See also Bordevar Historic Events
The Dukes Betrayal
King Archibald Bordevar, also known as Archibald the Mageking, Archibald the Great or Archibald the Heretic, was an anomaly. The last nine kings of Drummond had each ruled for less than ten years, including the last four which had been of House Bordevar. But Archibald took the throne at the age of seventeen and ruled until he was sixty-eight. His rule was marked by the massively increased power of the Throne (which had languished under weak short-term kings), two rebellions (one noble and one peasant), three wars of expansion and the arrival of The Church of the Divine Spheres. By his eventual death of illness, the throne of Drummond was a title capable of competing with any other title in the world for extreme power.
But Archibald had made enemies. Power in Drummond was zero-sum and every ounce he pulled to himself, he had ripped from the once-powerful Ducal and Noble Houses. These houses had flourished under an absentee liege and did not appreciate the curtailment of their ambitions. All the while, the Commonfolk of the Kingdom were used in one aggressive war after another and found their newfound faith (in the Divine Spheres, over the concept of an unknowable mythos interpreted by the crown) was criminalised as Artebazzani propaganda.
When Artourious Bordevar, only son of King Archibald, arrived to take his father's throne, he found the Great Ducal houses of Rayleigh, Daneel, Brandt, Lennox, and Beatrice present. They informed the would-be King that there would never again be a King in Bordevar and that House Bordevar would return to being another Noble House the same as any other. If the young Artourious disagreed, he would be named an enemy of the people and executed.
Overnight, the lands of House Bordevar were gobbled up by nearby Houses, their wealth looted, and the empire that was his by blood was torn from Artourious’ hands.
Trusted Companions All
Immediately after the Duke's Betrayal (known as the Sharing of the Lands in Drummond) there is little information available about Artourious Bordevar's actions. What is known is that he gathered around him great heroes who he had adventures with in his earlier years. Heroes such as Elaith Gravemarked and Ser Kadreigan Dracos, also known as ‘Eagleheart’. The young Bordevar and his companions departed his father's manor where they were met by an army of armed commonfolk. Their leader, a warpriestess named Lady Jaladene of the Arcadian Frost gave the young lord an ultimatum.
These commonfolk were all families who had served House Bordevar for generations. With the houses fall, they would surely have their livelihoods and perhaps homes buried under the greed of their new Ducal lords. They would follow Artourious into his future endeavors if:
- No commonfolk in his lands would ever be bound to the land ever again, ending serfdom under his rule.
- Leaders of commonfolk, chosen by commonfolk would be present on his Ducal council. With an equal voice and vote.
- Artourious would not be a heretic like his father. He would decriminalise the Church of the Divine Spheres and would acknowledge the truth of Niccolo himself.
After three days of argument with Lady Jaladene, his companions and his conscience beneath a great Drummond Oak, Prince Bordevar (as he still named himself), Lady Jaladene, and a commonfolk ‘mayor’ named Oscar Uppswolda signed the ‘Oaken Accords’ the first document to carry a new royal seal and refer to ‘The Kingdom Of Bordevar’ which granted these rights to the commonfolk of this realm for ‘as long as the Spheres guide our spirits’. Lady Jaladene blessed Prince Bordevar in the image of the Sphere of Steel and much of the Commonfolk fell in line with the expedition as it wound it's way west towards the coast.
When the force reached Crownsport, Prince Bordevar met with Duke Adddenar the First and signed over the last of the House Bordevar lands in exchange for a fleet of ships to carry them across the Explorers Sea to Esterra where he would raise a new nation. The Duke, happy to be rid of the troublesome Prince, agreed and the First Royal Bordevarian fleet headed west in the year 35AE.
A New Land
After a stormy transit of Explorers Sea, the fleet immediately made port in a shallow sandy bay, beaching a number of their ships. These were hauled ashore and scavenged into dwellings. From his new capital in Vettesport (named for his mother) the newly declared King Bordevar sent out knights in all directions to report on where he might make war in the style of his father. During their time in Vettesport, the expedition went through numerous tumultuous times, such as the Death of Sir Kadreigan at the hands of Elaith Gravemarked and continued destructive storms. It is also in this time that it is thought that the King began to first put his code to paper, creating a noble ethos to guide his nation forward.
When his knights returned they bore varied news. To the north was a vast steppe of scrubland and an archipelago replete with corsairs and ne-er do wells. To the south along the coast, there were settlements with strong folk who sailed longships. They called themselves Valleyfolk and owe fealty to a council high in the mountains. To the West was a people known as the Endemani, strange heretics who worshipped their land and served ‘Harvestkings’. Their land was bountiful and the Endemani themselves were prone to petty conflicts, the knights that had ventured far into their lands felt that it would be a simple task to make war with them.
With such a poor experience sheltering at Vettesport, the King was eager to find glory inland. He declared his first Dukedom, that being Stormswatch, granting it to House Uster. This would be the manner in which the Bordevarian state would grow into the future. The great expedition would ‘adventure’ into a new region or state, a vast army of heroic knights supported by a swathe of commonfolk soldiers. They would crush whatever resistance was present. After which King Bordevar would spend a season or two holding court in whatever lord’s hall was the most notable, before declaring it a new Dukedom and handing it off to a companion that had pleased him or (if the land was not to his liking) displeased him.
