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Founding of Agatha

Due to the death of King Alfonso Argon, ruler of Agatha, a power vacuum was created. Sensing opportunity, the Mason Order, led by General Malric Terrowin, eagerly filled the void. By the time of the return of the remainder of the Agathian army, the Masons and their loyalists controlled most of the eastern half of Agatha while loyalists supporting the dynasty of Argon held the west. This dispute led to the Agathain Civil War and Agatha as it is known today.

The Kingdom's eight provinces, once independent kingdoms, were united under King Argon I. The continent of Agatha is bordered to the West by a great ocean, and to the South by a "desert sea" – on the other side of which lies "Tenosia.” Maxis is located in the east, and the Alistar Republic further north. A continent known as the Commonwealth of Arga exists on a peninsula located between the Alistar Republic and the Crusaders of Helgen.

Provinces of the Agathian Empire

Olde Agatha

Leader: King Argon II, previously King Argon I
The House of Agatha, whose namesake was spread to The Empire at large, controls the icy northern home of Argon. They hold honour and virtue above all and want to spread their zealous religiosity to the rest of the kingdom.

The ice capped northern reaches of the Kingdom are where the great uniter, the late King Argon, hailed from. The Pale Mountains to the west, the Blue Mountains to the east, and endless fields of ice to the north act as natural barriers to this heartland of rough and tumble Agathian loyalty. Although Argon's kin were purged by Malric in the civil war, some claiming distant relation to Argon began to come forward when young Argon II stepped out of the shadows to take the mantle of Lord of Olde Agatha.

Irilla

Leader: Lord Parodin In-game maps in this region: Lionspire
Important battles: Battlegrounds of Summerhill

Proud home to the throne city of the realm, the eccentrically aristocratic House Irilla grew their wealth from precious resources in their high mountains.

The region of Irilla is home to glittering ores and awe inspiring valleys. Her people are as devoted to The Church as they are to fine craftsmanship. When Argon united the kingdom he made Irilla, already home of the church, the capital of the kingdom, its central location and natural defenses made it the logical choice, though some say Pope Geoff I's influence was the true reason.

Parodin

Leader: Lord Horrath of Parodin
In-game maps in this region: Wardenglade, Coxwell, Galencourt, Tournament Grounds

Merchant princes from the landlocked central region, they have fingers in every pocket and know all that happens in the realm.

The unassuming rolling pastoral hills of Parodin are host to strong willed trading hubs such as Coxwell and Summerhill. Historically Parodin's towns and cities have very little in the way of militant fortifications and are welcoming of any outsider bringing in coin or trade goods. Indeed, Parodin holds the purse strings of the Kingdom, the hawkish merchantile lords and well worn trade routes are key to holding power over the Kingdom.

Barema

Leader: Lord of Barema
In-game maps in this region: Fighting Pit

A maritime power, House Barema is at home on stormy seas.

Barema's population lives almost entirely along its coasts, maintaining traditional fishing lifestyles. Nearly all naval commanders the Kingdom has seen come out of Barema, they say they're born on the sea and feel uneasy on land. The regions interior, dotted with ancient ruins and said to have been lush and green in ages past, holds little life to this day.

Provinces loyal to the Mason Order

Arathane

Leader: General Dagfard
In-game maps in this region: Dark Forest, Rudhelm

House Arathane are stern people raised in the darkness of their endless black forest, and view the rest of the realm with suspicion.

Known for its seemingly endless impenetrable forests, old hilltop forts, and grand utilitarian castles, Arathane is the seat of Mason power and Malric's home region. The noble houses of Arathane are ancestral rivals to Olde Agatha.

Vantear

Leader: Lord of Vantear

House Vantear are domineering and industrial, Vantear rose to prominence in the first civil war by supplying Malric's army with a steady supply of arms and craftsmen

Known for its military prowess, Vantear sits at the eastern reach of the Kingdom. Defiant to the end it was the last to be united under Argon and the first to declare support for Malric. Famous siege engineers and armorers are proud to come from this boggy land of little value. What crops are managed to be grown here sustain its people and fuel their pride in what they've built up from what others see as just fields of mud.

Ramnor

Leader: Lord Ramnor
In-game maps in this region: Falmire

Unruly northerners, called barbarian by many, House Ramnor holds little loyalty to other houses and can't keep rule long before suffering internal splits and conflict.

Endless cold streams of sea wind chill the untamed wilds of Ramnor, rolling fogs blot the seemingly daily duels in city streets. The people are prideful to a fault, they will as soon duel to the death as form a militia to march against unpopular officials. The life expectancy in Ramnor for the naive is known to be very short indeed. The wild lands of the interior were rumored to hold secrets.

Marinar

Leader: Lord of Marinar

House Marinar hails from the harsh arid south and acts as a buffer for the rest of the realm from strange foreigners beyond the dune sea. Marinar are driven by need and survival, their home giving no concession to luxury

To outsiders, Marinar looks like little more than a worthless dry waste land, but the natives have carved out their own unique way of life here working together to a future where the waters could one day return the dry basins of the region. Argon's interest in Marinar was purely strategic, to the south lies the dune sea, the nearly impassible stretch of land being the only thing separating Tenosia from The Kingdom. After the colossal failure of Argon's Crusade, Marinar sits sentinel against potential Tenosian retaliation and some still see it as a launching pad for future campaigns against the strange foreign lands.

