Kalwen

Let's talk about Kalwen. Oh wait you aren't me and have no fucking idea about the layout of my world. Now look upon an abstract and very shitty map.

Fuck you I'm AWESOME at cartography
NOW KINDA DEFUNCT

So Kalwen borders the Tyborian Kingdoms and is the Not-Wales/Scotland/Ireland/Brittany to Tybor's Not-England/Normandy/Frankish Empire. It's also these things:

...kinds

...Both...

• Salamanders...
•  A touch of Slavic mythology
• Volcanoes
• Skyrim. 
• The Hojo Faction from Total War: Shogun 2. 
• Alchemy GREEK FIRE
• NOT the Fire Nation despite being a nation of people for whom fire is a big deal
• This awesome statue/goddess it represents

 A personal appeal: 

RED - these are your people and you are indirectly responsible for the insomnia that has lead me to be awake at 2:30 and typing this. I think you should do the only decent thing and read all this boring crap for backstory. Backstory and revenge. 

So as a people the Kalwennians are fair skinned, a little short and typically either red or black haired, with dark hair being more prevalent the further west/south-west you get. Some are born with a crazy head of tortoiseshell black and red hair kinda like Rufio from Hook but less 90s. These people are said to be fated for great things, typically becoming great sorcerers or warlords. 

They live in and around a range of mountains called the Nestrafells as you can tell from my fricken' awesome map. It's a fairly secluded place. Behind the Nestrafells are a lot of big open barrenness which eventually turns into Khalad and to the east it's forest owned by the Tyborian kings and probably a bunch of crazy cannibal elves because there's ALWAYS a bunch of crazy cannibal elves. ALWAYS. A lot of the mountains are volcanic, which means two things: the Kalwennians have a bunch of very fertile terrace farms and secondly, fire is a pretty big fucking deal for them. Cos. You know. They live on top of a bunch of it.

It's time for a brief history lesson that literally only I care about but fuck you if I wasn't a deranged nerd I wouldn't be playing this crazy nerd game and writing about it. Consult the World's Best Map. Once the ancestors of the Kalwennians inhabited all that northern part of Tybor above Ainland. Then the Ainish who would go on to become the Tyborians rocked up on their big fucking horses and started killing people. So the proto-Kalwennians ran to the mountains. LEGEND TIME.

But they were not safe in the mountains either, for it was the realm of the great fire-serpents (dragons get called a bunch of shit) who were even more dangerous then the Ainish. And lo there was much strife for the People, because they managed to piss off ancient fire-beasts as well as crazy horse-riding psychopaths. 

Okay I'm gonna try and get more story-teller now. 

The People sought to appease the dragons with offerings. First with their captured enemies and war-slaves, then with their livestock, their cows and sheep, finally they bargained for peace with the blood of their children, and much woe was theirs. 

But among them was a maid named Nia who was the most beautiful woman in the world. For fear of the prying eyes of her many suitors she ventured high up into the mountains to hidden hotsprings to bathe. Yet she was watched by Naidr, Prince of the Dragons, who turned himself into a serpent no longer then a stick and would watch her from the rocks. In time he came to love bright Nia and so went before the elders of her race to ask for her hand.

In the first Naidr came before them as a goatherd, humble but honest and asked for her hand, yet the elders scorned him and turned him away. 

Then Naidr came before them as a young warrior, brave and noble, but without lands nor a place in the world. The elders scorned him again. 

Then Naidr came before them in all his finery and fury, as his true shape, the Great Prince of all the Mountain Dragons and asked for her hand, and the elders where fearful and offered them their fairest daughter without a second thought. 

So Nia was sent off to Naidr's fiery mountain lair, where surely, everyone thought, she would be devoured. But Naidr loved her truly, and wore the shape of a handsome young prince and gave Nia the life of a Princess. His cave all set about with ancient treasure was as fine a palace as any in the world and Nia was waited upon by Naidr's servants the firesprites. In time Nia came to bear Naidr's children, sons and daughters, and Naidr declared that there should be peace between the People and the Mountain-Dragons. Many Mountain Dragons chose husbands and wives from among the people then and had sons and daughters of their own, bold, fierce and proud. And so was the nation of Kalwen born, a nation of dragons and men.

