Tirgonia

The Crown Lands
Alqualondë
Antiphia
Bekanor
Crown Lands
Estwilde
Mordecai
Munarch
Nereseä
Sirion
Sothwall
Distances and Travel
Tirgonian History
Trade and Coinage

Situated on the northwest shores of Vatheria, Tirgonia was a young and vital land, rich in natural resources.  Its people were a hardy blend of Connorian  settlers and Alatian natives, as well as several non-human races, and were famous for their hardihood.  Since the Frostwar, however, more than a million have fled or died

Geography -

Since the very first Theeurth game, Tirgonia has been the home base for every campaign. It is, therefore, far more detailed than any other part of the world.  Rather than try to fit all that detail onto one page, each of Tirgonia's regions is given its own page, available through the links in the yellow navigation bar at left.

Distances and Travel 

Distance by Best Route
	ALQ	ANT	CRO	CRU	DUN	MOR	MUN	SIR	TIR
ALQ	-	454	568	302	181	341	423	293	254
ANT	454	-	317	607	488	201	398	418	220
CRO	568	317	-	509	468	422	358	457	359
CRU	302	607	509	-	114	483	453	333	391
DUN	181	488	468	114	-	369	333	219	277
MOR	341	201	422	483	369	-	510	493	93
MUN	423	398	358	453	333	510	-	120	475
SIR	293	418	457	333	219	493	120	-	355
TIR	254	220	359	391	277	93	475	355	-

ALQ = Alqualondë, ANT = Antiphia, CRO = Croestar, CRU = Cruachan, DUN = Duncrannoch,
MOR = Mordecai, MUN = Munarch, SIR = Sirion, TIR = Tirgon

Best route is the best land route, usually by the shortest road.

Travel by sea and river can be much faster, but less predictable, as the tides and season conspire to aid or hinder the vessel.  Antiphia, Munarch and Croestar cannot be reached by ship.

Tirgonian History

Twelve hundred years ago, the splendid legions of the victorious Conorrian Empire marched across the continent, crushing all resistance. In the year 1580, the Conorrian XXIV Legion, under Consul Asturias Flavian marched over the high Edgemoor mountains and arrived at the sea. The natives called their land Alatun. The Consul called it "Tirgonia". There, he established the last great province of the Empire.

The provincial capital was established at Flavian's fortress of Tirgon, by a deep-water bay. The site was also near the heart of Alatian territory. Over the years, it withstood many sieges by the Alatun and the barbaric Skane raiders out of the north, as well as the occasional troll raid from the dismal Trollmoors.

Over the next two centuries, the Conorrians built four great cities in Tirgonia (as well as a host of smaller towns and villages), and cleared much of the great primeval forest for farmland. During this time, the Alatians and Conorrians slowly began to intermarry, forming a new race, the Tirgonians. They fought several small conflicts with the traditional enemies of Tirgonia, the goblins of the north and the human tribes of the great plains to the east.

A Conorrian nobility was created from the descendants of Flavian and his officers, as well as from those noble families who emigrated from Conorria. Each city controlled a region known as a prefecture. Each prefect drew his authority from the Imperial Governor.  This structure was preserved when the Miletian empire inherited the Tirgonia after the Mage Wars, and persists today, although the prefects are now hereditary dukes.

Tirgonia flourished under the Miletian emperors, despite its great distance from the capital.  It supplied the western empire with much-needed raw materials, such as timber and iron ore.  The emperors rewarded their most loyal soldiers with land grants in the north, creating the basis of the Tirgonian nobility to come.   

In addition, Tirgonia benefited from its long association with the elves of the Western Isles, who came to the white city of Alqualondë in their swift ships, bearing wonders out of the west.

In 2282, the Darothic Horde smashed into the southern portions of the Miletian Empire, cutting Tirgonia off from the capital.  Tirgonia was the last Miletian province to fall to the Horde, and the last Miletian legion was destroyed at the crossings of the Dun Aerinn river in 2290.  

For a century thereafter, petty Darothic warlords presided over the cities and towns of Tirgonia, plundering the treasures of the empire.  In 2419, the great dragon Maxillentius lay waste to the fields and farms around Duncrannoch, and took up residence in the Ormswood.  The Darothic kings paid tribute to the cruel beast, but it only rarely ceased its depredations.  When it demanded the attendance of the kings, they came, fearing to do otherwise.  The treacherous dragon slew them all and declared itself master of the north.  

Maxillentius ruled most of Tirgonia with an uncaring, capricious and brutal disdain for more than a century.  For most of that time, it caused its reluctant subjects to make war against Daerond, for it was the enemy of Dyrethis, the lich-king of that land.  Then, in 2531, Maxillentius was ambushed and slain by a company of heroes led by the warrior Arkemon.  He became Arkemon I, king of Tirgonia.

