to for guidance King Richard was slow to take any large scale action and for the first full year of the war saw the invasion as a mere pirate problem, a local issue for the noble houses to deal with on their own terms with their own militias. It was not until several of the noble houses were completely conquered and absorbed by the Bellicosians did the King marshal the remaining houses and commit the Royal Army and Navy, by which point large sections of western Halcyon were already firmly under Bellicosian control.

The Royal Vandian Crusaders – A special sub-section of the Halcyon Royal Army that remains active even during peacetime, the Royal Vandian Crusaders were originally the elite guard of House Vandar during the Second Founder’s War. Their ruthless efficiency and fanaticism made them widely feared and reviled throughout the Kingdom. These sentiments ultimately culminated in the Brother’s War, during which the order was annihilated and subsequently disbanded. It was eventually revived by Gabriel Vandar in 203 AL and has since returned to its old duties as the mailed fist of the monarchy. It is frequently said that they serve the king first, the law second, and the people last. The Crusaders are quite ruthless in their recruiting methods and draconian in their training regimen. Potential recruits are kidnapped at young age, as no sane person would ever volunteer to join, and put through years of grueling trials in which they are often pitted against each other to ensure that only the strongest survive. As a result of these methods barely one in five trainees survives to become a full initiate. No one ever leaves the order, as the Crusaders pick only the cream of the crop to begin with and are loath to allow anyone meeting those standards to fall into the hands of any of their rivals, particularly the Vindicator Corps.

The Vindicator Corps – Like the Royal Vandian Crusaders, the Vindicator Corps is a sub-section of the Royal Army that remains active even during peacetime. That, however, is where the similarities end as since its establishment in 141 AL by Adrian Vandar the Corps has tirelessly served the people of Halcyon. While the Crusaders are a mailed fist the Vindicator Corps is a helping hand, ready and willing to aid the desperate in their time of greatest need. Their popularity among the people of Halcyon has prevented the King and the Crusaders from making any overt moves against them, as neither is eager to ignite another Brother’s War. The Vindicator Corps only begrudgingly tolerates the continued existence of the Royal Vandian Crusaders, but recognizes the necessity of the monarchy to its work, it can’t help anyone without someone to pay the bills, and thus has yet to take action against its more ruthless counterpart. Unlike the Crusaders, the Vindicator Corps is made up entirely of volunteers, and they have a large enough number willing applicants to choose from due to their popularity among the general populace that they can afford to be very selective. Numerous factions exist within the Corps devoted to different gods such a Pelor, Heironeous, Kord, Saint Cuthbert, and Olidammara, among others. The worshipers of the individual deities generally act independently of, and occasionally in competition with, each other and though they are united by the singular desire to aid others they often differ on how they should go about doing that. Aside from the core militant group, the Corps also maintains a sizable division of lesser clerics, made up mostly of the newly initiated, whose sole purpose is manage the health and welfare of a given area, generally by purifying water in an attempt to combat disease and healing the inhabitants. Smaller towns will have one of these initiates if they are lucky, while larger cities will have many hundreds.

The Connla Syndicate – A crime syndicate that maintains a near monopoly on arcane spellcasting in Halcyon, they are the self-styled guardians of all magical lore. Currently led by a powerful archmage named Elcmar, they engage in nearly every form of criminal activity imaginable in order to fund research into the arcane and generally expand their already immense powerbase. The Syndicate is as old as the Kingdom itself, having been founded by the wizard Jonas Connla in the immediate wake of the Second Founder's War. It has clashed with the monarchy countless times, though never in an overt fashion, and due to the wealth and arcane power at its disposal it has a disturbingly large amount of clout among both the noble houses and the royal court. It employs an elite group of mercenaries, led by a man named Jericho, who have been specially trained and equipped to hunt down renegade magi and any other wielder of the arcane outside the Syndicate’s control. Based primarily in the port city of Reaverholm, much of the eastern part of the Kingdom is firmly under the organization's control.

The Noble Houses – The Kingdom of Halcyon is made up of twelve noble houses, though three of them have since been conquered and absorbed by Bellicosia, each of which is led by a House Prince. They maintain private militias that, when combined, surpass the Royal Army and Navy, though in all the years of their existence there has never been a time when more than four of the noble houses were willing to work together without the King to keep them all in line.

