Epeithia

by

Finley Vorden

What You Need to Know Going In

Epeithia is a young kingdom, barely a hundred years old, still defining what it is and what it wants to be. It was forged in rebellion against the strongest economic power in the world, and that origin gives it both pride and paranoia in equal measure.

The king is good. The queen is sharp. The heir is absent. The spare is angry. And the youngest doesn't yet understand that his family is slowly breaking apart around him.

Ārdmery lies to the north, hungry and patient.

The people of Epeithia are warm, trusting, and welcoming.

Whether any of it survives what's coming is another question entirely.

Regarding Epeithia, 1372 UA

Before Epeithia existed, the southeastern stretch of Ilhdeinia was Ārdmerian territory. No settlements of note, just the lands of a distant crown with little interest in developing it. The Ārdmerians treated this land, and its people, as resources to be extracted. Settlers who moved into the region were taxed harshly, poorly protected, and expected to be grateful for the privilege of living under Ārdmerian rule.

Epeithas Māltinōr was born on the 11th of Felshein, 1239 UA, in a region that didn't yet have a name worth writing down. What we know of his early life comes mostly from Epeithian oral tradition (which tends to polish its heroes until they gleam). What's known about the man it this: he spent thirty years watching the Ārdmerians squeeze the people around him until the day he decided to do something about it.

By 1269, Epeithas had gathered enough support from locals, Drethan allies, and anyone tired of the Ārdmerian boots on their necks to mount a rebellion. On the 26th of Āncōrīte, he drove the Ārdmerians out. The details of the fighting have been mythologized past the point of reliable history, but what's clear is that it was brutal, costly struggle without any guarantee to succeed. The Drethans, in particular, played a crucial role. Diverse communities of orkiman, cervidans, and helakans who understood Ārdmerian conquest (a force they’d been fighting themselves for generations) helped the future Epeithians gain their freedom.

On the first day of 1270 UA, Epeithas formally established The Kingdom of Epeithia. He was its first king, and by all accounts a capable one. He ruled for forty years, dying on the 14th of Hānērān, 1310 UA; and left behind a kingdom that was young, fragile, and fiercely proud of its existence.

His son, Jārin Māltinōr (born 1295 UA), inherited the throne and continued his father's work of building something that could last. The court mage Kairān Ālthom, born that same year, would eventually enter Jārin's service in 1313.

Ārdmery's Shadow

What most Epeithians don't enjoy hearing is the fact Ārdmery is everywhere in their culture. The kingdom was born in opposition to Ārdmerian rule, sure, but it was also born from Ārdmerian rule.

Most people you'll meet speak Ārdmerian as their first or second tongue. Business is conducted in Ārdmerian. Laws are written in Ārdmerian. The fancy diacritical marks on Epeithian proper nouns? Those come from Ārdmerian phonological conventions. Even Idemar, the Epeithian capital, bears the circular “wheel-work” design of their former oppressors.

The relationship between these two kingdoms in 1372 UA is tense. King Demetrios Parama, who took the Ārdmerian throne in 1320 UA, is aggressive, expansionist, and has no love for the breakaway kingdom to his south. His attempted invasion of the Drethan Nation in 1363 was a disaster (the Drethans ambushed them in a blizzard), but it showed that Ārdmery still has an appetite for conquest.

Epeithia lives with the knowledge that its powerful northern neighbor would happily reclaim them if given the opportunity.

Life in Idemar

Idemar, the Epeithian capital, sits along the Tisree River. At its heart, rising three hundred feet over the cityscape, stands Castle Nōrfell with its slender alabaster towers (which I’ve always felt looked as though they might topple in a strong wind).

The first thing you’ll notice walking the streets is that Idemar’s buildings connect to one another like spokes on a wheel. The second thing you'll notice is that people here are kind.

If you’ve read my works before, you know that's not a word I throw around lightly. I've traveled most of this world, and genuine civic warmth is rarer than you'd think. Idemar has it. If your wagon breaks down on the outskirts, someone will help you fix it and probably offer you a bed for the night. Street vendors wave to strangers. It's the kind of place you'd want to find yourself on both the best and worst nights of your life.