Arkemon's rule was highlighted by two chief crises.  In the year 2539, northern Tirgonia was invaded by the nomadic Bekanai tribes out of Rhanalor.  This invasion was halted after the bloody battle of the Eagle's Eye, where Arkemon personally defeated the Bekanai king.   The second crisis was precipitated in the following year while Arkemon was still away at the frontier.  With the backing of a secretive group known as the Iron Wind, Arkemon's brother, the sorcerer Caradh, seized the throne and imprisoned most of the court.  Arkemon secretly entered the capital and confronted his brother, and the two died fighting before the throne.  Arkemon's infant daughter Rhianne was named queen shortly thereafter.

Over the following century, many of Tirgonia's traditional enemies returned to haunt it.  The Bekanai threat returned in 2560, when the tribes occupied northern Tirgonia for three years until driven out by the power of the king's armies.  The northern Skane barbarians began to raid the coasts and rivers of Tirgonia in the year 2590, and continued annual raids  for half a century.

In 2632, a second great dragon took up residence in the ruins of Maxillentius' palace in the Ormswood.  Its name was Graulor, popularly known as "One-Eye".  It terrorized the region for nearly a decade before being driven out of its lair by paladins of the church of Erdhon.  

A few short years later, Tirgonia was invaded by the armies of Daerond, who quickly conquered all of Sothwall and Estwilde, leaving only the great fortress-city of Cruachan in Tirgonian hands.  Tirgonian resistance soon grew in intensity and there was four years of bloody fighting throughout Estwilde.  In 2641, the Black King himself, Dyrethis the Damned, led his armies to the final conflict with Tirgonia.  Driving the remnants of the Tirgonian forces before him, he sought to pin down King Varens and his knights at Dwarfbridge, the ancient span across the Aré river.  

But there, the king turned the tables and instead ambushed Dyrethis.  For with the help of the Arcaneum, Varens had hidden the greater portion of his army from Dyrethis' knowledge.  There also came help from the east, as the Bekanai troops hired by Dyrethis double-crossed him and instead fought for Varens.  Finally, a small company of elves out of Black Haven fought a bloody battle with Dyrethis' personal guard.  The lich-king was slain that day, and his forces scattered.  Within a few weeks, Tirgonia regained all of its former territory.  Varens granted the Falos plains to the Bekanai as their own nation, which they named Bekanor.

In 2667, disaster struck when the  Skane sacked and burned Tirgon. They left on their own the next spring. After this, the winters became increasingly cold and the Skane harbors never again melted.

In the early part of the twenty-eighth century, Tirgonia was struck by two inexplicable disasters.  In 2709, the Great Fire of Cruachan spread through the city, killing more than 1200 citizens. Officials blamed the incident on Daeron agents, but rumors persist that some otherworldly effect was at work. In 2723, a horde of monsters raged through Alqualondë for one night, disappearing at dawn. The reasons for this remain unclear.

The year 2727 saw the death of  King Beolfred, and the ascension of his son, King Aramayne the wise.  Aramayne would go on to safeguard Tirgonia through some of the most turbulent decades in its history.

In 2731, the forest of Greenwood, which had long been a dangerous place, was cleared of the evil spirit which had long dominated it by a band of little-known heroes.  Their leader, Beleg of Amrais, became the first baron of the Greenwood, and encouraged elves and rangers to settle within the wood.  In 2740, the baron and his companions also destroyed an secret temple to the evil god Drauluin near the small Sirion town of Vrenthis.

In the years 2743-45, great armies were raised throughout  the Successor States, with the intention of ridding the holy city of Echoriath from the grip of the Worldspine orcs.  This was the Great Crusade. Tirgonian Crown prince Aurelian, Aramayne's son, led a Tirgonian force south, but all were lost at the battle of the Lyodan.

A decade later, in 2755, the Black Dukes led the Daeron army into Tirgonia, once again conquering everything south of the Dun Aerinn river, except for the fortress-city of Cruachan.  Rather than try to conquer the rest of the country, they stopped at the river and erected a series of formidable fortresses to defend their new frontier, notably the foul Hellsmouth Keep.  Tirgonia began the construction of a similar series of defenses, including the massive fortress at Calasoth.

The next year, King Wolkriyë of Bekanor was assassinated by members of the Tasmarr clan.  In 2756, Bekanai horse warriors, led by Tasmarr officers began to attack Tirgonia.  By the year's end, they had completely cut off the Antiphian valley, and blocked the roads across the Tigelion.  Hemmed in by enemies on two sides, the stability of the kingdom began to waver.  Rumors abounded that one or the other enemy would soon finish off the wounded nation.

As if planned by some malevolent agency, Tirgonia suffered a third invasion in the year 2760, when a horde of ice trolls, aided by the increasingly cold winters, crossed the border into besieged Antiphia and began to slaughter the folk of the northeast towns.  The Duke of Antiphia and most of his sons were killed in battle against the trolls at Cold Landing. Not all the news was dark, however.  Antiphia's famous but short-lived heroes, known as the Black Dragons, led a ragtag army of Antiphian militia and allied Skane units defeat a Bekanai attempt to enter Antiphia at the battle of Tigelion's Crossings.  This was later seen as the first probing foray of the forces of Hoarwinter (q.v.)

