The Sovereignlands
A protectorate of ArnesseHouse Bannon
The Sovereignlands is the home of King and High Court, a forested valley where the Bannons have ruled in the shadow of the mountains for a thousand years. Wolves still run under its full moons.
The Land and Its People
The Sovereignlands lies in a wide valley between the Worldspine Mountains to the north and the Vokun Mountains to the south. People call it the Kingsvale. Its forests are the Kingswood, the Wolfwood, and the Hartwood.
This page describes the protectorate as it stood in 763, when the Annwyn appeared. The last section follows what became of its people there.
The sea and the high ground keep the valley cool for most of the year. Rain falls in every season under grey skies, and the spring melt floods the lowland woods. The River Ard runs through the middle of the protectorate and carries trade all the way to King's Crossing.
The people are called the Valefolk. They are reclusive, superstitious, and talented, and many of their towns, known together as the Dales, are remote enough to have developed cultures of their own. Merchants are unwelcome in most of them, and the towns hold no moon markets. The Cirque brings trade to them through a monthly caravan, the Royal Coaster, under the guard of a mercenary company called the Red Wolven.
The Bannons rule over a people they conquered in a time out of memory. Much of what they export is wood from the Kingswood and iron and precious metals from the mines of the Worldspine foothills. Their artisans turn imported materials into works that command a premium across the kingdom.
The Crown
House Bannon claims its right to rule through the legend of Banyn the Brave, and it held power long before the Great War. When a blast killed most of the Magistrat Council in 440, Prime Consul Edric Bannon declared martial law, banned religion, and led the alliance that destroyed the Old Gods. He was murdered at his coronation. His daughter became Queen Catherine, the Crimson Queen, who had four thousand prisoners crucified along the Vermilion Road and built a kingdom out of the wreckage.
By 763 King Giles II had reigned for twelve years. He was a brilliant strategist and a neglectful diplomat, and his devotion to the Aurorym had divided his own house. In 760 he made certain moral transgressions punishable under the law. He created a seat for a priest on the King's Council, and traditional allies such as the Corveaux and the Hales had grown scarce at court.
Lord Paragon Charles Bannon, a bastard son of King Miles I, had sided with Giles I at Lanton and been spared in exchange for helping to reunite the family. He had not converted, and rumor named him the leader of those who opposed the King. The Fayne Moirai had also given a portent that a darkness would shake House Bannon and perhaps end its line. The King looked for traitors in his own family, and the discovery of the Annwyn seemed to many to be part of the same prophecy.
The High Houses
House Bannon of Cadwyn
Caer Cadwyn has been the ancestral home of the family for over seven hundred years. It stands above a sheer cliff on the western coast and is said to be unconquerable. The house words are "Never Yield."
House Bannon of Dorston
The Golden Axes of Caer Dorston regulate the cutting of the Kingswood and see that young trees replace the fallen.
House Bannon of Coventry
Lord Arthur Bannon put down the rising at Lanton and was ordered to stay there, holding the town under martial law.
House Marston of Lyonhall
The Marstons are the main source of Bannon cavalry and the rivals of House Perryn.
House Blackwood of Caer Caddock
The Blackwoods fled the Midlands after a failed rebellion sixty years ago. They are harsh masters at Two Rivers, which is more a work camp than a town.
House Hawthorne of Hawthorne Hall
The Wardens of the North are a family in their last days. Lord Roderick Hawthorne has buried his son, his daughter, and his wife, and the locals say that a darkness has come to the Vale of Shadow.
House Holt of Caer Stormholme
King Giles II created this house after his coronation for Lady Victoria Holt, a former Knight of the Five Towers called the Black Banshee for her deeds at Lanton. Her words are "Guarding the Way," and her Wierguard secure the Vermilion Road.
House Laurent of Silverhart Castle
Lady Ludmilla Laurent and her Aurorym contingent would lead the First Royal Expedition into the Annwyn.
House Cornwall of Castle Weatherstone
Lord Astor Cornwall rules the silver hills around Lanton. His own son led an armed insurrection against the Crown and was brutally put down.
The Cities
Highcourt
The capital of Arnesse holds about four hundred thousand people. High Keep rises at its center, built around a ruined tower of the ancient city of Thrantis, and the Lords of High Keep have added to it until it stands at five towers. The Apotheon holds the finest library in the realm. The wealthy live on a rocky outcropping above the rest, and the poorest live in Beggar's Alley. The King's Market is among the largest in the kingdom. It is said that a much older city lies beneath the sewers.
Silverdale
This trade hub of forty thousand stands where the River Ard meets the Lyonesse, and it is unusually open to outsiders.
Lanton
Giles II defeated his father here in 751. The town was under martial law in 763, so that its silver would keep flowing to the Crown.
Hollowmere
Founded in 729 on the edge of the Vale of Shadow, Hollowmere was split between Bannon and Richter along the Dread Run after the war of the 740s. It is the gateway to the Vale and to the Annwyn.
The Reverie
Little is known of this home of the Fayne Moirai in the Worldspine Mountains. It is said that three great stone pillars stand there and that those who arrive uninvited rarely return.
Orders, Legends, and Dress
The Ordo Rosarius
The Knights of the Rose were once in the service of House Castellan. They wear rose-red lacquered plate, and some have said that they are the only moral compass keeping the Bannons from outright tyranny.
The Knights of the Five Towers
These heavily armored knights are ranked from the First Tower to the Fifth. They wear black armor made to look monstrous. Rumor gives them a secret code to go with the public one, and it is whispered that House Bannon uses them to keep its own hands clean.
The Blade of Kings
In the days of myth a blade called Auranthis was forged from the shards of Angrist, the World Hammer. It could be held only by a rightful sovereign. Legend promised that it would appear again when Arnesse was most in need, in the hand of a king who would lead the people out of the darkness. It did, in 767.
The Dragon, the Hawk, and the Wolf
A myth of the house tells of three children sent down the River Ard, each taken in by a creature of Arnesse. The Bannons use the tale to assert their right to rule over houses such as Corveaux and Aragon.
Attire
House Bannon dresses for kingship, and the kingdom follows its fashion. Embroidered and patterned fabrics are common, along with jewelry and accessories of precious metals. The common colors are red, gold, yellow, black, and white.
In the Annwyn
King Giles II sent the Laurents through the mists in mid 763. They claimed the old House Castellan fortress of Maidencourt, renamed it Stag Hall, and built Carran in its shadow. The Crows, the witches, and two hard winters wore them down, and in the spring of 765 the Laurent delegation was poisoned at a feast in Mystvale as House Oban burned Carran.
The King came to the Annwyn himself in the spring of 766 and was slain on the road by his own guard. Queen Regent Aline Bannon named her son Cyrus heir. Charles Bannon declared himself the Dragon King in the south with the Aragons behind him, and Royalist forces held Carran at the bridge. When House Aragon turned on him in the spring of 767, he was left with almost no army. He declined to try the sword in the stone and pledged what remained to King Leander, whom he served as Seneschal in the last siege.
Carran held longer than any other settlement and fell weeks before the end. The Chronicle tells of the King's death under Event VI.