Expansion at Swordpoint
In the ensuing twenty years, The Kingdom of Bordevar took shape. The wars against the Harvestkings of the Endemani were brutal affairs that heavily favoured the strengths of the Bordevarians. Characterised by massive field battles and swift assaults on the wooden keeps of the Endemani, many heroes and noble houses were made and lost in this time, as were thousands of commonfolk soldiers.
But the conquered lands were indeed fertile and Bordevar now held a rich breadbasket from which to grow. In the later years of his life, as the stresses of empire and battle wore on the King, Artourious did not engage in more wars of expansion. Instead, he turned his time towards ruling and scholarly pursuits. Upon the bones of the only stone keep of the Harvest Kings, The Fortress of Pirapp, he built Royal Bordevar in the style of the great castle his father had ruled from.
The people of Bordevar spread throughout the Kingdom and found it welcoming. There was land enough for noble houses to be granted good titles and the Ducal court was large. The Oaken Accords had afforded new freedoms and protections for the commonfolk who formed the backbone of the nation in peace as much as they did in war.
It was during this time that the Kings Ethos was completed and began to circulate among the nobles of the Kingdom. In the cutthroat world of pursuing the King's favour it became the guide to power. As quickly as it spread through the noble houses and knightly orders, it disseminated among the people in the form of cultural teachings, royal decrees, and even the Bordevarian church of the Divine Spheres.
This was the beginning of Fortress Bordevar. From this point onwards all diplomacy from the Kingdom would be done either with military action, Bordevarian agents seeking out magical items in distant lands, or gallant knights of Bordevar striking out for glory at the end of a steel point. While it remains unclear to what extent this was decreed by King Artourious and what was noble houses seeking their own notoriety, Bordevar became a pariah state in Southern Esterra, more than it already was. Cut off from trade and support by their own violence.
A Crown Falls
When death came to King Artourious, it was swift. Early in the winter of 71AE the King took ill with a fever and died in his Winter Manor three weeks later. The late Kings own paranoia meant that he was only surrounded by his bodyguards, the Knightly Order of the Hallowed Word. Across the Kingdom, nobles and commonfolk grieved in their own way, with hundreds of empty caskets buried in the soil across Bordevar in absence of a massive royal ceremony.
While the nation grieved, those in power quickly began to panic. The King had died without heirs and had decreed that only the crown had the right to declare new Dukes and Duchesses when a Ducal house failed or fell. This had already begun to happen in the latter years of the King's reign, and even now more and more of the lands had defaulted back to the direct ruleship of a man who was now dead. The remaining Ducal houses assembled the most knowledgeable magi, priests and intellectuals of the nation in an attempt to search through the legal, moral and spiritual routes towards naming a new King. This ‘Wise Council’ was assisted by the Knights of the Hallowed Word with their impossible task that could spell doom or salvation for the nation.
In the interim, the Ducal council ruled as well as they could. The few remaining companions of Artourious (and their children who were lucky enough to be recognised by the late King for greatness) attempted to hold the nation together. The common people of Bordevar had a great patriotism in their hearts. It was on their backs and by their sweat that the nation had gone from battlefield to breadbasket. But in the higher rungs of the petty nobility and the Knightly Orders there was a concern. The longer the Wise Council took, the more the nation began to fray at the edges.
But it was a trap. The Wise Council could not reinstate new Dukes to rule the land while they searched for a new king, or else the nobles would accuse them of making themselves monarchs. The nobility could not name their own King, or else other nobles would accuse them of treason. And so, over time more of the Ducal houses fell empty. Until all the lands were once again held by petty lords, no one or the Wise Council by proxy.
A Barred Kingdom
It was in this time that all Bordevar had was the King’s Ethos. Nobles, desperate to prove loyalty in a time of paranoia became fervent in its interpretation. They ventured out into other parts of Esterra, sword in hand in pursuit of phantom foes. The Commonfolk and the Priesthood fell upon each other, seeking out witches, traitors, and cultists. The Knightly Orders mistrusted each other, rising to greater levels of folly and violent acts.
This period is a long one, but it is not one that can be easily broken up into moments. Rather it was a time of continued social fracturing within Bordevar and violent expeditions out of Bordevar. There are many tales during the time of the barred Kingdom that speak to the period's danger, such as the skirmishes against both the Greenweald Baronies and the Iron Valley along their borders with the Kingless Kingdom or Bordevarian nobilities attempts to keep their own peasants from fleeing across Lake Ladure or the inquisitions of the Lumos Church against traitors to ‘The Kings Truth’.
A healing was needed, or a bloodletting.
The bloodletting would come beneath a purple banner. To the north, beyond that ragged scrubby steppe the last King had disliked, rose an Imperial power unlike any other. The Onyx Aristocracy, a nation of necromancers and their heretical creations. The fractured and divided Kingdom of Bordevar stood no chance and suffered defeat after defeat.
This revelation of their hubris laid bare and the damage it caused the nation pushed them to acknowledge their failings. The Ethos of Artourious was brought into question for the first time in nearly two hundred years.
And so Bordevar reached out to The Concord for aid.