The Queendom of Arkenhorn (ARK-EN-HORN)

Queen of Arkenhorn

The monarchy of Arkenhorn follows the matrilineal line. Any of the daughters of the Queen can become the next, a decision made through a ballot of the Duchy.

Duchy of Arkenhorn

The Duchy of Arkenhorn work as advisors to the Queen. Each represents a different facet of the ruling of the Queendom such as the Treasury, Agriculture, or War. They report only to the Queen. They are appointed from the nobility by the Queen.

Nobility of Arkenhorn

The Nobility of Arkenhorn represent the powerful Lords, Ladies, and Lairds of the nation. These are individuals responsible for the land the control and the people who live on it. They own castles, keeps, and manors throughout the land but do not necesarilly own the land they control as much of the land is "Queen's Land" and belongs to the people. These are inherritied titles, each with their own customs of passing on the line.

The region that is now Arkenhorn was once a loose collection of human settlements, often run by a local laird. These settlements, many of which remain to this day, were often the subject to assaults from the goblinoid clans to the north east, orc tribes to north, and various monsters emerging from the Aegarkarf Swamp.

Over time, these disperate settlements collected together for their own safety, with collections of lairds combining their resources and building the first initial nations within the settlement, the borders of these now forming present day duchies. These first nations, feeling protected from external threats given the united front they showed to their neighbours, turned inwards. There was a long period of conflict between these early peoples spanning over four centuries. Kingdoms rose and fell, nations were split, annexed, expanded, reduced, won, lost. All the while, the world beyond their doorstep grew.

The Hobgoblins had united and formed their own nation, an Empire spanning all the goblinoid lands to the North East. During a particularly brutal campaign of Celestarén, the strongest of those early human nations, the Lady of that land, Lady Soriah, decimated Fallowdor, the Kingdom on the border of this new Hobgoblin Empire, and its armies. Lady Soriah herself rode threw the lands to see her new territory, all the way up to its furthest reaches close to that goblin border. And what she saw when she arrived would change the course of history. An army, more vast and well equiped than any she had seen before, was advancing towards her. She knew that the disparate human nations would fall like so many sand castles on a beach under the assault of such a unified force.

Like the wind she rode back to her armies and told them to spread word throughout the leaders of the other nations. The goblins were coming, and if they did not unite then the days of humanity in this land would be over. Behind a common cause, the disperate armies united and fought back against the would be invaders. The war was long and bloody, with more heroic deeds than could be told in an elfs-age being performed dailt, but humanity pushed the Hobgoblin Empire back. It is said that the gods themselves looked down on the humans and knew that this was the destiny of these poeples, to form under a common banner.

In the aftermath of the war, people turned to Lady Soirah. It was her glory that had delivered them victory and they declared her Queen of these lands, leader of humanity in the north, and that her blood will forever more protect them. It is her line that survives to this day.