The Kingdom of Vrorenmarch was a state in the northern fringes of Escann where the Alenic Reach meets the Giant's Tears. Like many in the region, Vrorenmarch began as a province of Castan's Empire, before gaining independence during its decline. Vrorenmarch is most notable for its namesake, the castanorian citadel of Bal Vroren, which defended the empire during the Giant's War, when the last of the true giants invaded Castanor. In recent history Vrorenmarch was conquered by the gray orc Brasur Frozenmaw conquered in the 1420s.
History[]
Bal Vroren and Giant's War[]
For much of its history many saw the northern fringes of Castanor as redundant and simply a place to send disloyal soldiers as punishment. The lands were inhospitable, its tribes were poor and destitute, and the giantkin trolls and ogres were content to being left alone, that is, until 570 BA when news came from Gerudia that an army of true giants were thawed and united the lands under their king, Jormir Once-Thawed. This news accelerated the need for greater defenses, and by 546 BA the citadel of Bal Vroren was finished: Balgar the Builder's last and greatest work, and specifically designed to prevent an invasion by giantkind and their gerudian subjects.
However, it was only in 407 BA, 140 years after, that the giants attacked, after Jormir, who had proved to be a peaceful king, was slain by his brother Kramnas. The following Giant's War tested the lengths of Balgar's defenses and the siege of the citadel and its mighty walls that stretched along the Vroren River held firmly three years when the ordinary fort would've been destroyed in minutes. It is said that the fort would've lasted years, but the giants had built a temporary bridge across the Serpentshead to simply circumnavigate the issue and attack from behind Castanorian lines. What followed was a great period of catastrophy that nearly ended the empire, and it was only in 379 that the tide turned, and by 373 at the start of the Giantbane War that Bal Vroren was recaptured and served as a staging point of Castan Giantbane's war of extermination in Gerudia. In 357 the war ended, and Kramnas became the last of the true giants and was enslaved, now forever known as Kramnas the Chained: it is said that Kramnas himself helped repair the damage his kind did to Castanor, including repairing Bal Vroren.
Despite this, Bal Vroren would never reach full restoration ever again.
Northern Frontier, Gerudia and Demise[]
With Gerudia liberated, Castan Giantsbane appointed his newly created legion, the Legion VI Giantsbane to be stationed at the citadel and to maintain order in far Gerudia. With this Vrorenmarch became the de-facto capital of the northern reaches of Castanor, and Isle Vroren became a modest port shipping goods back and forth from the Dalr Valley. In the end, due to massive resistance from the fjord trolls much of Castanorian influence on the gerudian tribes waned, and by 282 BA Legion VI Giantsbane was recalled to serve in The Quareller's Campaigns against the alenic tribes.
The land and Vrorenmarch once again became a destitute and forgotten part of the empire, until the Dragonwake which saw thousands upon thousands of refugees from Castanor and Gerudia alike seek shelter within the citadel from the dragons causing chaos across the land. Sadly in 472 the dragon Elkaesal the White began the Era of Frost which covered Gerudia and the Alenic Frontier in eternal winter, and overnight those in Bal Vroren froze to death.
It would only be after the Dragonwake, 30 years later, that the world would discover Bal Vroren's fate, with the texts describing the citadel as "a place frozen in time", with the unfortunate victims frozen all over the citadel as they slept. Vrorenmarch as a whole would be seen as a cursed place, and was largely abandoned until the 700s.
Gerudian Resettlement and Black Castanor (700 AA - 1021 AA)[]
Around 700 AA, in what was a foretelling of the Era of Black Ice, migratory tribes from the Giant's Tears and Gerudia petitioned Castanor (which still formally owned the lands) to settle, in hopes to flee from the unrest in Gerudia. Castanor gladly accepted new settlers and guided the development of the revived region. The cities of Cedevik, Esald and Rivsby were founded in those times. The story of the frozen citadel still prevented many people from settling near Bal Vroren.
Eventually, development of the region reached the state where Castanor had to recognize Vrorenmarch as a largely autonomous Second Vrorenmarch Dominion. However, for much of the second dominion's short-lived history it remained underdeveloped and raided by their reaver cousins and was one of the poorest parts of Castanor, until the infamous reaver who would one day become Castan Ebonfrost was given the dominion to rule in 865.
He would rule the region for barely a year until he fought his way against imperial armies, killed the previous emperor, and forcibly climbed Trialmount and passing the Trials of Castan, marking himself as the new emperor of Castanor.
With this Vrorenmarch became the first line of defense for the newly pronounced Black Castanor and many reavers and gerudians came to settle the region (still avoiding Bal Vroren). Vrorenmarch, the eastern Alenic Reach would become the northern part of what was called the Ebonmarck, a region that was highly settled by Castan Ebonfrost and his followers.
Kingdom of Vrorenmarch (1021 AA - 1420 AA)[]
By the end of the War of the Sorcerer-King the Second Vrorenmarch Dominion and Ebonmarck gained independence, splitting into various city-states (such as Cedevik), with Vrorenmarch becoming the Kingdom of Vrorenmarch, which was based in the province of Mammoth Hall. They claimed the lands surrounding Bal Vroren as their predecessors, but nominal attempts were made to resettle the cursed citadel. By this time they would be known as White Reachmen, and would come to despise their savage Gerudian brethren, and have more in common with those in Escann and the Alen.
The early kingdom was strong in warriors but poor in land, and tried to conquer parts of richer southern lands, but was defeated and moderated its ambitions after this, switching to internal development. They did, however, gain great success and slowly subjugated the city-states of the Alenic Reach, but in exchange for this the kingdom became highly decentralized and united only in time of war. Royal domain was limited to the Vrorenmarch and Vrorenwall area and its surroundings, while nobility and merchant princes owned rest of the country.
But not everything was bad for young kingdom. Local nobles attracted many migrants by offering them lands in their for free and hired a lot of artisans from West Cannor and Escann to beautify their castles and cities. Large deposits of amber and fur trade provided nobles with a lot of money to spare. Furthermore, there were a lot of unexplored ruins of ancient giant's civilization which attracted adventurers from whole of Cannor to Vrorenmarch who eventually settled in local cities.
Stable influx of settlers and growing wealth promised bright future for Vrorenmarch, but it all ended in 1420, when gray orc hordes crossed river Vroren and captured royal family of Vrorenmarch. After that country's leaders could not organize resistance and slowly surrendered to invaders.