But the men looked upon the dragons and forgot their fear and grew jealous of their power and their treasure hordes. So they hatched a plan. Nia's father called upon his grandchildren and told them each in turn to steal into their father's lair and steal the secret of his fire. In turn each refused to betray their father and in turn each was beaten and threatened until they would say no more until the youngest child, Tori who's tongue was forked, agreed, for she feared her grandfather's heavy hand and so betrayed her father. Tori stole away the secret of Naidr's fire and gave it to the men. 

In time a feud broke out between dragon and man once more, yet this time man had fire of his own, and the dragons were few in number. Many great dragons were slain, and when they died their bodies became as mountains and their blood the fire under the earth. Finally in grief and rage great Naidr was slain. 

And the people of Kalwen looked about and saw there were no dragons left, and Kalwen was but a nation of men who's hubris and greed had destroyed the power they had in their blood-kin. 

And Nia turned to them and said "Look at what you have done now! You have destroyed our hope and now we are all that is left to carry the Fire! We must defend it's secrets now for all time if there is to be any hope left for us!" and then she turned to her daughter Tori who had betrayed her father and doomed her race and said "Now girl who has destroyed us be remade. Let your beauty be unlooked upon and let the corpse of every serpent you have seen slain weigh always on your head." And so Tori's hair became as a nest of writhing snakes, and any who gazed upon her was turned to stone so her beauty would go unsung. 

Then Nia, who was the Mother of the People, Princess of Dragons, stepped into the Fire and was never seen again. 

BLAM. LEGENDS. Got an origin for the medusa in there and everything. In my D&D world I tend to play my legends and myths and being pretty much how they are in our world, fanciful stories based on a few nuggets of truth. But because this is D&D those nuggets tend to be pretty fucking big, what with dragons being an actual thing and all. 

But that's the origin story the Kalwennians believe in and it's a big deal in their culture. The Fire, as mentioned, is a lot of things. Firstly it's a spiritual metaphor for the lifeblood of the land, the energies that bind all life and the inherent dynamism and passion the Kalwennian people are said (by themselves) to possess. It's also what their magic basically revolves around, not just a straight up form of sorcererous fireball shit but also a more subtle form of alchemy involving the use of firesprites (salamanders). This allows them to create a variety of weapons like firebombs, occasionally flung by big ass magonels, as handheld fire siphons that basically blast greek fire everywhere. It's brutal. It also allows them to transmute base metals into gold, which seems like a pretty good deal for them because Kalwen has an awful lot of tin and coal but not much gold. Unfortunately the transmutation process requires some gold to start it off, which they trade with other nations for. Understandably they guard their secret cultural ability to double their wealth fiercely. 

Whilst a general understanding of the ways of the Fire, both the spiritual side and the magical is common to all Kalwennians the actual workings and processes are steeped in mystery the details of which are known only to the priesthood, who are almost professional secret keepers. In practise most Kalwennians make oaths, curses and offerings to Naidr and Nia, spiritual father and mother of their race.

 By and large their society is arranged along the lines of clan and family. It's all connected by bloodties and society isn't all that stratified, just broadly somewhere there's a big man at the top of the pile, who is someones elder brother and someone elses grandfather who gets to be carried around on top the the shield. Kalwen isn't a unified nation, which is a blessing for the Tyborian Kingdoms on the borderlands because otherwise they'd get hammered. There's a lot of bad blood between the clans and a lot of infighting on every scale, from the very small scuffles to full scale warfare. 

Seriously you're posting pictures of fucking terrace farms what is your life?

Typically a clan will be spread across a cluster of walled towns and villages. The people build from stone and turf more often then they do wood. Just outside these walled settlements will be a bunch of terrace farms.

