Mandos

  The southernmost nation of Boriya is the Sovereignty of Mandos, also called Antique (or Antic) Mandos. It is the oldest nation on Galath, with a history going back 10,000 years and the fall of the Eorldom of Axenir. The landscape, especially the southern coast, where long, deep inlets are divided by the narrow cliffs called the Fingers, is shaped by the great, fiery cauldron of Mount Axenir, the largest volcano in Boriya, and the mighty River Wyldos, which powers out of the mountains of the Southern Wylds.   Axenir was one of the Eorldoms of the Giants' Orthnar, its power and culture radiating out from the great forges in the caldera of Mount Axenir, the largest volcano on the planet and said in myth to be a passage to the Otherfire. During the conflict of the Earth War, the Eorl and her thegns were all called to fight in Erask, and in their absence a rebellion arose among the Giants' Firstborn servants and seized Axenir, driving out the Jotnar and Giant-Kin regents. The rebels dubbed their independent domain Mandos after one of their leaders.   Mandos of old had four division: The rugged coastline of the Fingers, the broad, river-cut plain of Antival, the badlands of the Helast, and the wild country of the Marches. During the Era of Empires, however, the Marches were lost to the Imperium of Borad. Despite this, Mandos maintained its independence while the arcane empires rose and fell, and in the time of the Cataclysm even attempted to reclaim the Marches. This attempt failed when the god known as the Grey Walker established his own domain of Tharias in that region. This left the nation with the Helast, an unwelcoming land whose people mostly raise sheep and goats, the deep harbour and trading links of the Fingers, and the agricultural heartland of Antival.   In the Sacred Era, Mandos was ruled by the Divine Sovereign called the Crucible Heart, a god born in the fiery crater of Mt Axenir. The temple-palace of the Crucible Heart lay in the caldera with the great forges. As the Kingdom Wars gained pace, an expeditionary force was successful in reclaiming the Marches from Tharias, only for the Grey Walker to accept the rule of the Lucent Empire and return as a Lucent Avatar to drive out the Mandosian forces. It was then only through paying a tribute of weapons that Mandos avoided absorbtion into the Empire itself.   When the Empire sought to establish an absolute hegemony, however, the forces of the Sacred and Sublime Lux Imperis discovered that the Crucible Heart had avatars of her own, small gods raised to greater status to aid in her defence: Prince of Bounties ruled the harbours of the Fingers, River's Warden the rich plains of Antival, and the Lady of Ash and Sand the rugged terrain of Helast. The four gods were able to weather the Godswar, and after the fall of the Lucent Pinnacle, instead of retreating they became the patron gods of Mandos and its constituent counties.   During the Godswar, the Grey Warden was slain in the Marches, and the resulting Godsgrave was absorbed into the Southern Wylds. The region is now considered cursed, and no attempt has been made to reclaim it in the Modern Era. Some outsiders have tried to claim the region, but all such expeditions have ended badly. The spirits and small gods of the Marches are hostile to all, and reject any pact offered to them.   The ruler of Mandos is the Axen Sovereign Suani, who is bound to the Heart of Burning Stone - an alternate kenning for the Crucible Heart - by a traditional pact called the Crucible Oath. Each of the ruling counts under the Sovereign's authority is bound to a lesser deity by an equally ancient pact, and bears an inherited regnal name: The Counts Phalan of the Fingers swear the Merchant's Oath with the Prince of Bounties; the Counts Ostis of Antival the Pilot's Oath to the River's Warden; and the Counts Helan of Helast bind by the Shepherd's Oath to the Lady of Ash and Sand.