Gilmora

Gilmora is the agricultural heartland of the north-central Riverlands, a sprawl of flat alluvial plains, moated manors, and large peasant villages lying between the Bontal country to the south and the Wilderlands frontier to the north. The soil, the mild climate, and a dense network of cotton plantations made Gilmora the wealthiest commodity region in the Five Duchies, exporting fine cotton to Merwyn, Remere, and Vore, and supporting a population far denser than any other rural region. Its chief political feature is an array of powerful counties — the so-called Gilmoran Counts — who traditionally enjoyed outsized influence at both the Castali and Alshari ducal courts.

The province's status was historically disputed. Portions of northern and western Gilmora were claimed by Alshar, while the bulk lay under the Duke of Castal, a dispute that simmered for generations but was overshadowed by the gurvani invasion. Shortly after the Dragonfall, roughly a hundred thousand gurvani warriors, trolls, and shamans poured into the region along the Timber Road, capturing castles and moated manors and then methodically depopulating the countryside. Tens of thousands of Gilmorans were coffled north into the Penumbra, and the breadbasket was essentially emptied; entire northern counties lay fallow and ruined. Lord Commander Terleman led the campaign to contain the invasion, with the young knights magi Tyndal and Rondal cutting their teeth in the Bloody River Company and the Iron Ring.

After the war Gilmora was slowly resettled, with the Crown and the Arcane Orders funneling refugees, magelords, and Kasari settlers into the shattered north. Key locales include Barrowbell (the great cotton market), Maramor, and Cotton's Ford. Politically the region is now divided between loyalist Gilmoran counts under Castal and newly created magelord estates.