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THE ISLE AND KINGDOM OF TYRNE

The Kingdom of Tyrne officially encompasses all the territories of the Isle of Tyrne. In practice, the Kingdom's influence ends where the Savage North begins, and any attempts to establish cities north of Highwatch have ended in disaster.

MAP OF TYRNE

The features named on the Map of the Kingdom of Tyrne are explained below.

BLACKLEY FIELD:

Blackley Field is one of Tyrne's major internal ports, providing a convenient means of transporting goods between there and other ports of the Kingdom of Tyrne.

BRIDGEPORT:

Bridgeport is a small port with little traffic, by the standards of the larger ports to the south. It is the nearest civilian port to the far-northern communities of Broken Barrow and Northern Leigh, and to Whiteford, however. In those towns, it is mostly regarded as the place to go for exotic and cosmopolitan goods that must come from the major cities to the south. Further south, however, it is better known for its reputation as the port of choice for the grey trade, and the black market, as well as a haven for people who require some distance from the strict law and order of the southern cities. Its notoriety as a place of criminals and dangers is not entirely undeserved, but is somewhat exaggerated -- like any city, the majority of its inhabitants are quite mundane, largely law-abiding people mostly concerned only with the day-to-day dealings of their personal lives.

BROKEN BARROW:

HARROWFORD:

Harrowford is the farthest north of the Kingdom's major cities, named for a battle fought by Saint Harrow Caspen and the Heroes of Tyrne when they were ambushed while fording the [Something] River. The people of southern Tyrne tend to consider Harrowford the last civilized stop before entering the sticks in the northern reaches of the Kingdom. It often seems that, to the people south of Harrowford, the civilized world ends there.

HIGHWATCH:

The Highwatch Citadel is the northernmost bastion against the dangers of the Savage North. Nestled in a pass in the mountains, its reputation is of impregnability, a massive keep encompassing a small city of soldiers and those who live within their economic sphere. Its location is amidst a natural fortification, with craggy, nigh-impassable rock defending it to either side, and the walls of Highwatch providing a bulwark against assault through the pass. What was at one time a passage for raids into the south has been effectively turned into a dead-end alley, defended by some of the toughest military men of the Kingdom.

ISLE OF WRATH:

NORTHERN LEIGH:

The small town of Northern Leigh is little more than a village, really, but notable for its location far to the north. Just a day's travel south of the Highwatch Citadel, it is the farthest northern civilian settlement of the Kingdom of Tyrne, and is populated in no small part by retired soldiers from Highwatch and their families. The agricultural community surrounding Northern Leigh and its neighbor Broken Barrow provides much of the day-to-day supplies of Highwatch itself, with two major shipments of goods per year. By this means, and by virtue of the retired and visiting soldiers of the Citadel, Northern Leigh is relatively wealthy for the makeup of the town, but still largely just a quiet community near some of the finest meadows in all the Kingdom -- when the weather is good.

SAINT HARROW:

The City of Saint Harrow, splayed at the foot of the Keep of Saint Harrow, is little more than a community that has sprung up around that keep. The keep itself is not a Kingdom fortification, however, but the administrative center of the Holy Order of Tyr. This is where Knights of Tyr report, and from the gates of the Keep of Saint Harrow issue the elite holy knights of that order when they are trained and prepared for their lives of service in the world.

SAVAGE NORTH:

ST. HARROW'S CITADEL:

St. Harrow's Citadel is the training retreat of the Knights of Tyr, established by Saint Harrow Caspen more than three hundred years ago. Few outside the Holy Order of Tyr know of its existence, and the leadership of the Church of Tyr likes it that way. In addition to providing training for the Order's knights, it also serves as the secret, vigilant guardian against the horrors of the northern Isle of Wrath to the west. Those Knights of the Holy Order of Tyr who refer to the Citadel, or the Isle as a whole, in public tend to refer to it inexactly by the term "St. Harrow's", thus obscuring the meaning such that most who know of the city of that name simply assume the reference is to the City of Saint Harrow or the Keep of Saint Harrow within it. Fewer still than those who know of the Citadel are those who know that the reason the Isle of Wrath has not troubled the Order for decades is that the chill denizens of the Savage North contest the lands of the northern Isle of Wrath. Within the walls of the Citadel, there exists the Temple of Saint Harrow, a shrine and crypt containing the remains of Saint Harrow Caspen and his companions, the Heroes of Tyrne -- all but Menoth Seira, whose final fate is unknown.

ST. HARROW'S ISLE:

St. Harrow's Isle, more than three hundred years ago, was little more than an extension of the Isle of Wrath, and home to the ambitious and pitiless Last Champion of Wrath, whose name has been lost to history. Saint Harrow Caspen came to the island with his allies, those known to history as the Heroes of Tyrne, and defeated the foul influence of the Last Champion. All but Menoth Seira and Saint Harrow himself fell in battle there, giving their lives to scour that evil from the island and provide the territory that would soon become the heart of the Holy Order of Tyr.

SCOREGATE:

Scoregate is often referred to as Highwatch's "little brother". It is the westernmost outpost of the Shield Wall and, with Highwatch, provides the men and supplies necessary to man the Wall. It is a walled city, not so formidable as the Highwatch Citadel, but a strong fortification nonetheless. It also serves as Tyrne's northernmost port, though the trade that passes there is primarily logistical for its military forces. Civilian trade is largely overland, and the military seems unlikely to grant general civil access to the ports any time soon.

TYRNAN:

Named for the King whose court founded it as the seat of his power, the city of Tyrnan is the largest, wealthiest, and busiest city in all the Kingdom. The Kingdom draws its name from the city, as the city does from its founding monarch, who adopted the name Tyrnan in his youth to refer to his claim that the blood of Tyr ran in his veins. Tradition has it that Tyrnan was, in fact, the son and avatar of Tyr on this earthly plane, and that Tyrne is the Kingdom of Justice. It is for this reason that the word "Just" is liberally sprinkled throughout references to the current reigning monarch (e.g. "his Just Majesty, the King").

WESTPORT:

The wealth of Westport, a bustling port city, is bound up in a sea trade almost evenly split between its civilian trade to the south and military supply and transport business to Saint Harrow and Scoregate in the north.

WHITEFORD:

Whiteford is a largely unremarkable rural community nestled in the Greenfell Wood by the Morrow River. It is named for a fording point in the river where it widens so much, and becomes so shallow, that the sand and stones of the riverbed actually produce a constant thin froth of whitening bubbles on the surface of the water -- the White Ford.