Houses of Note:

House de Kendris – Second only to House Vandar in power, House de Kendris and its allies were among the few that emerged from the Founder's Wars in a favorable position. In the closing years of the Second Founder's War it had successfully seized Morgan's Rest from House Vandar and fortified it sufficiently that attempts to dislodge them proved fruitless. Thus, when Halcyon settled into a peace of exhaustion in 59 AL and negotiations for a lasting peace began, they were in the best position to dictate terms to the supposed victors. They retained their newfound holdings and much of their army, allowing them to remain the most independent of the noble houses to this day. They make no secret of their desire to replace House Vandar on the throne and in the royal court they have a great deal of influence, though their schemes have so far failed to dislodge the current monarchy. House de Kendris' lands encompass the eastern coast of Providence Bay and a large expanse of Halcyon Field stretching inland from there.

House Luceron – Since its inception House Luceron has been fused at the hip to the Connla Syndicate. In the lead up to the Second Founder's War, Connla and his followers sought the protection and patronage of what would eventually become House Luceron, a relationship that would prove mutually beneficial, as without Connla's aid House Luceron would doubtlessly have been crushed between Houses Vandar, de Kendris, and Avidius. The Syndicate's expansion into Halcyon's criminal underworld served to further expand the power of House Luceron, giving it the ability to exercise influence well beyond what its relatively meager militia would allow. Though power may shift constantly within the Syndicate, the Luceron family has remained the single constant within its arcane, and eventually criminal, empire. It is the face of the Syndicate in the royal court, providing a legitimate front and safe haven to the otherwise nefarious group. The Luceron family's exact position within the hierarchy of the Syndicate has varied through the years, ranging from being a major player within the Syndicate, to its pawn to, its outright leader. House Luceron's holdings consist of the northern portion of the Stormreaver Coast, the port city of Reaverholm, and an expanse of farmland stretching to the west and southwest.

Bellicosia – Very little is known about the Bellicosians aside from the obvious: They are a warlike nation that sailed to Halcyon from the northwest, across the Sea of Woe. Their warriors are more effective in dense forests than out on open fields and are always better prepared for winter than their Halcyon counterparts, hinting that their homeland is primarily made up of cold timberland. Their culture is one that thrives on constant conflict, weeding out anything that is not of some use, be it anything from a person to an idea. Their pragmatic approach to all things has left them highly flexible, and despite their preference for individual based warfare the Bellicosians have shown no meaningful weaknesses in any form of combat, even formation warfare. A cunning and methodical opponent, they have so far consistently outmaneuvered and outfought the forces of the Kingdom of Halcyon and currently control large sections of western Halcyon including Dreadwatch Isle, the Thornweaver Woods, and parts of the Red Sky Flats.

Rak’lizich Khan – The leader of the Bellicosians, the Khan has never been seen by the soldiers of Halcyon. He is, however, reputed to be the greatest warrior in Bellicosian history, a tall feat considering their focus on war.

The Howlerkin – An elite order of Bellicosians, the Howlerkin are similar to the Royal Vandian Crusaders in both skill and purpose. Despite being frequently deployed to the areas of greatest resistance as shock troops, the Howlerkin have frighteningly low casualty rates and are purported to be unnaturally difficult to kill. They can be identified by a distinctive tattoo depicting a snarling wolf covering the right half of their face.

The Bloodclaws – An umbrella word used to describe relatively green Bellicosian warriors, the Bloodclaws are still quite skilled when compared to the conscripts fielded en masse by the Kingdom of Halcyon. They are frequently deployed as partisans well in advance of the main body of the Bellicosian army in what is essentially the final part of their training before they become fully fledged Regulars, engaging in smaller, hit and run operations that teach them to operate in a high-risk environment unsupported. Though normally assigning initiates to such a difficult and dangerous task as interdiction would be an abominable misapplication of resources, the Bellicosians seem to have an endless supply of Bloodclaws and little compunction about sending them to their deaths. Nearly a third of the Bloodclaws die before becoming Regulars, but those who survive are a very flexible fighting force that man for man is easily more than a match for any other military on the continent. Judging by the way the Bellicosians deploy Bloodclaws, this is their sole objective. The actual tactical value of the actions preformed by the Bloodclaws themselves is minimal, and the instructional element seems to be the entire point. Hence the name, they are sent out not to meaningfully hurt the enemy but rather to get blood on their claws.

