Thalmarkin/New History/A Thalmar History

Letter from Dunbor Lorganson (1 hour, 46 minutes ago)
Message sent to everyone in your realm (24 recipients)
Count Wilhelm,

you now find yourself amongst the greatest warriors this continent has ever seen. Man or abomination, we have faced them all down and they have suffered our wrath. That is not to say that we are one homogenous blob of steel and muscles. While in recent times many of our fierce and foul-mouthed warriors have gotten old and more agreeable, myself included, we here value the power and the strengths of rivalry and competition. We have seen many great rivalries to date that have seen our realm grow and grow, ever stronger. We do not need the world to challenge us, we challenge ourselves. And then we challenge the world, as we are doing now.

So let's delve a little into our history:
The Kingdom of Thalmarkin was founded in the aftermath of the Second Invasion that saw the great empire of Ar Agyr destroyed. The surviving nobles of Ar Agyr however were split, a faction under King Julma Jaune Cosula joined Old Grehk, another faction joined Melhed. After the Second Invasion Thalmarkin was formed from the Grehkian faction together with nobles from Old Grehk and Riombara. We were located in the harsh and icy North by the Ice Tower of Nuzanki, of which now only the tip is visible off the coast of Lugrethen on a clear day. From there we suffered through the Third Invasion, surviving not only the daimon, undead and monster hordes but also a secession from an old King, Lemon Tree. We stood firm and defended our lands but were not capable of doing more. However, our Melite rivals, who had claimed Unger, had been destroyed and it is then that we conquered Unger.

This would be our last bastion in the Fourth Invasion, when Fingolfin, King of Kings, rose to the throne. Under his leadership, we stared in the empty eyes of the dead and offered them only steel. The Lich King Tarchennan attacked our capital with 60,000 undead but on these hallowed grounds we stood firm and were badly beaten, but unconquered. We were then the only realm not to strike a deal with either the Invaders or the Light - blood magicians - for our survival. Riombara sided with the Light, everyone else struck deals with the Invaders. We survived by merit of our steel. It is during the Fourth Invasion that Darkness covered vast swathes of land on our continent, including our ancestral lands.
Having suffered so, and seeing many of our lands lost, our spirit remained unbroken and we set out to conquer to the South, and so the construction of our mountain fortress begun, leaving only the fields of Pomatim and Yermon freely traversable when entering our realm from the South.

Then the Fifth Invasion came and Overlord saw what was left of humanity and thought to enslave it or feed as fuel to his Soulforge. Having expanded and built up our defenses, we took a leading role in the war for our freedom and very existence. It was Sir Darius Dawnbringer who slew the Darkest Hour of the North, and for the first time in years, the Darkness lifted and part of our ancestral lands were recovered from the blight. Then it was Lady Rila Daybreaker who vanquished the Darkest Hour of the West and saw the cities of Firbalt, Heen and Fianik, among many other regions recovered from Overlord's expansion of the blight. Meanwhile, the efforts of our King saw humanity act and fight united as we tried to hold off the daimon legions who grew ever stronger, culminating in the fierce flying chargers we called Horrors. It was then however, as the little hope we had gained was all but crushed by these abominations who took 4 out of 5 capitals closest to the blight in one fell swoop, Unger being the one that managed to hold out, that our King tricked the Overlord in his vanity to face humanity united on the hallowed fields of Pomatim and it was there that Duke Pyrix Nightbane finally banished Overlord himself from this plane and ended the Fifth Invasion.
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Ever since, we've had our thirst for war, conquest and revenge filled. We re-established our ancestral realm of Ar Agyr in the capital of the traitorous Melites and saw Sint destroyed, finally, for collaborating with and worshipping the daimons at their very first appearance in the Third Invasion. Eventually we saw the time right to start preparing for the next Invasion and start uniting humanity under their one true leader: Fingolfin, King of Kings. It was then that we were again betrayed by Melhed and had to subdue them once more, starting our war against the rest of the continent, with only Old Grehk and Ar Agyr on our side, on a false note. Yet we still managed to expand and establish Gotland, subdue Spearhold and Fronen and upon their third betrayal, destroy Melhed. It's been a long road however and we're still fighting this war, being held up by the mountains of Nothoi and renewed vigor from the South. In that perspective we've already partially accomplished our goal in putting a firm end to the complacency of (most) Southern realms and seeing them rally to their banners with weapons sharp and thirsty, as we would have them when the Invaders return to threathen us all.

So there you have it, we are the Kin of Thalmar and we are ever strong in will as in battle.

Hail the King of Kings!

Dunbor Lorganson
General of Thalmarkin
Duke of Unger
Margrave of Unger