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A Chronicle of the Charter Coast

The Border Princes have always been a place where crowns are bought, not inherited, where a man may become a prince by holding a bridge, a mine, or a road long enough for others to start calling it his. In the year 2512 IC, one such prince has achieved what most frontier lords only dream of. He has made a coast behave.

They call the region the Charter Coast, not because it is peaceful, but because it is organized. It is a strip of hard land and harder people, anchored by an island port that feeds the mainland like a beating heart.

The Sapphire Isle

The Sapphire Isle sits like a clenched fist off the coast, guarding the approaches of the Black Gulf. It is a fortress built for trade and a port built for war. Its dry docks and warehouses are thick with salt, grain, rope, timber, iron, and ledger-books.

In the Border Princes, supply is sovereignty. Whoever controls the Isle controls winter. Whoever controls winter controls loyalty.

The Isle’s streets are a babel of tongues, but all bargains end the same way, with a stamped seal, a counted coin, and a watchful gaze from the Prince’s clerks.

Prince Cesare Tordorno, Merchant Prince

Prince Cesare Tordorno is not a romantic hero, and he does not pretend to be. He is a man of contracts, fleets, and consequences. He presents himself as the lawful center of the Charter Coast, and he enforces that claim with three tools:

Coin to build and to bribe.
Ships to feed and to choke.
Mercenaries to punish and to protect.

Cesare grants land through charters, and titles through writs. Yet he makes one truth plain to every petitioner, noble and knave alike.

All titles are lesser than the Prince.

A baron may wear a ring, a warden may keep a banner, a castellan may hold a tower, but all of them draw their right from the Sapphire Isle. The Prince may renew a charter, suspend it, or burn it.

The Prince’s Peace

The Charter Coast survives because it has a single rule that matters more than bloodlines.

Do not disrupt trade.

This is the Prince’s Peace. It is not mercy. It is policy. The Peace forbids open slaughter in the streets of chartered settlements, theft of Prince-stamped cargo, and feuds that spill into roads and docks. The punishment is swift, public, and meant to be remembered.

Beyond the charter line, the world reverts to the Border Princes as they have always been. There is only what you can defend, and what you can pay others to defend.

The Charter System

Settlement Charters

A charter is a bargain between the Sapphire Isle and the mainland.

The Prince provides:

Seed coin, tools, and shipments
Recognition, seals, and the right to levy specific tolls
Protection contracts with approved free companies

The charter-holder provides:

A defensible site and a functioning settlement
Taxes, tariffs, or quotas of ore, salt, timber, or grain
Patrols, beacon duty, and militia musters when called
Visible allegiance to the Prince in banners and law-stones

Lesser Titles

Cesare’s titles are designed to bind ambition to the Isle.

Common writs include:

Warden of a ford, a pass, or a road segment
Castellan of a watchtower, keep, or beacon chain
Baron of a hamlet or reclaimed tract
Guild Baron of a chartered mine, quarry, fishery, or salt pan
Factor-Lord of a dock district or warehouse quarter

A title grants authority, but also obligation. It is a leash disguised as a ribbon.

Powers and Factions of the Charter Coast

The Sapphire Court

The Prince’s inner circle of clerks, admirals, interpreters, and quiet agents. They manage charters, decide which petitions are heard, and ensure that rivals remain rivals.

The Charter Guild

A coalition of factors, shipmasters, and quartermasters who treat war like weather and profit like prayer. They control what gets shipped, when it moves, and who receives credit.

The Free Companies

In the Border Princes, mercenaries are not a shameful necessity. They are a normal instrument of government. The Prince keeps several companies on contract and turns them outward when the Badlands bite.

The Marque Fleets

The Prince issues letters of marque to private captains. A pirate becomes a “privateer” the moment he agrees to the Prince’s cut and the Prince’s targets. It is an ugly solution, but effective.

The Peoples of the Charter Coast (2512 IC)

Chroniclers argue endlessly about why so many peoples gather on this edge of the Badlands. The answer is always the same. The Charter Coast is always short of hands.

The wilderness demands patrols. The ports demand sailors. The mines demand bodies. The roads demand guards. The counting-houses demand scribes. Bloodlines do not build walls. Labor does.

Yet welcome does not mean equality. It means utility. Anyone may enter the game, but only the Prince sets the board.

Empire

Imperial charter-men, engineers, and veterans come seeking land and advancement. Many are second sons, disgraced officers, and guild-backed pioneers. They build forts, run blackpowder workshops, and staff ledgers when the Prince needs disciplined minds who understand order.