Bellicosian Regulars – The Bellicosians currently maintain the largest standing army on the continent, slightly greater in size than the Legions of the Ironhand Imperium, and the Bellicosian Regulars serve as its backbone. Highly skilled and flexible soldiers, the Regulars seem to prefer fighting as individuals, further supporting the theory that they originate in a heavily forested environment that would not be conducive to formation fighting, though they have proven able to fight effectively as a cohesive unit when need be. While almost always outnumbered by the conscripts fielded by the Kingdom of Halcyon, the Regulars are man for man far beyond their Halcyon counterparts and the Kingdom must generally outnumber them at least 3:2 to have chance at victory on open ground and at least 4:1 in woodland.

The Ironhand Imperium – The dwarves of the Bergelmir Mountains are no strangers to war. At every point throughout their long history they have been at war with at least one, though usually two, of the other powers on the continent. In fact, the Kingdom of Halcyon and the Eldanari Commonwealth are the only two neighbors that the dwarves have not fought a long and bitter war with, though time will surely remedy this, and as a result the Imperium has the distinction of being one of the only two powers on the continent to maintain a large standing army instead of relying on emergency conscription like the Kingdom or the Commonwealth. The orcs from the southwestern coast, the Yuan-ti from the lower desert, the kobolds from the Rookwood and the northwestern Bergelmir foothills, and the centaurs of the Howling Steppes to the east are all longstanding enemies of the dwarves, but up until 216 AL the Duergan Empire in the tunnels far below the mountains was easily the most powerful of the Imperium's traditional enemies. Even though it was finally defeated and absorbed at the Forge War's conclusion it proved a bitter pill to swallow. The Imperium is still recovering from its losses in that conflict and is currently at its weakest in over five centuries. Despite this, its Legions remain a fearsome fighting force even in their broken state.

The Ironhand Emperor – The line of Emperors that rule over the Imperium come from the Ironhand Clan, hence the nation's name. The Ironhand Imperium is literally "the territory over which Ironhand Clan has imperium." However, unlike the Kingdom of Halcyon the Ironhand Emperor is not chosen by patrilineal succession, but rather is appointed by general consensus among the elders of the Ironhand Clan itself. The Emperor himself need not even be of Ironhand blood, he merely must be a part of the clan, be it by birth, adoption, or marriage. In practice this means that only about half of the Emperors in Imperium history have been born into the Ironhand Clan. The Emperor has two primary functions, serving as a head of state to represent the Imperium in dealings with other powers and leading the Imperium's military in times of war, which is essentially all the time. This emphasis on external dealings has its roots in the fact that the Imperium was originally a loose coalition of dwarven clans brought together only by a common external threat, which the position of Emperor was created to answer. Over time as the nation and position solidified the Emperor began taking on a larger role in domestic policies, though the extent varies from one Emperor to another. The current Ironhand Emperor is a former general and a military dwarf through and through who usually leaves civil governance in the hands of the Imperial Senate in order to concentrate on defending the Imperium from external threats.

The Imperial Senate – A governing body made up of representatives from the various dwarven clans, including the Ironhand Clan, that make up the Imperium, the Imperial Senate is elected by the property-holding members of the clans each senator represents. Senators are traditionally male, though there have been a number of exceptions over the years. While the Emperor serves as the leader of the Imperium's military, the Senate would determine domestic policy in a manner that would benefit all the clans, not merely the Ironhand Clan. Legislation is proposed, debated, modified, voted on, and passed by the Senate, generally, though not always, with the approval of the Emperor, to be enforced by the Imperial Magistrates. The balance of power between the Ironhand Emperor and the Imperial Senate has shifted many times throughout the Imperium's history, and it currently favors the Senate.