The year 2763 saw a swift reversal of fortune in the north.  Bekanai tribes loyal to Athaman, the exiled son of king Wolkriyë, revolted against the Tasmarr rule.  King Aramayne of Tirgonia quickly capitalized on the confusion and marched against the confused Bekanai defenses, beating the mounted warriors in three swift, decisive battles.  Despite being sixty-one years old, Aramayne personally led his troops into battle.  Athaman was slain by Tasmarr agents, leaving no heirs.  Aramayne re-annexed the entirety of Bekanor, creating one of his trusted generals as Duke of Bekanor. 

In 2766, Aramayne's daughter and sole surviving heir, the Princess Ariane, was killed by assassins who also slew her entire retinue as she visited her uncle in Sirion.  

Tensions remained extremely high along the Dun Aerinn river, as vicious raids continued between Daeron and Tirgonian garrisons.  But in 2770, civil war broke out among the Black Dukes of Daerond following an unsuccessful attempt to assasinate Bishop Morbanes, high priest of Malbor.  The Daeron colony in Tirgonia collapsed as the Black Dukes rushed to return their forces to protect their own holdings in Daerond.  A Tirgonian army under the command of Carradus, Duke of Estwilde, harried the Daerons out of the southern provinces.  By the end of 2777, all of Tirgonia's southern provinces had been restored.

Six years later, in 2783, King Aramayne died of natural causes at the age of eighty-one.   Aelwyn, the popular duke of Munarch, an experienced soldier, entered the capital within weeks and after a swift courtship, married Aramayne's widow and second wife, Queen Yisselda who was sixty-two years old.  He was crowned king by the Bishop of Tirgon the same day.  However, many in Tirgonia viewed this haste as unseemly, and moreover, illegal.   These rallied around the banner of Prince Taurion, whose family was descended from royal blood, and whose uncle was the Duke of Sirion.  Thus began the short-lived Tirgonian Civil War.  

The war ended in 2784, when the Frostwar began.  As armies of orcs, trolls and stranger monstrosities loyal to Hoarwinter descended on Tirgonia from north and east, Taurion moved quickly to support Aelwyn and acknowledge him as the legitimate king.  But it was too late.  

The forces of Hoarwinter and the Empire of Frost took only two years to sweep through Tirgonia from north to south.  The cities of Tirgon, Sirion and Cruachan held out much longer through protracted sieges.  Tirgon and Sirion both fell in 2789.  Tirgon was overcome by an overwhleming physical and magical assault.  When this news reached the defenders of Sirion, they capitulated.  Cruachan held out until 2791, when it was betrayed from within.  Bloody reprisals awaited the defiant citizenry.

In the period after the Frostwar, Hoarwinter secured his power in Tirgonia by parceling out the former duchies to his own servants, known as the Archons.  Each archonate is ruled much as before (albeit with more cruelty).  During this time, the priests, holy warriors and vocal adherents of the gods of the Chalice (the gods of the Great Church) were systematically hunted down and slain.  Meanwhile, temples to Hoarwinter and the gods of Woe were quickly erected to replace the old faith.

The last Tirgonian bishop of the Great Church, a hastily-elected young man named Filomen of Duncrannoch, fled into the Edgemoor mountains and out of the knowledge of men in the year 2793.  He took with him the Chalice of the Kings, relics of the line of Arkemon Dragonsbane.

An uprising in Alqualondë briefly liberated the city and caused the Archon, Hortensius, to flee in 2794.  But the Alqualondë Free City was crushed three months later when the new Archon, a being named Null, arrived with an army of orcs, trolls and hill giants.

Now the year is 2804, and Tirgonia lays prostrate under the heel of Hoarwinter and his Empire of Frost.

Trade and Coinage

In the beginning, the only trade Tirgonia had was with the one or two Conorrian caravans that made their way north along the Edgemoor mountains each year. The Imperial prefecturess were essentially closed communities where the peasants rarely left the town of their birth.  Tirgonia became more important under Miletian rule, as a source of metals and timber, and the increased importance of shipping contributed to the growth of the coastal cities.  

In the two centuries since Arkemon Dragonsbane became Arkemon I, trade has become one of the staples of Tirgonian life. Tirgonia's vast natural resources make it extremely rich. The growth of the central monarchy, accompanied by patrolled roads and the Royal Navy have increased the safety of merchant's goods, but banditry and piracy remain the scourge of the nation. Since much of Tirgonia is still unpopulated, and its coastline is dotted with small, uncharted islands, bandits and pirates are notoriously hard to run to ground.

Tirgonia's major trade items are fish, lumber and cloth. From Noharia, it gets horses and furs; from Harkoria, spices, copper and oils. Occasionally, traders from further afield, such as the Empire, The Crusader States, or mysterious Luxur will bring rare art, elven cloth, or Valesian spices.

In Tirgonia, barter is still the primary form of economic activity outside the cities. Cattle, sheep, lumber and grain are all important barter items. The Tirgonian standard coin is the Trader, a small silver coin about two cm. in diameter. Ten copper Commons are worth one Trader. Ten Traders are worth one gold Noble. Most people live their entire lives without ever seeing a gold Noble.