People of Note:

  • Brian of the Volsaxi
    A powerful chieftain of the Volsaxi, an accomplished heroquester and priest of Orlanth. From 1611 to 1615 he led a band of Volsaxi mercenaries in the service of the King of Heortland, defending Knight Fort and the Praxian Marches from the Animal Nomads of Prax. In 1613 many exiles from the Starbrow rebellion, including the famous leader, Kallyr Starbrow herself, joined him there.
    • In 1615 Brian's term of service ended, and he returned to his native lands north of the kingdom, taking most of his followers with him. His warriors were foremost in the raids on Lunar Sartar in 1615 and 1616.
    During the raids of 1616 the King of the Volsaxi Federation was slain. Brian gathered his supporters and was named King of the Volsaxi after Sacred Time.
    1619 When the Lunar invason forces assembled in Sartar, Brian called sent out the Red Arrow and called the warriors of the Volsaxi to his standard. Rather than offer Fazzur an open battle (and repeating the disaster of 1605, when Fazzur's cavalry raid was stopped before Karse only by an order to retreat), he made his troops skirmish against the Lunars while preparing the fortress city of Whitewall for a siege. Fazzur left sufficient forces under Jorkandros Blinder to besiege Whitewall until the arrival of the Crimson Bat and pushed further south to take Karse in an assault. However, when the Bat arrived, Brian and his household of heroic companions slew the monster.
    Fire Season 1621 After almost two years of a somewhat loose siege, Tatius the Bright has built up sufficient magical force to take the city by assault. Most of the empire's magicians and huge numbers of troops are brought against the stubbornly resisting Orlanthi holed up in the ancient hill-fort. Vast rituals forced a way into the citadel, killing many of the participants, only to find the city empty, except for a score of corpses. Brian's whereabouts are unknown. Yet Tatius reports this as a grand victory.
    Sacred Season 1621 Brian and his followers reappear in the sacred rites of the Bullflood Orlanthi. He raises the country in rebellion.
  • Fazzur Wideread, Gouvernor-General of the Lunar Provincial Army
    This Tarshite nobleman has been in charge of the Lunar Provincial Army and occupied Sartar (and Prax) since 1613, when his (Dara Happan) precedessor fell prey to an intrigue. A career officer and scholar, Fazzur has an excellent knowledge and understanding of the Barbarians he has been placed in charge of. His ambition to become king of the most recent addition to the Empire, as well as over the neighbouring territories waiting to be conquered, is not widely known, but well supported by his brother-in-law, king Moirades of Tarsh.
    • 1619 Reinforced with imperial Heartland troops, Brian invades the Marzeel Valley and conquers Volsaxiland, except for the citadel of Whitewall, which he leaves guarded, and for the Lunar College of Magic to take. He pushes through to the independent barony of Karse and takes it by assault after bribing off some of the defenders.
    1620 Mustering at Smithstone, Fazzur leads his troops into Heortland, aka "the Kingdom of Malkonwal" ruled by Richard the Tigerhearted. Richard offers battle at Jansholm, but failure of some of his vassals to support him weakens his forces, and when his former lieutenant Mularik Ironeye, now Duke of Jansholm, takes him prisoner and sells him off to the Lunars the battle becomes a mere formality. The Seshnegi chivalry forming the core of Richard's followers gives a good account of itself, but the Lunars take the field, and the Kingdom. Within days, Fazzur has taken all the cities south to Duchamp, where he encounters an invasion force from God Forgot. Fazzur gives Mt. Passant away in a treaty, but ensures the open sea port of Refuge and the Praxian Marches for the Empire.
    1621Fazzur now turns his attention on Esrolia, in order to take over all of the leaderless Holy Country. He supports Queen Hendira of the Red Earth faction to build a temple of the Reaching Moon in Nochet. This temple would cover most of the Holy Country within the Glowline, and establish a secure Lunar hold over the land.
    Sacred Season 1621 Fazzur receives his demotion from the post of Gouvernor-General as a result of Dara Happan officers in the army conspirating against their "barbarian" commander. Tatius the Bright takes over command while Fazzur retreats to his duchy in Tarsh.
  • Gagix Twobarb, Scorpion Queen of Jab
    This scorpion queen had overcome and eaten three other queens in the Footprint, and formed a single tribe of until then unseen dimension by 1616. When the Heortland civil war of 1617 and the royal decrees afterwards weakened the chaos defense of the local Orlanthi, her tribe grew undisturbed by the annual chaos hunts which had suppressed the scorpionpeople's population in earlier years. As a result, queen Gagix now rules over a vast horde ready to invade the human-settled lands as soon as opportunity offers itself. For the moment, she holds back her people while receiving Lunar bribes and support.
