The Wilderlands

The Wilderlands stretch from the western reaches of Wenshar in northern Remere, all the way to Boval Vale in the Mindens, and north to hug the Kuline Range on the Castali frontier. Most of the Wilderlands lie within Alshar, though a smaller Castali Wilderlands exists as well. Geography is dominated by heavy old-growth forest, broken rocky hill country, and isolated upland vales, with a short growing season and long snowy winters. The people of the Wilderlands, on both sides of the Castali-Alshari border, share customs, dialect, and worship, favouring rough-spoken independence and the old country divinities over the polished cults of the south.

Economically the Wilderlands are as poor as the coastal cities are rich. Instead of the stately plantations of the Riverlands, Wilderlords hold primitive motte-and-bailey castles devoted to harvesting timber, wool, honey, iron, and the odd silver mine. The summer capital of Alshar, Vorone, sits in the Alshari Wilderlands, as does the fortified town of Tudry and, historically, the pastoral fief of Boval Vale in the high Mindens.

The region was devastated by the initial gurvani invasion out of the Mindens, which overran Boval Vale, Farenrose, Green Hill, and dozens of minor fiefs, and eventually menaced Vorone itself. After Duke Lenguin's death, the teenage Duke Anguin re-established his court-in-exile in Vorone and, with the aid of Pentandra and Minalan, slowly reclaimed the Wilderlands. The northern portions of the old Wilderlands were subsequently carved off to form Minalan's new county palatine, the Magelaw, leaving the southern reaches around Vorone under direct Alshari ducal rule.