THE WORLD OF CALDRITH
The Ten Kingdoms
THE WORLD OF CALDRITH
The Ten Kingdoms
Every child in Caldrith learns the kingdoms the same way, in the same rhyme, in the same order. It is the first thing they are taught and the last thing they forget.
Hawks for Evarra’s mountaintops,
Eagles for the rivers of Brevos,
Bulls for Orvyn’s endless plains.
Stags to shake Quenhal’s forests,
while Solwyn’s dry lands has the mighty Lion,
and for Valnor’s icy fastness the Bear’s roar.
Hidden Nevarrow holds the Serpent,
while the Fox runs in Dravendor.
But for the poorest of all, only two animals went~
For starving Thevric the Pig,
and Seals for Galmar’s lament.
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EVARRA
The mountain kingdom, and the first among the ten whether the others like it or not. Every sorcerer in the world is trained here, and the Conclave sits at Skyveil.
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BREVOS
A river and marsh country of thin stone towers, once the greatest power in Caldrith and now the poorest of the old great houses.
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ORVYN
Endless grass, endless cattle, endless grain. The richest kingdom, and the one the rest cannot afford to offend.
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QUENHAL
The vast old forest at the heart of the world, ringed by a magical boundary that no one crosses uninvited.
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SOLWYN
Desert and spice and silk, and a hundred tribes who have spent longer fighting each other than anyone else.
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VALNOR
The frozen north, where the clans keep their history in sagas because ink freezes and memory does not.
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NEVARROW
Mountains and caves beyond the top of the world, and a people with hair as black as the dark they live in.
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DRAVENDOR
Fox-red hair, open hands, and a price on everything. Dravendorians are traders, travellers and oath-keepers, and the only kingdom ruled by a council instead of a crown.
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THEVRIC
They called it the Garden once. Then came the Witch-Sorcerer Wars and the Flux, and now it is dust, and the only thing it exports is healing.
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GALMAR
A cold coast of fishing towns clinging to cliffs, the poorest kingdom in Caldrith and the least regarded. It has no sorcerers at all.