The Fall of Vaelorn
For twenty-seven years, the Kingdom of Vaelorn fought wars on every border. At first, those wars brought victories, tribute and new territory. Then came failed harvests, unpaid armies, burned villages and nobles who stopped answering the king's summons.
The royal treasury emptied. Soldiers deserted. Provincial lords kept the taxes they collected and raised armies beneath their own banners. The kingdom still existed on maps. In truth, it was breaking apart.
Let every proven soldier receive land in place of the wages the Crown can no longer pay.V
The charters looked valuable. Most of the land was not. Some grants contained abandoned farms and crumbling walls. Others were occupied by frightened villagers, bandits, deserters or families who claimed the soil had belonged to them for generations.
The Crown promised protection, but no longer possessed the soldiers to provide it. Still, thousands accepted. A dangerous piece of land was more than a soldier returning home with nothing.
You were one of them.
You arrive carrying a sealed charter, a battered weapon, several months of unpaid wages and the authority of a king whose commands grow weaker with every passing day.
Somewhere in the capital, an old king is dying without naming which of his children will inherit what remains. The charter gives you the right to rule.
Everything else must be built, bought, negotiated—or taken.