Chance Rock

Mt. Whitehood

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The highest point in Damir (14,200 ft.), Mt. Whitehood was appropriately named by Lyndon himself.  The snow-capped head of the mountain is visible for well over fifty leagues; even the elves of Merrimont and the dwarves of Chance Rock can see it.  The mountain provides a high ground advantage for the city that would be built at the peak’s base.  In 440 ACW, the attacking dwarves of Duinmire were forced to take a wide angle of approach because of the steepness of the mountain.

The mountain has been mined thoroughly for its salt by the humans who settled under it, and then later, by immigrant goblins.  Some gold deposits have been found, but the mountain’s resources have been partly depleted after four hundred years of continual mining.  It was believed by critics for the unification of the human settlements (which became the kingdom of Damir) that the only reason Whitehood wanted to unite was because their resources were dwindling.  It is said Whitehood needed resources and the rest of Damir needed leadership.

There is a legend of the mountain which states that at Whitehood’s highest point is a cave, where a great mountain dragon slumbers.  The dragon was once believed to be the first ruler of the land, claiming Whitehood as its lair.  It would terrorize the indigenous cultures of primeval Damir, including the cyclopsians, but mysteriously ceased its devastating attacks just before Lyndon arrived in 106 ACW.  The legend was first told to the templars by the native humans, who Lyndon believed were trying to frighten him off from settling in Damir.  However, Lyndon did concede that Mt. Whitehood made him feel “uncertain” and wanted to move on from it. 

Argault the Builder, responsible for constructing the great fortress Gilstad, was commissioned by King Valimond in 564 ACW to make blueprints for a majestic castle built up against Mt. Whitehood.  Argault, having heard rumors, made a point not to build too far up the mountainside in fear of “waking the fabled dragon.”  In 675 ACW, a famed adventurer named Knippler made a daring climb to the summit of Whitehood.  Upon his return, Knippler claimed he came face to face with a sleeping dragon and provided some of its scales as proof.  But two years later, it was revealed that Knippler never found the cave and instead purchased some scales from a traveling merchant prior to the trek.  Knippler was proven a fraud and lynched by an angry crowd.

 

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Whitehood part 3

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The 4th War of Damir was one of the most deliberate and certainly darkest moments in Damir history.  Bandrian believed strongly that it would only be a matter of time before Duinmire would launch another invasion against Whitehood.  Unwilling to wait, Bandrian formed his own assault and marched on Duinmire.  The attack came during torrential rainfall, and Duinmire’s defenses were not alerted to Bandrian’s army until they were upon them.  The attack was perfectly coordinated and the fortifications around Duinmire did not hold.  In the mud and rain, Bandrian’s army butchered the dwarven army and later the civilians within Duinmire’s populated township.  Over three thousand dwarven men, women and children were savagely killed by the end of it- over half the population of Duinmire.  Those that were lucky enough to flee went east, to the security of Chance Rock.

Known as the “Duinmire Massacre” the butchering of civilians alongside soldiers is regarded as one of the most sadistic deeds ever executed in Damir history.  But at the time it made Bandrian a hero and he was celebrated for it.  It gave him a reputation, one that gave pause to all of Damir.  To the people of Whitehood, Bandrian was a symbol of human strength and resiliency.  Bandrian’s remarkable feats gave the human race a significant edge in Damir over the dwarves, and later the elves and the orcs.

After Duinmire’s sacking, the town became a settlement for humans looking to take full advantage of the mining operations the dwarves had started.  Adding rich minerals to their salt trade, Whitehood began to expand and profit from its wars.  Bandrian was the most reputable person in the region.  People were in awe as well as in fear of him.  Shortly after becoming Protector, Bandrian built and trained his army into the most lethal force in Damir.

Fearing that Bandrian would push east and wipe them off the face of the earth, the dwarves of Chance Rock began to build a massive fortress to repel him.  This fortress would become Gilstad; but at the time Bandrian ignored them, no longer considering them a threat to Whitehood’s domain.  Eventually, Whitehood’s military served as peace keepers throughout Damir, not just in Whitehood.  Slowly, the other human settlements began to see Whitehood and Bandrian as protectors to all of Damir.

