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'''Aenarch''' is the world of the [[Aenarch Empire]], the setting created by the game master for the campaigns [[Aenarch: Last Winter]] and [[Heralds of the Cycle]]. {{Src|last-winter#5|heralds-b#1}} It is an empire that has kept its shape after losing its head: there was once an emperor, and there is no emperor now. {{Src|last-winter#5}} On paper the [[Minor Organizations#Senate|Senate]] rules; in practice certain organizations do. {{Src|last-winter#5}} Almost everything on this wiki happens inside that gap — in the [[Velfald]] Regency, in its northern county of [[Iceverf]], and in the dead southern county of [[Deadreach]], while the [[The Winter War|Winter War]] burns through all three. {{Src|last-winter#5|heralds-b#3|last-winter#643}}

== Government and the shape of the state ==

The Empire is divided into little kingdoms called Regencies, each ruled by a [[Regent]] and his bloodline, and each Regency contains duchies and counties. {{Src|last-winter#5}} A [[Regency]] is not only a territory but an institution: it carries bodies such as a Senate and a War Charter. {{Src|heralds-b#49|heralds-b#50}} The [[Velfald]] Regency has its own Senate. {{Src|last-winter#230|last-winter#232}}

The visible order is thin. The senate governs in appearance while organizations hold the real power. {{Src|last-winter#5}} In [[Velfald]] the central authority is weakened and full of cracks. {{Src|heralds-a#3}} The Winter Elves understand this precisely: to destroy the centralized power, they judge, they must destroy the Regent's legitimacy. {{Src|heralds-b#182}}

{{Spoiler|GM:Aenarch}}

== Land and regions ==

[[Iceverf]] is one of the regions of the Empire. {{Src|heralds-b#144|last-winter#164}} The [[Velfald]] Regency holds two influential duchies, [[Swanhall]] and [[Moonward]], together with the county of [[Iceverf]], and duchies such as [[Timbermire]] are counted among its lands. {{Src|last-winter#7|last-winter#21|heralds-b#178}} [[Timbermire]] is the capital of the Regency and the seat of its Kardinal. {{Src|last-winter#862}} It is a misty, cold coastal city built above a cliff, ringed by forest, connected to the harbour of the White Coast by a lift. {{Src|last-winter#816}}

The name '''Velfald''' was given by the Empire; it comes from German roots and means "slain realm", and the land's own name was Hjortheimr. {{Src|heralds-b#432}} [[Moonward]] is a rich and proud duchy laid out in three tiers of elevation. {{Src|last-winter#415}} [[Swanhall]] lies in mountain country with deposits of precious ore and gems, its capital a fortified city in the valleys guarded by castles over the mountain passes. {{Src|heralds-b#150}}

In the north, [[Iceverf]] is a county of [[Velfald]] in a cold, snowbound land, a city of roughly one hundred thousand people. {{Src|last-winter#21|heralds-b#164|last-winter#324}} An important road runs from it to the capital of the Regency, and its Count also rules the town of [[Sunbell]]. {{Src|last-winter#21}} It is held by [[House Frostweave]], whose Countess is [[Astrid Frostweave|Lady Astrid Frostweave]], and guarded by the [[Antler Knights]]. {{Src|heralds-b#164|last-winter#99}} The city is not under siege, but it has been rotted from within and carries both political and mystical threats. {{Src|heralds-a#3|heralds-a#4}}

In the south lies [[Deadreach]], a county that was once the port city of Rosereach. {{Src|heralds-a#47|last-winter#862}} Beyond the Regency's borders, the island kingdom of [[Oavenia]] is the homeland of [[House Ursa]] and the seat of the Winter Elf capital. {{Src|last-winter#643|last-winter#802}}

== The great powers ==

[[Magnus Arcanum]] is the order of mage towers: it appoints war archmages with wartime authority, and in the ''Last Winter'' timeline it has not collapsed but remains whole, powerful and worked deep into the Empire's rule. {{Src|heralds-b#43|heralds-b#204|heralds-b#206}} The [[Legion]] is the imperial military arm; it sent a division to hold Rosereach and defends its coasts with warlocks among its ranks. {{Src|last-winter#663|last-winter#725|last-winter#779}} The [[Antler Knights]] are an ancient knightly order founded in [[Iceverf]], led by [[Sir Boros Whitelion]] and bound by honour to protect the lands of Aenarch. {{Src|last-winter#45|last-winter#51|last-winter#198}}

Beneath the visible institutions, [[Blackice]] runs the underworld of [[Iceverf]] from a hidden den beneath the city, staffed with bandits, thieves and specially trained arcane guards, where loyalty to the organization outranks everything. {{Src|heralds-b#357|heralds-b#359}} In this period Blackice is still gathering strength. {{Src|heralds-b#148}} Commerce reaches everywhere as well: the [[Golden Leaf Company]] sells flowers across the whole Empire and keeps its regional headquarters at [[Snakecross]]. {{Src|last-winter#318}}

Faith stands beside these powers. The [[Flower Goddess]] was worshipped in the old temple beneath Rosereach, and Aenism, the religion of the Seven, keeps war-priests in the field. {{Src|heralds-a#125|heralds-a#39|last-winter#792}}

