Ysvalian Cities

There are only Five major cities in the alliance. By Galadyn’s law, each of these cities is traditionally associated with one of the Delivered Five, the crew that Galadyn saved from the waters. In the political arena, each of the Five Cities is the center of a Dukedom, where there are no other major cities, but dozens of towns and villages under the major city’s jurisdiction.

Ysval
The City that gives its name to the Alliance is a great port, surrounding the Holy Duk’s palace in Griffon’s Nest, which doubles as the Griffon Knights’ headquarters. It is a large, homely city, with the smell of burning hearths, fish markets and animal farms in the coastal wind. The main Temple of Galadyn, a bare wooden building with magical torches in every wall, is also located in Ysval.

After the loss of Dukke, the second largest port in the Alliance, Ysval has doubled its population and trade output, becoming the most important seaport in the Northerlands, and a hotbed for travelers from Gellanor to Nahuac, from Sikarian wizards to Nwoda pirates, from gnomish businesspeople to Tyverian rogues.

Ysvalians are coarse and ill-mannered even by Alliance standards, but they are also known for their bravery and honesty. There’s a saying in Ysval that ‘only rich folks eat home’, meaning that the wealthiest Ysvalians often host great feasts with Pint courses and Galadyan blessings, and everyone else spends their nights as guests at these dinners.

Armme
A fortified town of ebony and stone amidst the bleak, windy tundra, the city of Armme is known for its religious tradition, its remote location and its outstanding wines. After the North War, the Dukedom of Armme became the border of Tyverian expansion, and its inhabitants and rulers are dead serious about their responsibility to keep the Empire at bay. Their grim, determined order of the Foghound is the most devout in the Alliance, their faith strengthened by hate of Tyveria.

Armmese people are dour and pious, famously devoid of levity; they still have music and parties, but their dances and songs are darker and more intense than those of other cities. Even in a religious Realm as Ysval, stereotypes abound about the prudishness of the Armmese, which they are fully and proudly aware of. If the Alliance mocks them for their faith, it means that only they are truly faithful.

Dornat
A sturdy, urbanized town with paved streets and tall stone houses, the city of Dornat is the most complex and well-built of the Alliance. Protected from the cold winds by its stone walls, Dornat enjoys an easier day-to-day than other cities, its Neighbors wearing lighter clothes and even engaging in a certain degree of fashion, according to their family colors.

Dornese Neighbors regard their families above everything, being as proud of their lineages as if they all descended from Galadyn. Many maintain that they do. They are the only Alliance citizens that hold some kind of concept of superior birth, and treat members of other families as outsiders. While the local Temple still enforces sharing and community among families, grudges and feuds are common, from lighthearted jabs in the street to duels that often degenerate into Common Combat, with a few escalating to bloody and murderous vendettas.

The knights of Dornat are the Order of the Kite, a proud and gleaming regiment of warriors in shining armor, falling from the sky in breathtaking formation on their winged steeds, expressly acquired from Sikaria for this purpose.

Dukke
The coastal town of Dukke used to be one of the Alliance’s major cities, until its rulers joined the Tyverian maghyr houses, dividing the Alliance and breaking the Realm’s border. The city isn’t part of Ysval any longer, but it still hasn’t been fully integrated into Tyveria either, working more as an Imperial colony between both realms. Its Duks have become maghyr house Logia, and its Order of the Aurox all became Vampyr bloodsworn under them.

While many Dukkese left for Ysval or Dornat after the annexation, it remains a bustling town, with lots of whaling activity and trade going on daily. Its Empire-backed mercantile and whaling unions control most fishing and trade between Ysval and the City of Crimson Spires.

The remaining Dukkese retain their traditions from before Tyverian annexation; they are fond of raw meat and bloody fights, their music and dance having always been among the wildest and most violent in the Alliance. Their groundmeat-based cuisine, developed by a joint effort of Pint and Quill cooks, is among the most exotic and stronger-tasting in Valerna.

Mannor
The Sylvan city of Mannor, located in the border of the Hmyr’s Fogwood, is the westernmost edge of Ysvalian civilization. It is a young city, founded by an influx of Ysvalian immigrants and thousands of farmer families from the Western Dukedoms, in an attempt to replace the lost port of Dukke with a new city, moving the Alliance’s border westward and retaining the sacred count of Five Cities. The ruler of the new city is Duk Vegran, a cousin of Holy Duk Ysea, making Mannor an unofficial protectorate of the city of Ysval.

Mannor is a young Dukedom, built and expanded on from a border town where hmyr and humans from both Ysvalian farms and Hygar tribes have interacted for centuries. Its population includes farmers and pint craftspeople from every corner of the Alliance, as well as hmyr traders, Hygar hunters and a few Ikini mystics that the Temple allowed entrance in an effort to open the city to forest peoples. As a result, Mannor is a cultural patchwork, and is still finding its identity as Ysval’s youngest Dukedom.

The knights of Mannor are the small, all-female Order of the Foghorn, formed at the behest of Duk Vegran from a squad of brave female paladins, chosen to ride a herd of massive, woolly Foghorns of the Fogwood.

Vaden
The strongest city of the Alliance, whose military defeated both the Frozen Horde and the Imperial Tyverian army, is Vaden, the Cold Citadel. Located just before the Ice Chasm that separates Ysval from the Frozen Wastes, Vaden is more fortress than city, with a mostly military population, and every town and farm having a knight outpost and fortification nearby.

Vaden’s knights used to be the order of the Raven, ejected from the Alliance because of their refusal to follow the Galadyan faith.

Today, the city’s protectors are the Reindeer knights, a once-lesser order that used to belong to no city, offering their mercenary services to any Dukedom that needed it, and which have now been strengthened in numbers and power to increase Ysval’s North border. The High Knight of the order was also appointed Duk of Vaden, but many families are currently waiting for a chance to put their own candidates in the new throne.