With the orcs taking Oringard away from the elves, who were forced to flee into the fields of Merrimont, Damir’s power structure shifted.  No longer was Damir a land to be torn apart or fought over by only humans and dwarves, but with elves and orcs in the land, it made Damir a hot zone over racial tension and encroached territories.  Whitehood sat on the front lines and Bandrian’s army kept the other races at bay.  Finally, in 470 ACW, the humans of Damir united under one banner and one king.  Whitehood served as the heart of the new human kingdom and resting place of Damish royalty: the house of Bandrian.

Since King Valan II, Whitehood has become quite diverse in its racial makeup.  Once completely dominated by humans, Whitehood has a large population of both dwarf and goblin.  Humans still make up 80% of the total population, but the percentage continues to drop annually.  The salt mines of Mt. Whitehood are excavated by goblins mostly, as it is dangerous work, and the only legitimate work goblins are permitted to do.  Dwarven merchants are found by every street and plaza corner, haggling and selling their wares to everyday citizens.  There are a few elves, but they’re usually on official business as they are still treated poorly in certain human circles.

Whitehood part 2

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While other warlords and ineffective councils had been fighting for control of Whitehood, the dwarves of Oringard had been pushed out of their home by the encroaching elves and fled to the northeast.  The dwarves already had a fall back plan, as the underground lair of Chance Rock served as a fortified base, but they wanted more.  Pushing west, the dwarves attempted to reach Duinmire, a long ignored dwarven settlement.  As the third century came to a close, the dwarves fortified Duinmire and had begun to populate the region, soon taking notice of Whitehood.  Duinmire was only seven leagues from Whitehood, a full day’s march away.  The dwarves coveted Whitehood, seeing vast resources they could use to establish control in Damir.  When word reached them that Whitehood was in a terrible state, Duinmire began to mobilize.

The tyrant Krogert had demonstrated that he was a competent bully, maintaining a stranglehold over Whitehood and its dissenters.  But history would mark him as a militarily inept bungler who exposed Whitehood to a massive dwarven invasion.  As a means of furthering his rule and fattening his pockets, Krogert routinely organized large patrols to go scouring the countryside, looking for small villages and farmers to raid and intimidate.  These patrols were massive, making up the majority of Krogert’s guard, designed to send an illusion that Krogert’s military was huge.  Spies of Duinmire kept watch of these patrols and noticed they would travel several leagues away from Whitehood, leaving it vulnerable for as long as a full day.  Dwarven agents further gathered that with the patrols on the march, Whitehood would leave only a token force to guard its fortifications.

The 3rd War of Damir began when one of Krogert’s massive patrols went pillaging and the forces of Duinmire attacked suddenly.  The dwarven front was meant to cause chaos in Whitehood, disrupting communications between the garrison there and its leader, Krogert.  The plan worked, and Whitehood was breached by a surge of armored dwarves who pummeled Whitehood’s remaining guard.  In a panic, Krogert packed as much of his belongings as he could carry and fled Whitehood.  He was never seen again.  Leaving Whitehood to the mercy of the dwarven army, Krogert’s cronies bickered over how to rally the people of Whitehood against the forces of Duinmire.

Whitehood was spared from dwarven rule thanks in sole part to a common human soldier named Bandrian.  Conscripted to fight under Krogert’s banner, Bandrian was a frontline soldier fighting for the tyrant to cover his father’s debt to him.  Bandrian had been part of the massive patrol sent to bully the countryside into submission.  Returning to Whitehood early, the patrol noticed that the city was engulfed in chaos and the dwarven army was winning.  The captain of the patrol was seen dropping his sword and running in the opposite direction.  Bandrian seized control of the patrol and rallied them, then charged the rear of the dwarven army.