== The Winter War ==

The [[The Winter War|Winter War]] is a war campaign of the [[Winter Elves]] to conquer the other elven domains and gain power. {{Src|heralds-b#3}} It was launched from [[Oavenia]] by [[House Ursa]] against the lands of the [[Velfald]] Regency across three land fronts — Eastern, Western and Northern — and one sea front on the [[Minor Places#Frostveil Sea|Frostveil Sea]], and a third of the Regency's territory has been taken. {{Src|last-winter#643|last-winter#644}} [[House Ursa]] is a matriarchal Winter Elf house of thirteen living members. {{Src|last-winter#802|last-winter#804}}

Its method is not the pitched battle. The Winter Elves press by raid, propaganda and the collapse of legitimacy, and they hold [[Grayhost]]. {{Src|heralds-a#3|heralds-a#6}} They mean to gather allies who oppose the Empire's Iron Fist rule, and they reckon [[Moonward]] and [[Timbermire]] the only powers able to stop them. {{Src|heralds-b#182}} [[Swanhall]] fell first, occupied three or four years ago, its Duke held captive ever since. {{Src|heralds-b#178}} At [[Iceverf]] the fighting is a guerrilla war along the county's border rather than a siege before its walls. {{Src|heralds-b#146|heralds-b#148}}

The other elven peoples have been broken or driven to extremes. The [[Spring Elves]] lost the Grayhost front and went over to total guerrilla warfare, fighting on in small harassment, sabotage and raiding teams until the last tree stands, with survivors sheltering inside [[Iceverf]]. {{Src|heralds-b#40|heralds-b#41|heralds-b#148}} The [[Summer Elves]], left without a balefire of their own, tried to break the winter by burning the forests of the realm, using goblins, hobgoblins and other goblinoids to do it. {{Src|heralds-a#11}}

== The dead south ==

[[Deadreach]] is what remains of Rosereach, a port city and a vital supply and reinforcement link for the [[Velfald]] Regency, and the seat of its war council. {{Src|heralds-b#5|heralds-b#6}} [[Naevys Duskbloom]] sacrificed the city with a modified ''cloudkill'' ritual to stop the [[Winter Elves]] and the power of [[Bella Worthmore]], and afterwards the city became a dead but moving place. {{Src|heralds-a#48|heralds-a#51|heralds-a#117}} The [[Smoker|Smokers]] are the dead whom that modified spell killed and raised, with the spell itself sealed inside them. {{Src|heralds-a#51}} The [[Remains]] are what the undead become when they die again: heaps of organ and soft tissue with wills of their own, infecting those they strike. {{Src|heralds-a#17|heralds-a#51}} Above them stands the [[Reminder]], the corrupted form of the [[Flower Goddess]]. {{Src|heralds-a#124}} The Winter Elf army withdrew from the plains of Rosereach and does not enter the city at all. {{Src|heralds-a#48|heralds-a#51}} The surviving population was taken out by ship. {{Src|heralds-a#144|heralds-a#149}}

== Era and calendar ==

{{Unresolved|The transcripts give no era or calendar year for the present of the campaigns; the compendium brief places them in the Fourth Era, year 750 (750 FE), but no passage in the sources states a date.|last-winter#5}} What the sources fix is relative rather than absolute: [[Swanhall]] fell three or four years before the present, and the ritual that killed Rosereach lies in the campaign's past. {{Src|heralds-b#178|heralds-a#47}}

== The two campaigns ==

''[[Aenarch: Last Winter]]'' is the main campaign and project of this world. {{Src|heralds-b#1}} [[Heralds of the Cycle]] is the party inside it: a group that tries to defend the weak and the people and that stands against the Winter Elf advance. {{Src|heralds-b#1|heralds-b#3}} Their name comes from [[The Cycle]], a divine or cosmic principle bound to nature and to death and rebirth. {{Src|heralds-b#1|heralds-b#4}} The party has also worked the other seam of this world — the tunnels and the [[Blackice]] affair beneath [[Iceverf]] — and fought a being called a splinter of a god at the end of one of them. {{Src|heralds-b#446}}

== Related pages ==
* [[Aenarch Empire]] — the state itself and its institutions
* [[Velfald]] — the Regency where both campaigns are set
* [[The Winter War|Winter War]] — the war under way across the Regency
* [[Iceverf]] — the northern county, intact outside and hollowed within
* [[Deadreach]] — the dead southern county, once Rosereach
* [[Winter Elves]] — the attacking people
* [[Timeline of Aenarch]] · [[Factions of Aenarch]] · [[Places of Aenarch]] · [[Characters of Aenarch]] · [[Houses of Aenarch]] · [[Faiths of Aenarch]] · [[Bestiary]] · [[Glossary]]

== Unconfirmed ideas ==
''The source conversations contain proposals for Aenarch that the campaign owner never confirmed. They are collected on [[:Idea:Aenarch|Idea:Aenarch]] so they cannot be mistaken for canon.''

[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Places]]

Aenarch - Revision history

imported>LoreBot: imported from campaign transcripts (pages/Aenarch.wiki)

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imported>LoreBot: imported from campaign transcripts (pages/Aenarch.wiki)