Kendaria

A monarchic queendom with very old roots, Kendaria is generally viewed as a peaceful nation. An old forest sprawls across most of the nation, with towns and hamlets nestled in and around the forest’s hills and dales.

Kendaria occupies a temperate climate with warm, rainy summers and mild winters. The mountain range to Kendaria’s west will usually get snow caps, and while snow will occasionally fall in the Old Forest, it almost never sticks for more than a day.

This tranquil appearance hides fresh wounds and old superstitions, however. Queen Astaria Gillian III, whose family has ruled for several hundred years, only recently raised the nation out of a destructive civil war between three of her vassals. With a just and cunning reputation, Queen Astaria maintains popular support among most of her citizens, although there are whispers that she was only able to maintain her hold over Kendaria thanks to the help of a dark eldritch beast.

The Old Forest and the southern steppes hold some of the same undertones of menace. Although the forest and plains are both picturesque and monster sightings are uncommon, superstition abounds in both regions, and numerous tales of inexplicable activity fuel these superstitions.

Academic.

Kendaria is primarily an agrarian society, so formal education is not common. There will usually be one or two scholarly folk in a given settlement, who happily teach children reading, history, and arithmetic when they aren’t helping their parents in the fields or shops, but literacy is not particularly high in smaller towns. In the handful of proper cities throughout Kendaria, formalized schooling is more common.

Aristocratic and Political.

Kendaria is a monarchic feudal nation implementing maternal primogeniture. As each eldest daughter of the Gillian house comes of age, her mother prepares her to become the next queen. Landed gentry serve as dukes or duchesses over multiple towns, while each settlement is managed by a baron or baroness. Dukes and duchesses report to the queen’s court and serve as intermediaries between the monarch and the towns that they oversee.

Mercantile and Trade.

Many of Kendaria’s internal roads between its towns - especially those networking the Old Forest - have fallen into a state of disrepair. This has proven a great challenge for many of the smaller hamlets that rely on inter-settlement trade to shore up their economies. Kendaria maintains land trade with its closest neighbors, Constel to the north and the city-state of Bridgemoor to the west. In Bridgemoor, Kendarian merchants also do business with Nalatheshi traders regularly. By sea, Kendaria keeps trade arrangements with Forsten and Derk up the northern coast and will occasionally trade with Nenva, although Queen Astaria believes that spies from Nenva were responsible for starting the civil war that so damaged her country.

Militant.

In the wake of the civil war, Queen Astaria has begun to restructure Kendaria’s military: no longer do the gentry have the right to levy soldiers themselves, but instead they must entreat the monarchy to lend out some of its standing army in times of crisis. Queen Astaria’s top general, Ser Grendor, rigorously trains lieutenants to lead soldiers on both land and sea. While competent, the Kendarian national army is still quite small.

Religious.

As Kendarians tend to be superstitious, many are also very religious. Kendarian society relies heavily on the Old Forest for timber, fruits, and game, so Kendarian religious practices typically involve veneration of the Pashak Conclave of the Archfae and occasionally include prayers to the Celestial Council. On days or weeks of festivity, food offerings will often be burned in an effort to please the Pashak Conclave. As the Pashak represent vegetative life, the planting season in early spring is especially sacred to Kendarians.

Social.

Whispered conspiracies aside, Kendarians are usually a hospitable lot. As most settlements in the nation are on the smaller side, each person in a community usually knows most of their neighbors. When someone’s roof leaks after a summer thunderstorm, the community will often take time out of their day to pitch in and fix up the unlucky family’s rooftop. Kendarians view strangers and travelers with a mix of suspicion and rapt fascination.

Underworld.

Organized crime exists within the capital city and a couple of the other major cities, but these are isolated gangs that stake their claim over a few alleyways and marketplaces. The smaller communities have low crime rates and harsh punishments for thieves and miscreants.

Dalewright

The capital of Kendaria, Dalewright nestles in and around a couple rolling dales that drop into the eastern sea. The queen’s palace stands proud on the highest hill in the urban sprawl, and large marketplaces, zigzagging streets lined with townhomes, and theatres comprise most of the city’s makeup. The western neighborhood, closest to the Old Forest, has a large temple dedicated to the Archfae, and the northern quarter has a small university. The university’s library has many historical books, but its professors of more modern sciences such as alchemy and the theory of magic are a few decades behind the rest of the world.

Points of Interest

Dreamhaze Mountains. See Constel for more information. Kendarians generally avoid the mountains due to strange occurrences that have happened there.

The Old Forest. The Old Forest sprawls across most of Kendaria. See Constel for more information.

Southern Steppes. To the south and west of the Old Forest, a grassy plain stretches for dozens of miles before giving way to shallow badlands. The plains bloom gorgeously late each spring thanks to thunderstorms, and turn brown and withered in the fall. Aside from Dalewright, the larger towns in the southwest badlands are the most prosperous in Kendaria due to the high quantity of trade with Bridgemoor.

Quest Ideas

• The heroes must negotiate with an insubordinate vassal on the queen’s behalf.

• The heroes must look into the rumors surrounding the queen: does she actually consort with an eldritch being?

• Rumor has it that cultists have taken up residence in Dalewright. Is this true? Do they work for the queen’s eldritch creature?

• Several small towns have lost multiple hunters and trappers in recent days. Something foul must lurk in the woods nearby.

• A bridge has been completely washed away after a heavy storm. The heroes must go repair the bridge so that trade can resume between towns.