Bretonnia

Knights-errant and bankrupt nobles arrive with banners and stories, hoping to win a fief by the sword rather than inherit one by patience. Some establish chapels and tourney fields to “civilize” the frontier. Others become mercenary lords in fine armor.

Kislev

Kislevite kossars and Ungol riders sell their skill in harsh-country patrol and monster hunting. Some are refugees who never stopped moving. They are valued because they do not flinch at winter, and they understand war on open ground.

Sartosa

Sailors, smugglers, and private captains drift in from pirate waters. Many swear to the Prince’s marque because it is safer to wear a legal ribbon than to die hunted. They escort convoys, raid rivals, and bring rumors faster than any messenger.

Araby

Arabyan merchants and navigators pursue profit along the Black Gulf. They bring spices, glass, medicines, and hard-bargaining scribes. Their guards are seasoned against raiders and know how to protect caravans, ports, and treasuries.

Cathay

Cathayan caravans come west with silks, lacquered goods, porcelain, and strange coin. Some are official trade missions, some are private ventures, and some are scouts mapping routes and testing foreign courts. They require stable roads, and so they favor the Prince’s charters even when they distrust his ambition.

Norsca

Some northerners arrive as reavers. Others arrive as hired axes who prefer coin to distant gods. The Prince uses them as a brutal tool, keeping them close enough to aim, and watched enough to prevent them from becoming a problem he cannot buy.

Asur (High Elves)

High Elf emissaries, sea-wardens, and scholars pass through the Gulf to monitor threats, investigate old relic sites, and ensure the sea lanes do not become a druchii hunting ground. They do not swear easily, but they will bargain when the alternative is worse.

Asrai (Wood Elves)

Wood Elf scouts appear where hidden groves, ancient stones, or corrupted wilds are threatened. They are rare in towns, common on the edges, and dangerous when provoked. Some tolerate the Prince because his laws restrain reckless burning and uncontrolled clearing.

Druchii (Dark Elves)

The druchii come by black ark and corsair flotilla, drawn by isolated settlements and rich sea routes. Sometimes they raid openly. Sometimes they trade through cut-outs and masked intermediaries. The Prince publicly denounces them, but the coast whispers of bargains made in moonless coves.

Dwarfs

Dwarf prospectors and engineers come for ore, grudges, and lost tunnels. They are hired to build bridges, strengthen keeps, and run foundries. A dwarf contract is iron, and the Prince values iron.

Chaos Dwarfs

Masked traders and infernal industrialists appear as “advisers” and “buyers.” They seek raw materials and cheap labor. Their deals are poison disguised as profit. The Prince claims to forbid them. The frontier rarely obeys cleanly.

Orcs

Orc warbands press out of the Badlands in constant surge. They do not settle. They squat, smash, and move on. Their pressure is the reason so many charters exist.

Goblins

Goblins infest ruins, gullies, and old mine mouths. They thrive in places where law is thin and fear is thick. Many settlements lose more to sabotage than to open war.

Ogre

Ogres arrive as mercenary companies, caravan escorts, and shock troops. They fight for food and gold, and the Prince keeps them employed because an ogre paid is an ogre not eating your farmers.

Beastmen

Beastmen prowl the wilderness and strike at roads and lonely farms. They are the nightmare in the treeline and the reason beacons burn at night.

Chaos

Chaos cults and small warbands test the frontier’s weak seams. They corrupt, recruit, and sabotage. They thrive where desperation makes people accept any promise.

Vampire

Vampires rarely rule openly here, but they hunt the lawless roads and the debt-choked towns. Some pose as nobles, patrons, or benefactors. Where the Prince’s Peace is weakest, they grow bold.

Background History: Munkotepth the Barren

Long before the Charter Coast was measured in tolls and ledgers, the southern sands recorded a quieter tragedy.

Munkotepth, later named The Barren, was born during the Time of Kings as a second son. When his father passed, Munkotepth rose to rule and proved himself a capable monarch, feared in war and sharp in statecraft. Yet his reign carried a private wound that became a public obsession. He could not sire an heir.

To mend what blood refused, he took three wives, each remembered in the old accounts not merely as consorts, but as symbols that shaped his decline.

Neith, the First Wife, Symbol of Life

Neith was the most beloved by court and commoner alike. In the early years of Munkotepth’s rise she was his closest companion, present in the founding of his realm and the binding of its first oaths. Chroniclers say that to Munkotepth she came to represent Life itself, the promise of continuity and family that eluded him.