  • Greymane, Warlord of the Solanthi
    This Manirian warlord has been the nemesis of the Holy Country's armies since he first managed to unite the Solanthi tribesmen behind his banner.
    While the Manirian Orlanthi are outwardly ruled by the Trader Princes who control the castles along the trade road to Ralios, many of the tribesmen (who kept their traditional religion regardless of their overlords) turn to their warlords for guidance.
    When Lunar agents sifted into the lands west of the Holy Country after their failed attempt to invade the country in force, they found eager takers for their money in the tribal warlords. For a number of years, the Ditali barbarians and their western cousins kept making trouble, but it took the leadership of Greymane to unite the tribes into greater action.
    1614 saw the first great raid of Ditali and Solanthi barbarians under Greymane's banner, erupting after four years of deceptive quiet after the Pharaoh's last punitive campaign. The raiders devastated Caladraland (and even some of the Islands), then withdrew before the Pharaonic armies could catch up with them.
    In 1616, a retaliatory expedition of the Pharaonic army, including the elite of many of its Sixths warriors, was ambushed in Ditaliland and almost completely wiped out by barbarians gathered by Greymane.
    Finally, in 1618 Greymane led another great raid into Esrolia and Caladraland, causing much trouble in the western provinces.
  • Gunda the Guilty
    This woman-warrior,  a heroine in her own right, is best known as Harrek the Berserk's sidekick. She was the daughter of a Fronelan valkyrie conquered and raped by a "cruel philosopher", likely a Loskalmi Great Knight on a quest for power in the faerie realm. She grew  up fleeing her father's minions, learning the warcraft of her mother already during infanthood, and at age twelve overcame the leader of a pack of wolf pirates who had taken the ship on which she fled from her pursuers. Her most famous exploit  was to break the glamour of Zoria's infamous Queen of the Kiss which forced the victim to swear an eternal oath of fealty. Of all so afflicted, only Gunda found the power to break the enchantment, and the oath, but this earned her the curse that she never would know love.
  • Gwydion of Sklar, Archbishop of the Aeolian Church of Heortland
    The head of the Aeolian Church comes from a poor fisherman community in northwestern Heortland. He rose through the hierarchy by wit and labour, and became bishop of Backford age 35. When the Archbishopric in Durengard became vacant, Gwydion demonstrated political skill as well. He is one of the most trusted advisors of King Owain.
    • 1617 The childless death of King Owain, following the deaths of his uncle and cousin, leaves Heortland without a clear heir. Gwydion is instrumental in keeping the capital neutral while several contenders decide the issue on the battlefield. However, his play for neutrality is thwarted when Richard the Tigerhearted, commander of the Seshnegi mercenaries protecting the capital, announces his own claim for the crown, and succeeds. Gwydion soon finds himself opposing the influence of the Rokari bishop of Nochet, Vancelain du Tumerine.
    1618 After protesting against a royal decree "to remove all pagan ornaments from the churches to the Invisible God" Gwydion is declared outlaw, and forced to hide in the Storm Mountains. He gathers a following of other outlawed Aeolians and disgruntled Orlanthi who have been forced from their clan lands which were given to cronies of King Richard.
    1619 In secret, Gwydion manages to convert Sir Gerard de Montanpein, former right-hand man of Richard the Tigerhearted, and duke of Mt. Passant, to the Aeolian faith. When Gerard's sympathies for the native church become apparent, he is effectively demoted, and his duchy led by a royal sherriff.
    1620 As the Lunar invasion plans become obvious, Gwydion moves to ensure that King Richard will lack support from his subjects. Gwydion plans to play out the Seshnegi against the Lunars, and then to liberate the land with the support of the freedom-loving Orlanthi hillmen of the Storm Mountains. He is surpriesd by the efficiency of Fazzur's invasion, and the God Forgot invasion in the south removes his most faithful followers from his forces.
    1622 Gwydion supports Brian's rebellion against the Lunar occupation troops while Gerard de Montanpein retakes the city of Mt. Passant from the God Forgot invaders. Gwydion establishes his base there in order to reconstruct the kingdom of Heortland.