At night, the streets glow with small purple flames, enchanted a decade ago by the court mage Kairān Ālthom, self-igniting at dusk for the night-owls and late workers.

There are no beggars in Idemar's streets. No starving children. Even the poorer outlying districts seem to have enough. The product of a king who genuinely cares whether his people eat.

The Royal Family

King Edvārd Māltinōr is, by all accounts, a good man. Broad-shouldered, with a balding head and long, flowing beard, Edvard’s smile is wide and genuine. He rules as an idealist with a faith in the common man, principles passed down from “his father and his father before him.” This is both his greatest strength and his most dangerous weakness. He sees potential allies where others see threats, and he trusts that time will resolve problems that demand action. He inherited the throne from his father Jārin in 1343 UA, and he's ruled the twenty-nine years since.

Queen Raisa is Edvārd's opposite in almost every way. Where Edvārd is inviting, Raisa is apprehensive. A skilled politician, she loves her husband's idealism, but she also knows it could get them all killed. She's fiercely protective of her children, intent on equipping them for the day she’s gone. Together they have three:

Crown Princess Lyrina Māltinōr-Tharen, the eldest, twenty-three, her mother's daughter. Pragmatic, politically sharp. She married Lord Tharen of Bairora in a ceremony designed to secure the western border. Their diplomatic marriage has been successful in every way except one: after five years, she has produced no heir. This fact has become the quiet crisis of both the Epeithian and Bairoran courts. Traditionalists mutter that a barren queen is no queen at all. Despite these rumors, Lyrina is generally respected. She's competent, beloved, but also absent at times when her family needs her most.

Prince Lānnek Māltinōr, the middle child, is nineteen. He occupies the worst seat in any royal family: the spare. His worth to the kingdom is directly tied to his sister's fertility. If Lyrina can't produce an heir, the succession passes through him, and that means his marriage becomes a political tool rather than a personal choice. He feels this acutely. Lānnek is gifted in sjōvneva, trained since boyhood by the court mage Kairān Ālthom. Where Lyrina excels at statecraft and young Corrim shows promise with the sword, magick is Lānnek's domain.

Prince Corrim Māltinōr, the youngest at fourteen, is the one member of this family whose light hasn't been complicated by politics yet. He worships his older brother with the devotion of a boy who hasn't learned to question his heroes. He begs Lānnek to show him spells, to teach him theory, to explain how magick works. He sees his brother as something to aspire to.

Kairān Ālthom, Court Mage

Born in 1295 UA, Kairān entered the service of the crown in 1313 and has served the Māltinōr family across two generations of kings.

Kairān is Lānnek's teacher, his mentor, and in many ways the closest thing the prince has to someone who sees him as a whole person. He's cautious by nature, and this caution sometimes reads as dismissal to a student eager to prove himself. His other apprentice Valinne Nadira, a young Sylvan practitioner barely past her teens, serves the crown in Kairān's absence and has her own sharp wit about her.

Life Across the Kingdom

Epeithia stretches from the Okograve River in the north (beyond which Ārdmery lies) to territories bordering the Drethan Nation in the east, and Bairora to the west. Traveling from one end to the other feels like visiting several different countries.

The Capital Region around Idemar is where Edvārd's vision works best. Towns are well-maintained, roads are patrolled, people speak about the king with genuine affection. Resources flow. Services function. The closer you are to the crown's direct attention, the better life tends to be.

Move away from Idemar into the Outer Villages of the eastern foothills, the northern settlements near the Ārdmerian border, or the rural farming communities that dot the countryside, and you find a poorer region. Despite this, King Edvārd's nature ensures a baseline of welfare for all his subjects. These communities are not neglected; they are simply less developed. Bandit raids, while less frequent than in past eras, are still a concern in some remote areas, and the crown's response is a slower, bureaucratic process focused on long-term solutions rather than swift military aid. Though the capital receives the lion's share of attention, the outer villages, thanks to the King's commitment to his people, are stable and secure enough to manage on their own.

The Ārdmerian Border is tense ground. The fields between Epeithia and Ārdmery have traded hands more times than anyone can count: a narrow strip of land where both kingdoms demand tribute and homesteaders get crushed between two tax collectors. Some succeed. Most move on, heading west in search of something less exhausting.