A century ago, the Sovereignty governed all the lands inside the Echor Mountains, and Phaeton's Light brought justice and prosperity to all subjects of the Golden Throne.
But times have grown hard. Gold flows towards the top of the feudal hierarchy and the prosperity of common humans has faded. Crops fail as monster attacks and Darkening have increased. And the western Marklands have been left to their own devices.
These pressures have caused conflict between feudal entities to become more common, even resulting in the turning over of the Sovereign dynasty a decade ago, bringing King of Kings Rauxes to the Golden Throne.
Conflict in these Darkened days of the Sovereignty is relatively low key, involving warbands of warriors of varying level of skill and prowess. These warbands are typically composed of a few dozen swordsmen, spearmen and elite warriors, and rarely number over a few hundred. During the hot season, these warbands raid and plunder neighboring lands for food, gold, kidnappings or other resources, to return to their fields when the harvest must be brought in.
The most common effect of these raids are burned farmsteads and villages. Rarely do these raids cause borders between principalities to shift.
In recent weeks, however, there are rumors of the Kingdom of Navarone attempting to do just that: seize land from the Hartlands and secede from the Golden Throne. A dozen and more warbands have gathered within the walls of Navarone's capital Rel Sargent, causing every crowned head in the Sovereignty to worry for the future - not least the court of the Sovereign, Rauxes, himself.
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