Aenarch

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. ^{[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. ^{[last-winter#5]} On paper the Senate rules; in practice certain organizations do. ^{[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 Winter War burns through all three. ^{[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. ^{[last-winter#5]} A Regency is not only a territory but an institution: it carries bodies such as a Senate and a War Charter. ^{[heralds-b#49 · heralds-b#50]} The Velfald Regency has its own Senate. ^{[last-winter#230 · last-winter#232]}

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

Players, stop here. What is hidden behind this point is game-master material. The full detail is on GM:Aenarch.

Land and regions

Iceverf is one of the regions of the Empire. ^{[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. ^{[last-winter#7 · last-winter#21 · heralds-b#178]} Timbermire is the capital of the Regency and the seat of its Kardinal. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-b#432]} Moonward is a rich and proud duchy laid out in three tiers of elevation. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[last-winter#21]} It is held by House Frostweave, whose Countess is Lady Astrid Frostweave, and guarded by the Antler Knights. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-a#3 · heralds-a#4]}

In the south lies Deadreach, a county that was once the port city of Rosereach. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-b#357 · heralds-b#359]} In this period Blackice is still gathering strength. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-a#125 · heralds-a#39 · last-winter#792]}

The Winter War

The Winter War is a war campaign of the Winter Elves to conquer the other elven domains and gain power. ^{[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 Frostveil Sea, and a third of the Regency's territory has been taken. ^{[last-winter#643 · last-winter#644]} House Ursa is a matriarchal Winter Elf house of thirteen living members. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-b#182]} Swanhall fell first, occupied three or four years ago, its Duke held captive ever since. ^{[heralds-b#178]} At Iceverf the fighting is a guerrilla war along the county's border rather than a siege before its walls. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-a#48 · heralds-a#51 · heralds-a#117]} The Smokers are the dead whom that modified spell killed and raised, with the spell itself sealed inside them. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-a#17 · heralds-a#51]} Above them stands the Reminder, the corrupted form of the Flower Goddess. ^{[heralds-a#124]} The Winter Elf army withdrew from the plains of Rosereach and does not enter the city at all. ^{[heralds-a#48 · heralds-a#51]} The surviving population was taken out by ship. ^{[heralds-a#144 · heralds-a#149]}

Era and calendar

Needs a decision: 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. ^{[heralds-b#178 · heralds-a#47]}

The two campaigns

Aenarch: Last Winter is the main campaign and project of this world. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[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. ^{[heralds-b#446]}

Related pages

• Aenarch Empire — the state itself and its institutions
• Velfald — the Regency where both campaigns are set
• 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 so they cannot be mistaken for canon.