Hathor, the Second Wife, Symbol of Renown

Hathor was bold, martial, and unafraid to speak as if she wore a general’s cloak. Her influence hardened Munkotepth’s belief that immortality could be earned not through children, but through legacy. If he could not extend his bloodline, then he would carve his name into the world until memory itself became his heir.

Ankhsenamun, the Third Wife, Symbol of Secrets

Ankhsenamun walked the edge of mysticism. She spoke often of the Mortuary Cult, and of rites first refined under Settra before his death. She promised a different immortality, not the fragile kind found in songs, but the enduring kind that refuses death entirely.

It was Ankhsenamun who lured him into the Cult’s counsel.

The Sealing of the Tomb

Munkotepth sought the Mortuary Cult for comfort and solutions. Instead, his fixation shifted. He began to desire immortality more than heirs, power more than peace, and certainty more than love. At last, he consented to a ritual that required his entombment.

The old story claims his three wives sealed the tomb themselves. Whether out of mercy, fear, betrayal, or grim necessity, the result was the same. Munkotepth’s mortal life ended behind stone, with three queens holding the keys.

Atheleon and the Northern March

Munkotepth’s true war force was led by Atheleon, a commander of proven skill. The king sent Atheleon north to face the northern tribes, a campaign that many believed was meant to destroy him. The reason remains debated in whispers. Some blame Munkotepth’s growing paranoia. Others cite his dependence on the Cult. Some suggest the queens loathed Atheleon, or feared his influence.

By bitter fortune, Atheleon achieved a pyrrhic victory and returned with what remained of the army.

The Matriarchy of the Three Queens

In Atheleon’s absence, the queens reshaped the court. Important ranks were filled with women loyal to them. Men known to be devoted to Atheleon or to the old king were removed, exiled, or quietly erased. The kingdom turned matriarchal by decree and purge, not by tradition.

Taloghast, the Vanished Officer

During Atheleon’s campaign, one high-ranking officer remained in the capital: Taloghast. Officially, he was left to maintain order. Unofficially, his concerns about Munkotepth’s involvement with the Cult had grown too sharp to ignore.

Rumors followed Taloghast. It was said he had grown too close to one of the king’s wives. Those whispers intensified after Munkotepth’s sealing.

When the final reckoning came, Taloghast disappeared.

The Battle of Hours

Atheleon’s return did not lead to negotiations. It led to a battle so swift the chroniclers struggle to believe it, a decisive clash said to have lasted only hours. The three queens were destroyed.

Atheleon buried them beside Munkotepth’s grave as a mark of respect, or perhaps as a warning that betrayal still deserves remembrance.

Taloghast’s body was never found. Darker accounts claim the queens were forced to consume him before their end. Whether truth or horror, the tale has endured.

When the dust settled, Atheleon did not take the throne. He took the remnants of the army and marched north, vanishing into legend.

The First Rising, 2436 IC

In 2436 IC, Munkotepth rose.

The name returned to the world like a curse spoken aloud. Tomb doors that had been silent for centuries opened. Old oaths cracked. Sand began to move where no wind blew. The Barren King was no longer a story.

For decades after, the Border Princes heard of skeletal patrols on forgotten roads, silent caravans that never arrived, and the sudden emptiness of frontier hamlets that had once paid toll to living lords.

The Second Rising Crisis, 2512 IC

In 2512 IC, the Charter Coast finds itself in the shadow of that older awakening.

This time, the living do not merely fear Munkotepth. They act.

In the hidden places where old kings were sealed, rites have begun to stir another name: Atheleon. Whether raised by desperate mortals, forced by rival powers, or awakened by the same ancient currents that rouse Munkotepth, the intent is singular.

Atheleon is being risen to deal with Munkotepth.

What that means for the living is uncertain. Atheleon may come as a savior shaped like a weapon. He may come as an older doom that simply hates the Barren King more than it hates the breathing world. Or he may come bound by ancient duty, marching once more because the dead have called their general back to war.

The Charter Coast and the Southern Tombs

The Merchant Prince’s charters thrive on three fragile things: roads, shipments, and confidence. The southern tomb crisis threatens all three.

Roads become haunted, patrols vanish, and toll stations go quiet.
Caravans detour, prices rise, and winter stores thin.
Settlers lose nerve, and rival charter-holders blame one another for the panic.

The Sapphire Isle answers in the only language it truly trusts. Contracts. Bounties. Expeditions.

Even in a land that welcomes all peoples, a new truth spreads from dockside whispers to inland watchtowers.

The dead are moving again, and this time the living are trying to choose which dead should win.