  • Harrek the Berserk
    The berserk from Fronela joined forces with the Wolf Pirates in 1616 and incited the Great Raid on the Holy Country, which devastated much of the coastal regions of all Sixths. He remains a threat to the coasts until
    • Sea Season 1621 when he leads a majority of the captains from Threestep Isles eastwards on an epic raid on all coasts of the Homeward Ocean.
    Fire Season 1624 Harrek returns from his circumnavigation ending in the raid of Noloswal in the west, and joins the alliance of Lunar haters in Esrolia led by Brian of the Volsaxi as mercenary. After the battle of Pennel Ford he and his pirates settle down in Nochet for a season of drinking up their loot.
  • High Admiral of the Boats
    The human leader of the Rightarm Islands. During Harrek's leadership of the Wolf Pirates of the Three-Step Islands, this office swallowed several of its holders.
  • Kallyr Starbrow
    Like many of the other leaders of the 1613 rebellion in Sartar, this heroquester and figurehead of the rebellion found acceptance as mercenaries with Brian of the Dunlaingi, in southeastern Heortland. Kallyr becomes a trusted companion of Brian and supports him throughout the next years. Her reputation attracts many Sartarite exiles to his cause.
  • Leonardo the Scientist
    This adept from God Forgot is known for his strange, one-of-a-kind inventions, some of which roam the Leftarm Islands. Sometimes he can be seen flying across the land in his pedalcopter.
  • Sir Mularik Ironeye
    The bastard son of a Rindland knight and a Ralian noblewoman taken in a border war left his home country for the life of a mercenary in Ralios. By 1614 he led his own small band, but when he encountered Sir Richard the Tigerhearted and his band, he joined forces for a greater destiny. His move was rewarded when Richard made him first sherriff, then Duke of Jansholm. In this function, he was foremost in Vancelain du Tumerine's effort to remove all Orlanth imagery from the Aeolian Malkioni temples in Heortland, many of these made from precious substances, and disappearing into Mularik's private coffers. When the Lunar Empire invaded Richard's Kingdom of Malkonwal, Mularik bought his personal freedom and that of his band by handing over his king to the invaders. He then took his accumulated wealth and set sail from Karse to the Threestep Isles, where he joined the Wolf Pirates. He accompanied Harrek on his circumnavigation.
  • Owain, King of Heortland
    King Owain is the young king of Heortland. In his mid-twenties, he is still unmarried, having preferred a more heroic style of reign.
    • 1617 When the Pharaoh disappears after the Year King rites in Esrolia and fails to procure his next body in a Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death, Owain uses the annual royal Sacred Time Lightbringers Quest to return the ruler and unity of the Holy Country. His efforts deep under the Shadow Plateau leave him fatally poisoned after an unexpected twist of events. A powerful magical healing restores him shortly, but already on the first festival of 1617 the extent of the poisoning becomes apparent when he impregnates several virgins of noble houses in a frenzy. Kept from death only by most potent magic, his subjects start a frantic questing to find a cure, but by early Fire Season the king has faded away. The pregnant girls are watched closely, since they might bear the heir apparent of the kingdom, but one after another suffers miscarriages, mercifully so since the aborts bear little resemblance to human beings. As the last hope of a legitimate heir has dissipated, a civil war breaks out for the succession.
  • Pharaoh
    The magical ruler of the Holy Country has ruled Kethaela since his victory over the Only Old One in 1318. Whenever he has used up an old body, a Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death is held, and the victor gives his body to the Pharaoh in exchange for an angelic existance on the Gods Plane.
    • 1616 Undergoing the annual sacrifice of himself in the Esrolian Year King rites, the Pharaoh disappears. The ensuing Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death fails to provide a successor.
    What nobody in the Holy Country knows: He is tricked by Jar-eel, the great Lunar heroine who entered the ritual as the bride and made sure the sacrifice sent him do a different Hell than the usual realm of Ty Kora Tek. Trapped in the ritual, the Pharaoh can neither resurrect his own body nor enter a new one provided by a Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death.
  • President of Caladraland
    The mundane ruler of Caladraland is little more than a glorified clan chieftain chosen by his peers. His actual influence on the inhabitants is small outside of his own clan. Quite often this post is occupied by a compromise candidate from a small clan to keep the major clans in check.
  • Queen Hendira
    Leader of the Red Earth faction in Esrolia, and after 1620 the most influential Esrolian queen in Nochet. 