The Eldanari Commonwealth – Though theoretically a pan-elven state, the Commonwealth is highly anarchic and poorly defined, owing to the chaotic nature of the elves. Add to this inherent disunity the racial tensions between the high and wood elves, which still simmer amongst some members of the population, and you have a nation that no king would wish upon his worst enemy. Though the war between the Kingdom of Halcyon and the Commonwealth ended nearly two centuries ago, that is still within living memory for an elf, and many of the veterans of the war are still alive today. Tensions between the two powers remain high, especially considering the current war between the Kingdom of Halcyon and Bellicosia. The Commonwealth has openly entered into diplomatic relations with the new arrivals, partially out of a desire to see their human neighbor weakened and partially out of resentment leftover from the war, though they have yet to take any overt action.

The High Queen – A remnant of elven culture from before the destruction of the elven homeworld, the Queen is a largely ceremonial position. Being an aspect of elven culture common to all three elven races, the position primarily serves as a symbol of elven unity created following the high elven victory roughly two millennia before the first humans arrived on the continent mainly to appease the conquered wood elves. However, even a symbol has power, and the royal family is still able to influence public opinion within the Commonwealth enough that members of the Elder Council, the actual governing body, frequently seek out the Queen's support in order to pressure potential opponents into capitulating on policy issues. Though originally high elven, the royal family has been of mixed high and wood elven descent for roughly a millennium.

The Elder Council – The body that at least attempts to govern the Eldanari Commonwealth, the Elder Council is composed of twelve "Speakers" who decide policy and propose, debate, modify, vote on, and pass legislation. The Speakers are chosen by existing members of the council and hold the position until they die or resign. When this happens, the Speaker who numerically follows the now vacant position takes their title and appoints an elf to take their previous seat. For example, if the Third Speaker dies or resigns, the Fourth Speaker becomes the new Third Speaker and will appoint a new Fourth Speaker to take their place. An appointment can, however, be overruled if eight members of the council object. While in theory the council has absolute power over the Commonwealth, in practice the amount of authority inherent in any decision made by the council is proportional by the size of the majority that it passes with. An edict passed with a simple majority will have little influence, and many of the cities and townships that make up the Commonwealth may be able to get away with ignoring it. One passed unanimously will have the same authority as if Corellon Larethian descended from on high and personally commanded all the elves to obey it. The two events occur about as often. The council is lead by the First Speaker, whose only official distinction is that he literally speaks first and should a vote end in a tie the side which the First Speaker is on prevails. In reality these two powers grant the First Speaker an immense amount of influence, as he both has significant control over the agenda for all the council meetings and has a much less difficult time rounding up the necessary support for his policy directions.

The Ranger Corps – The closest thing to a standing, peacetime army that the Commonwealth has, the members of the Eldanari Ranger Corps are both highly respected and widely feared by their fellow elves. They have devoted their long lives to finding newer and more effective ways to kill people and are frighteningly comfortable with even the most brutal of acts, having had centuries to overcome whatever reservations they might have had about ending the life of another being, elf or otherwise. An elite fighting force, rangers spend most of their time away from the Commonwealth, hiring themselves out as mercenaries in far flung lands to keep their skills sharp during the long lulls between wars. During troubled times, however, they are summoned back to the Commonwealth to prepare for an actual war. The current Grand Master of the Ranger Corps is a harsh and pitiless elf named Valdrae Saj'theron, a veteran of the war with the Kingdom of Halcyon who still bears a substantial grudge against humanity.

Half-Elves – A relatively recent addition to the Commonwealth's population, "half-elves" do not officially exist under Commonwealth law. When it was discovered that elves and humans were capable of producing viable offspring shortly before the outbreak of the Great Eastern War the Elder Council was quick to declare that any amount of human ancestry, no matter how distant, automatically made one fully human and thus not eligible to be a Commonwealth citizen. While most half-elves have since fled the Commonwealth to the Kingdom of Halcyon, where their heritage is meet with mere suspicion rather than outright revulsion, a sizable portion have remained and their numbers have been steadily growing over the last two centuries. Ultimately the status of the burgeoning half-elven minority is an issue that the Commonwealth will eventually have to address in a more meaningful manner than simply hiding its collective head in the sand, but it is unlikely that they will for the foreseeable future, by choice at least.