Some larger clans, usually the ones who serve as official benefactors and protectors to the mystery cults that produce all the gold and angry fiery death weapons, build up into larger fortress-cities and become more organised, the head of the clan taking the title of Prince and declaring sovereignty over everyone he can. However so turbulent is the political climate Prince's and well defined princedoms seldom last long. 

The Kalwennians are excellent stone masons and builders given appropriate resources, and their cities are quite beautiful when they aren't being besieged and sacked by one faction or another. I imagine something between Ancient Greece and Incan style buildings. They like hanging baskets with wild flowers in particular and most citizens are possessed of a degree of civic pride unseen in other parts of the world. They literally don't take any of that shit. There's an appropriate receptacle for that shit and we will not tolerate that shit's presence on our good streets thank you sir!

Outside of the realms of clans and princes you get the opportunistic warlords amassing warbands of young warriors, grim mercenary types and unprincipled rogues. These wolfish warlords tend to carve out their own princedoms when they aren't raiding across the border and generally pissing folk off with all their indiscriminate pillaging. 

Unsurpringly Kalwennians like reds and oranges in their clothes, because of the fire thing. They probably wear it to about the same extent the Massai people do. In fact think like a combination of Massai dress and that of the Romano-British/Generic Dark Ages guy. A lot of sheepskin probably as well. 

Sheep, by virtue of being pretty chill about being farmed whilst at the top of a mountain, are common in Kalwen. A man's wealth is probably measured in his flock before it is in gold. There is a strong tradition of sheep rustling that is the cause of many-a blood feud. That and kidnapping of other peoples wives and daughters.

The Kalwennians are a passionate people and are enthusiastic artists, with strong traditions of bardic poetry and song running through the country. Kalwennians are also said to be among the best jewellers in the world, if a little too into draconic iconography. 

How into their dragon iconography are the Kalwens? Let's take a look at a Kalwennian warrior. This guy would be pretty wealthy and powerful, how else would he afford all this neat dragon shit?

His armour is probably imported, but Kalwennians favour scalemail over chain, but your average fighter wears little more then boiled leather. On his head he will wear a helmet that will either be shaped like a dragon or have a statue of a dragon as a crest.

Some really enthusiastic guys wear skirts made of chain serpents.

His shield will be round and probably have a dragon on it, or the boss will be shaped like a dragons head. Or both. Do not be surprised if their gauntlets end in small stylised claws, both for punching... you know... dragons. However, many Kalwennian warriors forgo the shield preferring to fight with a longspear or a glaive in two hands.

The close quaters weapon of the Kalwennian fighter is a single edged curved cutting sword something like the Greek falcata (look it up I've posted enough lame pictures as it is). It's the kind of thing that you use to take limbs off with in a very un-PG-13 way. The hilt is probably dragon shaped. If they don't have a sword they might have a flail with and end shaped like the barbed tip of a dragons tail. They have thus far been unable to figure out a way to make any considerable dragonifications to the spears, but the odd glaive head has been shaped like a jet of flame coming out of a dragons mouth, but this is rarely done twice, as it result in a very heavy and unwieldy weapon and is one of the few times the Kalwennian warrior has tried to put a dragon on a thing only to realise it's dumb and then stopped doing it.

The Kalwennians like most nations in my world carry on the Japanese practise of wearing small banners strapped to the back. Sashimono, wikipedia now tells me. Back banners. Whilst anything particularly audacious is impractical for massed combat some Kalwennian warriors when fighting in duels and honour battles will wear a particularly large double back banner hung about with colourful pennants and streamers. The effect is to get mimic wings. 

Fortunately for every 20 Kalwennian fighters only one is rich and fancy enough to go full-dragon. Most will be lucky if they even have enough wealth and fanciosty to go half-dragon. This is good because whilst one dude dressed like a fucking man-dragon is pretty impressive a whole bunch of them would look dumb and overwrought. 

I think that's it for now. Kalwen. If I think of anything more I shall update once more.