Independent Kingdoms

Overview

Current Status

The Independent Kingdoms have been a thorn in our side for a very long time. With the end of the long war, we finally made peace, ceeding a lot of land to them, that rightfully belongs to the empire and its subjects. The diplomatic relations are present, but strained. The Kingdoms use this to arrange for significantly beneficial marriages, marrying way above their actual status, as they know of our need for the ore in their mountains.
While the relations between them are shaky as well, they will not falter as long as they see us as their common enemy. The Snow Witches under the young queen Aurelia still lead the coalition, as they are the ones still maintaining the large Ice Sheets.

Current Members

The Snow Witches

The Kingdom of Álbma

The Clans of Vilhealbma

Noteworthy People

Aurelia Sánná

History

The Independent Kingdoms are not different from what we are. We largely share a common history as part of the Northern Realms. Being fractured into constantly bickering fiefdoms, without any general direction at all. The kingoms we know formed during the course of the Long War, some of them, like the Snow Witches, harking back to their former glory.
The Snow Witches used to rule large parts of the Northern Realms, having built an empire to rival our own. In fact, an ancestor of our great royal majesty King Theoderich III was one of the generals leading the charge in taking them down.  

Deeper View into the Members

The Snow Witches

The Snow Witches are the ones holding the coalition together, providing the magic necessary to repell our invasion forces. Their mages are the ones keeping the spells alive, that freeze the Ice Sheets in place permanently. Their spells conjuring terrifying elementals, snowstorms to obscure our vision and deadly rains of hail, capable of decimating entire unprotected companies.
They have made their home in the parts furthest north, erecting an entire city built from ice and snow, kept viable only by their ice magic. Within this city, their rulers sit and take control of their realm. Instead of trusting those with a divine mandate to rule, they decide to forego the establishing of strong royal and noble lines, instead giving the rule to the strongest and most talented mages among them. While this may work for a roving band of mercenaries, it is utterly unsuitable for a nation. In the past a strong and capable ruler established an empire under their rule, only for them to be usurped by a technically stronger mage that completely lacked their apptitude for politics and strategy, losing all their predecessor had built within a few months - yet they do not wish to remove themselves from these barbaric ways.
 

The Clans of Vilhealbma

Dwarven clan structures are confusing to everybody, even the dwarves themselves. The clans of Vilhealbma are no exception to that. They do not have a kingdom of their own, yet considerable power. Living in the mountain ranges that directly fall into the sea in the north, they are known for their very open and accepting structure. Strangers are foolishly trusted and welcomed, often inducted into one of the clans after a very short time.
They make a living by mining the ores from the mountains and selling them to all that are willing to pay, now also having opened those trade routes to us. This has the added benefit for them, that they can use the excavated caverns to build their own cities and expand their reach even further.
The clans all are bound by blood and family to their semi-mythical founder Albma, who was apparently the first dwarf to ever mine their mountains.

The Kingdom of Álbma

A kingdom that has been only recently formed, from the clans of Vilhealbma. Not all those that are born or inducted into a clan, preferr to live underground in the caves and caverns excavated by the miners. Some of them prefer the open air and apparently also the biting cold on their skin. Those have left the mountains, with a desire to stay close to their families, deciding to settle the outsides of the mountains, now attempting to build larger cities onto the jagged mountainsides.
As a young kingdom, they have no official territory yet, only being tolerated by the others, with the exception of the Snow Witches, who are aiding them in the construction of their new cities, lending them their ice magic.