The poor rear defenses of the dwarven invasion force proved to be its weakness and Bandrian exploited it.  Unsure why reinforcements were unable to reach the frontlines, the dwarves penetrating the city’s defenses were pushing forward with no back line to support them.  Bandrian’s men had wiped out most of the unsuspecting reinforcements and by the time the dwarves realized this they were trapped.  Forced to fight their way out of the city they had fought so hard to penetrate, the dwarven army was almost massacred.  Fleeing Whitehood, the dwarven army gave up its attempt in taking the large human city.

Officially the war was over, but not to Bandrian.  With Krogert gone his minions began to take up where he had left off, but Whitehood rallied around their new hero.  Bandrian was quick to act and led a sizeable uprising to bring down the last of Krogert’s followers.  The public demanded justice and Krogert’s men were swiftly executed.  Whitehood embraced Bandrian as its favorite son and savior, and the title of Protector was offered to the young man, who accepted.  But Bandrian’s thirst for retribution extended beyond Krogert’s men.  He wanted Duinmire dealt with.

Whitehood part 1

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Located beneath Mt. Whitehood is the large human settlement named after the white-hooded peak.  The tallest peak of the Golden Mountain range, Mt. Whitehood sits at 14,200 feet high and it is the southern most mountain of said range.  The city rests among the Rossi Heights, the foothills beneath Mt. Whitehood.  Considering Damir’s age (circa 102 ACW), the city of Whitehood came to be settled late in its history.  Proudhill, Belvadore, Duinmire and Chance Rock predate Whitehood’s establishment, most of them by over a hundred years.  Officially, Merrimont was established long before any of them (circa 106 ACW), but the initial human settlement was destroyed by flooding approximately 147 ACW and again in 223 ACW.

Giving up on settling in the lush fields of Merrimont, survivors decided to try their fortunes by settling up north.  The hills and foothills surrounding Mt. Whitehood were untamed and unsettled.  A few sparse villages of native Damish people were about but they were primitive and unsuitable to maintain a viable population.  Humans had multiplied their numbers since the templar Lyndon had led them on a northern trek to new lands.  Those that stayed behind wanted to take advantage of Damir’s lush landscape, fresh water, and defensible settings.

The Rossi Heights presented an ideal place to build a settlement that could be defended.  The abundance of rolling hills would slow any army, and the mountain provided a safeguard against any attack from the  north.  Whitehood became an official human province in 250 ACW, and it started out primarily as a small community of miners.  A council of elders served as the town’s governing body, but as it grew so did its government.  In time, the elders began to jockey for the most influence and power.  This spawned internal fighting among the ruling class and later several bloody feuds which led to a string of warlords taking over Whitehood.  As the political situation in Whitehood deteriorated so did its economy.

Due to its limited agricultural opportunities, Whitehood struggled to keep up with its booming population growth.  The land about Whitehood was not the best for farming, its soil rough and rocky.  Their neighbor to the west, Proudhill, was on the other hand rich in agriculture.  Eventually, a trading post was established between the two large human settlements and Whitehood’s economic situation improved somewhat.  But its political instability was holding the city back.  In a span of nearly seventy years, Whitehood had five different warlords claim jurisdiction of the town.

Even with the political chaos, Whitehood grew from a mining village to a township to a fortress.  Fear of rogue bandits and fearsome monsters drew people behind its walls for protection.  The warlord Keltan attempted to be Damir’s first “king” and establish a bloodline of rulers from Whitehood.  He helped turn Whitehood from a basic fortress to a sizeable keep.  While Keltan ruled for almost forty years (345-84 ACW), his son never ruled a day in Whitehood.  The Keltan line was cut down immediately after following Keltan’s death, his family over-run by a mob and publicly lynched and executed.  The uprising against the Keltans was a planned event, meant to strike when the warlord’s family was most vulnerable.  Led by several concerned citizens over the state of Whitehood, and the fear that warlords such as the Keltans would only lead the city down a dark path, a council was re-established.

