Ikitur Kingdom (ick-it-uhr)

The island of Ikitur is home to a small kingdom of the same name. The people live a more rugged lifestyle than those in other areas of the world, due to their geography and climate. A large chunk of the island is mountainous, with high, perpetually snow-capped peaks dominating much of the range. The north third of the island is an inhospitable tundra, both due to general climate and to the threats posed by Eiselberg Keep and its undead denizens. For these reasons, all major settlements in Ikitur are along the coast in the southern half of the island.   In the early centuries of the island of Ikitur's existence, it was the home of powerful dragons who constantly fought amongst themselves for power and wealth. The resources and treasure became ever more scarce as they were hoarded by the most mighty of dragons, leaving all others to starve and either die or flee. The domains of these powerful dragons began to slowly dwindle and fade away, leaving their riches behind for intrepid adventurers to find amongst the tall, snow-capped mountains.   After the fall of the dragons their descendants, the dragonborn, came to live on the island. They set up several towns and cities across the island, continuing their ancestors' traditions of constant warfare and conflict. In the twenty-ninth century of the First Age, Peter VI of the city of Gorville took his armies across the land and unified all of Ikitur under one rule. After The Smiting there was little record of the fairly recent kingdom, so many cities went back to being somewhat insular. When they began to make contact with neighbors again, the cities decided to reform the union, though they favored a more decentralized confederacy as opposed to a strong federal system. Since then, the cities have functioned mostly autonomously with very little input from the central government.   Part of Peter VI's impetus for unifying the island was the ever-present threat of invasion or attack by the undead from the tundra. With the northern towns frequently destroyed or completely bypassed, the southern towns saw a lot of undead activity. Knowing that only a unified, centrally mandated effort could make the northern towns serve as better shields for the southern parts of the kingdom, Peter VI rebuilt those three tundra towns - Eastern Watch, Central Watch, and Western Watch into fortified outposts capable of tracking and defeating undead threats long before they reached the rest of the kingdom. These towns struggled to cope in the immediate aftermath of The Smiting, but the forward thinking of the fortifications allowed them to survive and fulfill their purpose.