The Three Kingdoms, Agstowe
Ileena Dogwood
Introduction
In my travels, there have been few lands that have charmed me as much as those of the Three Kingdoms. Miles is big and noisy, so I suppose that’s something in its favor. Weyland is beautifully forested, Dorlan is full of wizards... but the Three Kingdoms have a special place in my heart. To outsiders they can seem a quiet place, withdrawn and taciturn, but never have I been more welcomed by halflings who weren’t my kin before! The Kingdoms share many qualities which the harsher Eylic lands of old Middlemarch, yet there is a hidden warmth in the Kingdoms that one does not find amongst the precipitous mountains of Claulan or the deep old woods of Weyland. There are elves and dwarves aplenty in the Kingdoms, but it is the only land in all the North where halflings and gnomes live lives commensurate with their human neighbors.
Agstowe lies across a region known as the Wyrmland, which stretches from the Drammon River to the Dorlish Hills and from the Serpent’s Tail Range in the north to the Great Swamp in the south. Local halfling legend tells us that the region is so-named because it was carved from the earth by the death-throes of a great black Wyrm that had been slain by giants in the earliest days of the world. A related name is that of the Dragonfall Uplands in Agstowe (nestled between the Serpent’s Tail Range and the Wyrmburg), which is said to have been made by the lashing of the great Wyrm’s tail as is thrashed against the earth.
The physical beauty of Agstowe is not to be discounted! It’s spare uplands have a heartbreaking emptiness to them, miles of stoney earth and short pale grasses stretching away along the banks of the rivers that wind out of the mountains. Deep woods, perhaps descendants of the great ur-wood that once covered all the North, can be seen throughout the kingdom. The Blackhollow feels old, as though the generations of halflings and gnomes beneath its bows have left more than just history behind but memory as well. Callaver Wood and the Orcwood both feel young and vital, the pine-needles springy beneath the trod of smallfolk feet.
The lowlands of Agstowe are knit with the rivers that come pouring down from the mountains, and in many places the earth is too flat to accommodate their banks. When the rivers reach the lowlands they often spread from their troughs and wander across the land, turning it to boggy fens. Even the mouth of the Old River has its birthing place in a swamp which empties to the south. These swamplands are lush and verdant and frequent haunts of the forest gnomes. Men too travel into the swamps for sustenance, though frog is considered to be the food of the meanest hovel.