Under the governance of a council, Whitehood flourished, establishing a trade route to Proudhill and all the way to Belvadore.  Proudhill was rich in agriculture, Belvadore in linens, and Whitehood in salt.  Because of the volcanic region around Mt. Whitehood, an active volcano, hot springs producing mineral salt were ever present.  Known as the “Salt Trade,” Whitehood’s primary resource was the salt mines that paved the way for the city to become an economic giant.  In time, Whitehood’s population grew larger and it began to incorporate outlying villages.  Settlers and villages placed around the hills fell under the protection of the city.

History eventually repeated itself, however, when the rich and influential merchant, Krogert, bought the loyalty of Whitehood’s military guard and took over the council.  Krogert, a fat, slobbery man covered in hair from head to foot, behaved like a bully, intimidating Whitehood into submission by terrorizing households and fellow merchants.  He came to power roughly 430 ACW and was a merciless tyrant who put to death anyone he suspected to be his enemies.  Because of how close Whitehood had become to the other human settlements in Damir, Krogert’s coup caused an economic ripple and backlash.  The Salt Trade was dissolved, with both Proudhill and Belvadore attempting to distance themselves from Krogert and his ilk.

People starved in the streets, and clothes and medicine were hard to come by.  Krogert and his guards frequently raided homes, taking food and valuables to help preserve himself and his rule.  Krogert’s greed and consumption of resources went to all extremities.  As a levy, if a family could not pay Krogert’s steep taxes he would require a family member to enter servitude to his house.  He primarily wanted women to please him at every turn and would seize young girls and wives from their homes without explanation.  Outrage was rampant but suppressed by Krogert’s elite henchmen.  His rule lasted roughly ten years, but in that time Whitehood had become weak and vulnerable.

Damir

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Located in the northwest corner of the continent, Damir is about 37,000 square miles in area.  Damir has no access to the sea, landlocked by four neighboring lands: Lyndon, Gronde, Nubrince, and the Ice Lands.  Officially named by Samjin the Scout in 102 ACW, the word “Damir” is an Elvish term meaning “Land of Awe.”  Samjin considered the name on his expedition through Damir’s wilderness, across the open green plains and rolling hills, to the Reverence Mountains in the west.  Ultimately, it was the land’s high concentration of dark clouds and thunder that inspired Samjin to name it Damir.

Damir had been occupied for centuries by the cyclopsians, giants whose most notable physical trait is their one eye.  Using their size to their advantage, they had enslaved all the other indigenous races.  The brutality of the cyclopsians kept the indigenous humans and elves from prospering and multiplying.  Due to their own internal strife, the cyclopsian leadership acted more along the lines of a confederacy rather than a unified nation.  They were broken up into several clans and some of the clans resented the others.  Small wars over Damir’s lush lands yielded nothing but hardships and their culture did not progress.

Although the dwarves were the first to immigrate to Damir, they avoided the cyclopsians by staying well protected within the forestland of Oringard.  The cyclopsians knew of the dwarves but were afraid of the immense forest, and thus the two races did not interact.  However, because of how disorderly their society was, the cyclopsians did not detect Samjin, and the scout was able to move through Damir, taking note of the landscape.

Samjin was the personal and most trusted scout of the renown Templar, Lyndon.  Lyndon was leading a mass exodus of humans and some elves out from the ruins of the Chaos War.  He sent several scouts ahead of his migration north to find land that would be suitable to cultivate and rebuild.  When Samjin returned, Lyndon was convinced that Damir was the land they had been searching for. Despite the cyclopsian occupation, Lyndon felt convinced he could take the land because of the disorderly nature of the cyclopsian rule.  Entering Damir, Lyndon bypassed Oringard because neither he nor his followers had any interest in the wooded wilderness, compared to the fertile meadows to the west.

Initially, Lyndon and his followers settled near the Paia River but it flooded and destroyed their early settlements.  As a result, Lyndon pushed north and then west, and ran into the cyclopsians who met Lyndon with hostility.  It is unclear who attacked first, but in the end Lyndon drove out the cyclopsians from Damir after a five year campaign.

