Barony · County of Lensely
Minalan the Spellmonger's snowstone-crowned mountain barony — a neglected Lensely cadet estate transformed into the magical capital of the Five Duchies.
Sevendor is a hill-country fief in the southern Riverlands of Castal, seventy miles from the nearest navigable river, tucked into small but respectable mountains well south of the grand Mindens and Kulines. It was developed for three hundred years as one of the cadet estates of the famous House of Lensely, and was granted to Minalan by Duke Rard as reward for service against the gurvani invasion. Minalan chose it in part at the suggestion of the Tree Folk, and because it was far enough from the goblin front to be defensible.
When Minalan arrived the domain was a shithole: decades of neglect under Ducal caretakers, a rickety castle, a few villages and hamlets, and no real wealth. Everything changed when a magical accident on Yule — Minalan's desperate invocation of Briga during the difficult birth of his son Minalyan — transformed the living rock of the entire mountain into snowstone, a white, thaumaturgically-active substance that drastically enhances spellwork. The resulting building boom, combined with Minalan's Magic Fairs, irionite licensing, and the arrival of the Alka Alon embassy at Matten's Helm, made Sevendor the wealthiest magical polity in the Duchies.
Under the stewardship of castellan Sir Cei, the domain grew to absorb Brestal Vale (reclaimed from Gimbal), the conquered lands of the Warbird, and eventually Sashtalia in Book 7. Key events: the transformation to snowstone, the siege by Sire Gimbal of West Fleria, the annual Magic Fair, the elevation of the domain to a full barony, and its later designation as a county. Sevendor Castle houses the headquarters of the Arcane Orders; Sevendor Town is a boomtown of artisans and enchanters below its walls.