Books of Arunia: On Tyreth and Its Foundations

This book was first discovered by Fenrus' Very Best in the inn rooms of the Red Lances. It was first written in X.501 by the scholar Ambrosius of Kjellos as a gift for King Magnus. This is a summary of its contents, eliding a great many chapters.

TYRETH CASTLE is constructed upon a rise overlooking the Aelfwater, one of the few fortified natural formations in that region that was not built upon in some past age. In the time of Tholnia, the very northern stretches of the Reach were not fortified at all. The Tholnian seat was located in old Ambar, and the Reach was known as a land of barbarians, unfit for habitation save by the tribesmen, the gnomes, and the halflings. The most powerful force during the early Xth Age was the dwarf-prince at Aella's Hall, also known as Mount Sirune.

After the war of the Elven League in the 3rd century, the White Harts of Tyrnen Wood, fearing an elvish invasion of the Reach from Talimisiä, surveyed their land and decided to move their hall to the shores of the Aelfwater upon a hillside. This began the dynasty that, in X.285, captured the Kjellan peninsula under the leadership of Lord Valyn Karhart.

King Valyn was the first of the Kjellan kings, made so by fire and sword, after conquering the war-torn peninsula and its nobility. King Valyn left his daughter Alina behind to care for the manor and the lands from whence they came. This, my king, is where the first Lady Protector of the Reach came from, and by the 5th century this position was solidified as the place from whence the heir should come.

The procession of Kjellan kings went thusly: King Valyn, who ruled until X.319; Queen Alina, who ruled until X.355; King Baldur, who ruled until X.398 and who brought the Order of the Forge Divine to Kjellos; King Solyce, who ruled until X.415, and who moved the seat of power to Elborg and its ancient castle, resulting in being poisoned by his own high advisors; his younger brother, King Lucas, who ruled until X.459, after slaughtering those who plotted against his brother and committed the regicide; and lastly you, my lord, King Magnus, third son of King Lucas, and lord of Elborg, Kjellos, and the Reach until this very day.

THE HEIRS of the great kings improved the fortified manor at Tyreth little by little. Queen Alina built a motte upon the hilltop and surrounded it with a palisade of wood. In her day, there was no such silver trade along the Silverlode, and the elves were considered to be an enemy of the Reach. The town of Stock did not exist, and the empty elvish temple of Nunianor was filled with darkness and shadow—in the days of King Valyn, a powerful sorcerer inhabited it and made it his home. Thus, there was no threat of elvish armies approaching along the fords, but merely from across the lake.

When King Valyn died and his daughter was called from the exile of the Reach, she placed her own son in charge of the manor house. This was Baldur Dwarf-friend, who often abandoned Tyreth to reside for long stretches at Mount Sirune, in the shadow of Aella's Hall. To his credit, he reinforced the manor and established the first houses of Tyreth town upon the slopes of the hillside. He, too, extended an offer to the dwarves of Effningas to take up residence at his castle, and for a time a small band of such mercenaries did.

Baldur ascended to the throne and signed a lasting treaty of peace with the elves of Tailimisiä. He was known as a bridge-builder, throwing new constructions across the many rivers of Kjellos and the Reach, as well as a diplomat and peacemaker. When the Ambarites threw the Order of the Forge Divine out of the Bay of Ahrain, it was Baldur who gave them a permanent home in the Five Hamlets of Kjellos.

Prince Solyce fortified the manor further, erecting its outwalls and building up the town. It was during Baldur's reign that the position entitled Lord Protector was created, precisely for Solyce himself. The modern structures that we know on Tyreth hill are courtesy of Prince Solyce, who was later killed in a plot surrounding his reclamation of the ancient imperial castle at Elborg and identification of himself with the imperial pretender Thesus Spear-bearer.

You, my lord, increased the might of the Reach, and made it a true colony of Kjellos.