Tenosia

See Tenosia.

History of Agatha

Prologue 1: Malric Reigns as King

Ruling with an iron fist, Malric’s only concern for his kingdom was strength. Argon’s weakness led to crushing defeat against Tenosia. Feydrid’s weakness buckled under the weight of the Mason Order. Only strength would see the kingdom stand against opposition from within and without. If he should be overthrown by an upstart challenger he would welcome this loss as a victory, he knows his strength too will fade one day.

Laborers and landowners were taxed to the point of breaking to fund Malric’s unquenchable thirst for military might. War would return, eventually, this was a certainty, and he would see the kingdom turned into a hardened realm of warriors in preparation of whatever may come to pass.

This rule was not supported in universalis. Open dissent wouldn’t be tolerated, tax would be taken by force, those deemed unfit for the kingdom would be an example to others. The Iron Fist’s grasp of the kingdom was absolute.

Prologue 5: Famine, Drought, Pestilence

The wake of Malric’s victorious campaign in the Civil War saw a bountiful surplus of food supplies. Without hungry armies requiring mountains of fuel, what followed was a golden age for the culinary arts in the Kingdom. Vegetables were plentiful, meat was cheap, and any ingredient could be sought by even the lowliest cook. But, after one last glorious season of feasting - the Autumn of Glut - a ravaging disease soon struck crops across the nation, while viruses spread amidst the livestock. The provinces soon found themselves wasting away, one weak yield led to another.

Soon the situation worsened - as the harsh southern desert winds from Tenosia carried drought and pestilence, suffocating the waters that fed the once-dense farmlands of Parodin and Irilla. Sickly peasants dropped as frequently from starvation as from the Gold Plague. Only the snail farms of Ramnor kept operating at capacity - many a mollusk was eaten that year. Though Malric kept his vast army well fed by executing supply missions to requisition the slim resources of various towns throughout the nation, this perfect storm of famine and drought meant that the situation was dire for ordinary townsfolk of the Kingdom.

Prologue 6: Unrest among the Houses

During the hard times of drought and famine, neighbourly respect between baronoies and provinces turned into an “every lord for themselves” outlook that only further sowed long lived seeds of distrust between the ruling houses.

Malric’s tyrannical rule and heavy taxes did little to endear him to the noble classes that had seen their golden years during the reign of Argon, whose royal coinage had enriched the economies of their fiefdoms. The rich families of Old Agatha and Irilla were the first to send missives to Arathane and Vantear warning of reprisal for breaking the Colantas Accord, by supplying house militia to support Malric’s efforts to seize grains and animals for his army’s stores. The many Houses of the Kingdom, at one time a model of unity under a young King Argon, had become a broken tree of angry branches. Nobles and townsfolk alike suffered under Malric’s iron fist.

Prologue 7: Rebellion

On the eve of what would come to be known as the “Valor of Verdantmoor”, the Parodish town’s volunteer guardsmen gathered at the Prancing Stag Inn to discuss tactics to safeguard their meagre stores against the morrow’s so called tax collection. All the Kingdom knew it was no tale that the king’s men made it routine to seize everything in sight in the name of taxation from settlements that fought against Malric during the civil war.

Old grudges, of course, go both ways. Pushed to a breaking point, the hardworking people of Verdantmoor stood in arms together to fight for what was theirs against an unprepared convoy of men at arms.

“The Lion of Agatha will roar once more!”, some of the king’s men claimed to hear echoing in the valley as they fled the village.

Word quickly spread of this show of strength from the commoners. Other scattered displays of open defiance flared up and were extinguished. The noble class in Parodin and Irilla refused to condemn these acts, but were powerless to protect their people with no one to rally behind…

Prologue 8: Agatha Returns

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Agathian Royal Council

The embers of rebellion stirred hot in frosty Olde Agatha after years of subjugation under Malric’s rule. Few places in the Kingdom suffered more than the old city Thayholme, and particularly the Thayic Castle, the ancestral home of the Argon royal line.

The nobles of Olde Agatha suffered twenty years of misery under Warden Huxford. Any with the slightest hint of Argon’s line in their blood was pressed into servitude to the Warden and his lackies, stripped of their power and posessions and paraded as trophies, death was too light a punishment for being related to the great destroyer Argon.

Perhaps it was his own hubrous that led to the Agathian nobility discretely spreading knowledge of fomenting dissent in the provinces. When whispers began to spread of a mysterious figure claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne, Argon The Second, it was as if light was suddenly breaking the dawn.

No trustworthy accounts exist of crucial events of the Blue Awakening, all that can be said for certain is on the second fullmoon of the twentieth winter after the battle of stoneshill, the sun set on a Thayic Castle governed by Warden Huxford and rose on one ruled by Argon II. Eager veterans and young fighters raised for this night rounded up every heretic in Thayholme and put them to the steel. Mason colors ran in the streets and the blue lion banner flew proudly.

Malric’s two decades of preparations would finally be tested, the day had finally come, and he knew, this means war.