Along the way and during his wars with the cyclopsians, Lyndon’s followers began to settle across Damir, ending their continental migration to call the land their home.  Lyndon himself was not satisfied with Damir and had originally mistook the Blue River for a coastline.  Learning that the land of Damir was landlocked and had no access to any sea, the great Templar moved on and would later found the neighboring marshland, which would bear his name.

With the cyclopsians driven out, the vast majority of the people who migrated under Lyndon’s banner were human.  The human populace quickly spread and multiplied to become the primary race in Damir.  They would exist as a series of settlements until unification in 460 ACW by Bandrian, the first king of Damir.  The land of Damir became the kingdom of Damir and would attract other cultures and races to its lush domain.  Even with Oringard being overrun by invading orcs, the kingdom has withstood many different wars, which have shaped and molded it into a thriving monarchy.

The land of Damir has withstood thirteen wars, and have named the wars accordingly.  These wars include internal conflicts, and do not include minor border conflicts with Lyndon in 676 ACW and again in 715 ACW, both of which ended up favoring Damir.  Because the Blue River runs through both Damir and Lyndon, control of it has always been the motive behind the western border wars.  However, since the Templar Lyndon’s line was restored to Lyndon’s monarchy as supreme ruler, the two adjacent kingdoms have been allies.

To the south, the rocky and mountainous land of Gronde has been a passive neighbor to Damir.  Due to their free market, Gronde was once the center of trade in the northwest region and had a direct route to Blood Coast.  While Gronde has often distanced itself politically from Damir, the two have never shown aggression to each other, until the tyrant Rudimond took control of Gronde and formed a threatening army.  Rudimond has militarized the border between Damir and Gronde, making open trade impossible while putting a strain on their relationship.

Nubrince to the east has proven to be a nest of orc activity, but Nubrince only supplies the orcs of Oringard with recruits and has not declared open hostility against Damir.  In Nubrince, only orc law is present and that comes from the Orc High Council.  The Ice Lands to the north is a remote region of frozen tundra and hills.  It is rich in resources but no kingdom has ever been established there.  It is seen as a refuge for illegal activity and outlaws fleeing Damir and Lyndon.

The extreme west of Damir is only thirty leagues (almost a hundred miles) from the coastline, known as Blood Coast.  Although Blood Coast does not border Damir, only a sliver of Lyndon land sits between them.  Blood Coast is nearly five hundred leagues long, but only forty leagues wide, as it stretches down half the western coastline of the continent.  Blood Coast is lawless, controlled by pirates, mercenaries, and black market smugglers and operatives.  It’s illegal trade has infected nearby lands (including Damir) in a three hundred league radius.

Damir’s flag consists of a golden crown on a blue background.  The orcs of Oringard use a black flag with bright green Shogue (language of the orcs) letterings.  Since the orcs’ arrival, Damir has fought six notable wars against them.  The latest, the 13th War of Damir, was fought from 791-92.  Damir forces came close to capturing Mt. Phumbaas within Oringard, their military stronghold, but were forced to withdraw, allowing Oringard to replenish its numbers and gear up for another war.

Damir has a population of somewhere near 150,000 but it has been as high as 200,000 on more than one occasion.  Along with its wars and internal strife, the kingdom has lost large chunks of its population from time to time due to plagues (Scarlet Rash & Beggar’s Breath) and natural disasters, such as flooding.  Humans make up 54% of the population, while elves sit at 32%, dwarves 10%, while goblins and centaurs round out the population at 4%.  This excludes the orcs of Oringard (as the realm is viewed outside the kingdom of Damir despite existing within the land’s borders).

The most populated city is Whitehood, then Proudhill, followed closely by the elven city of Merrimont and  Belvadore.  Whitehood encompasses the Rossi Heights area, which sits between it and Merrimont.  When combining the populations of the Southern Farmlands and Merrimont, the population there surpasses Proudhill.  Gilstad can swell to fifth place during wartime, as the fortress is a frontline to orc invasions.  The ranking of city by population is thus:

  1. Whitehood
  2. Proudhill
  3. Merrimont
  4. Belvadore
  5. Chance Rock
  6. Duinmire
  7. Gilstad
  8. Purewater