    The Red Earth faction started out as a small number of dissatisfied priestesses of the Old Earth faction in Esrolia who disagreed with the course the sacrificial kingship had taken. After the Building Wall Battle, Lunar agents and money supported these zealots until they got hold of some of the larger Esrolian houses.
    Queen Hendira inherited a difficult position after the great raids of the wolf pirates in 1616 and the Ditali and Solanthi in 1618. Educated by Red Earth priestesses, she turned to the nearest representatives of the Lunar Empire for assistance, Fazzur Wideread, Provincial Governor. Fazzur was only too happy to comply as soon as he had conquered the Heortland plateau, and brought Tarshite magicians and specialists to support her position in Nochet, the greatest city in this part of the world. Fazzur's engineers and magicians started to build a full Lunar temple right within Nochet, from where an expanded Glowline would have covered all of the Holy Country. However, in Sacred Season of 1621 General Fazzur was relieved from his office, and his magicians and engineers were ordered to abandon the almost finished project for another project by Fazzur's successor, Tatius the Bright, who planned to cover all of the former lands of the Rebellus Terminus with the Glowline, and had chosen a site in eastern Sartar.
  • Sir Richard the Tigerhearted
    This Seshnegi mercenary captain is the younger son of the count of Estaurenic. He left his home country for a career of soldiering when his older brother inherited the title and holdings. With his childhood companion, Sir Gerard de Montanpein, he assembled a mercenary company of renowned Seshnegi knights currently not vassaled to anyone and entered Ralios and its petty wars. There his company is joined by that of Sir Mularik Ironeye, a Rindland knight of great capacities. After a politically difficult intrigue in the Ralian state of Tiskos Richard decided to put as much distance between himself and his home country and followed the Trader Prince road into the Holy Country. Upon arrival in Nochet, Richard enters a dalliance with Elena Rosa, the newly-wed young wife of old Don Capratis, leader of the Nochet Seshnegi, and the jealous Don arranges his quick departure on the first contract offered - defense of the Praxian Marches of Heortland (the post previously held by Brian of the Volsaxi). Richard and his - by now quite large - company entered Prax in Earth season 1615.
    • After proving the worth of the heavy chivalry in devastating a head-to-head charge against a raiding bison clan the Seshnegi knights get invited to a tournament in Durengard, the capital of Heortland. Richard and his knights excelled over the rustic Heortland chivalry, and early in 1616 they were ordered to the court as the king's personal bodyguard. Other Seshnegi mercenaries of less renown who had followed Richard's tracks replaced his force in Knight Fort.
    1617 When the king died after a - in Richard's eyes pointless, pagan - quest, he and his knights support the royal counselors in Durengard while several claimants fight out their right for the crown of Heortland. Due to an imagined slight inflated beyond reason by newly arrived barbarian followers, a powerful claimant from northern Heortland moved against the Seshnegi knights, and was denied entry into central Heortland in a hard battle on a Syphon crossing against Mularik's company, decided only when relief from Durengard arrived after a forced march. With only two serious claimants left after this battle, Richard - with overt support from the bishop of Nochet - decided to state his own claim. The remaining claimants allied against the foreigners, but in a decisive battle the rival claimant was slain and his ally driven into hiding in the mountains, and Richard could ascend the empty throne of Heortland.
    1618 Listening to the advice of the bishop of Nochet, Richard decrees most of the Orlanthi pagans of Heortland as serfs (thereby forbidding them to carry swords), and also supports a conversion of the Aeolian temples into purified Malkioni churches. This gains him the enmity of large parts of the populace, which he ignores the same way he would have ignored grumbeling peasants in Seshnela.
    1620 Richard prepares to throw back the Lunar invasion. However, his most trusted lieutenants turn on him, and few of the populace are ready to fight for the Rokari oppressors. He gets separated from his own troops on the battlefield, and is given over to General Fazzur by the men of one of his Lieutenants, Sir Mularik Ironeye, then Duke of Jansholm.
  • Vancelain du Tumerine, Rokari Bishop of Nochet
    This member of the great Nolosite trader dynasty was invested due to generous financial support of the Ecclesiarch's private conflict with the king of Seshnela. Vancelain is an ambitious man, and when Richard the Tigerhearted established a strong Rokari presence in the leaderless Heortland, Vancelain was quick to propose a holy kingdom to the mercenary captain. He masterminded much of Richard's approach to the crown, and as a reward he could expand his see of Nochet into all of Heortland, including the well-off Aeolian heresy.