Country Name: Kingdom of Aylsfyn
Government type: Dynastic Monarchy
Ruler: King Malius Enywyr
Location: 
[img]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/064/2/d/tgc_by_aaronmk-d792evc.png[/img]
Capital City: Monavdu
Language: Sphili
Species: Human
Army: 5%
History: The island known as Aylsfyn's history goes back many years. Although the history of what it contemporary Aylsfyn can be traced to the past two centuries.

The island had originally been inhabited by the Shapahali people, short dark-skinned humans who've lived in the southern reaches of the known world for the better part of the millennium. Their oral history bearing traces of old empires whose ruins are scattered all up and down the coast. The Shapahali people were largely agrarian in practice and agricultural communities covered the island and along the coast of the mainland. And where they weren't harvesting barley and wheat they were fishing.

The claim to fame for the Shapahali people was the sweet rum they brewed and the iron work from the island of Mondova – now Aylsfyn.

In a great migration from the north though came a wave of northmen and their boats. Sailing from the cold north they swept down along the coast until the arrival of a large armada of longboats who had begun to cut east along the coast seeking rich lands to loot. What they found instead was the island on Mondova.

The kings of the island were ragged and disorganized as a result of a crisis over succession for the crown. Their quarrels were picked at the worst time as the invading people landed on the island. Lead by Ranvir Rynseer the northern island swept over the western dukes and laid them to rest.

Ranvir was at this stage not just interested in wealth as his men cut through the war-weary levees of the local lords. Having brought many of the local lords' armies to their knees and taking over the holdings of the natives.

Ranvir's reign of conquest carried for five-years until the remaining dukes came to an uneasy truce to settle the taste of Ranvir. At the table the local Shapahali kings big Ranvir to cease, offering to proclaim his territories as an independent kingdom. Being cheeky, Ranvir named his island home Aylsfyn.

Ranvir himself had begun stretching himself thin, and took the counsel of his chieftains and settled on the truce, claiming the western half of the island for himself.

The next several decades past with minor bouts of aggression between the minor lords of both people, making small land gains against each other. But the recognized territories remained the same until Ravnir's passing.

On his death his nephew Withwall took the throne after marrying his daughter Marlyn. Withwall – having been a minor noble in the north – arrived to the south a king of more land than he had before over people he had hardly heard of.

Withwall's reign was brief however as many of his uncle's vassals took offense to his drinking habits and arbitrary nature. He barely made it through his eighth year before he was deposed off during a banquet through a poisoned plum. The crown then solemnly passed to his two-year old son Anyr. As he was too young, a regency commanded by Marlyn was instituted.

The Shapahli lords at this time looked back to the west, remembering the bite of Ranvir and seeing a weakened kingdom. After the closing of the first year of Anyr's rule the Shapahni Sultan Khalij Vivanjyr rallied his allies in mutual hatred for the foreigners and swiftly invaded.

The war could have gone poorly, but as it is famously recounted the Queen-Regent Marlyn donned the armor of a man and took a horse, leading the armies of Aylsfyn against the Vivanjyr, defeating them at the battle of the Broken Horn Hills, inflicting a major loss on the sultan's armies and capturing his son.

Khalij promptly surrendered in an effort to rescue his first-born son. But confronting him at the table of diplomacy Marlyn forced the Sultan to concede to a matrileneal marriage between his son and her sister. Though the proposition was a bruise against the pride of the elderly Sultan and most likely the death of the Vivanjyr dynasty as a ruling force he folded to the request and the marriage contract was drawn.

With the Sultanate of Vivanjyr formally wedded to house Rynseer an unbroken era of peace reigned over the island for twenty years. The passing of Khalij on Anyr's twenty-third birthday marked the ascension of Sultan Raya and the satellite relationship between the two kingdoms.

All that was left was for the young king to bide his time for the kingdom of Raya to be brought into his house. However, Anyr was impatient and declared war on the southern kingdom of Kanyea. The deceleration proved fruitless as it dragged ten years with no decisive victories for any side. For all purposes though, the Sultan on Kanyea was surely the winner.

Anyr would however not have this, and in his wroth called the court wizard Rifral to to his side to find an easy defeat for the Kanyeans. The mage said he knew a way, but it would be costly. Anyr excused the cost, declaring it a fool's price and was no true price to pay. Remorsefully the wizard ceded to his king's demands and set out to achieve the necessary preparations for the ritual.

It took the wizard the greater part of a year to acquire the resources and men required for the task. He demanded the blood of a thousand wise men to channel the appropriate entities to bring disease to the kingdom of Kanyea. Anyr obliged with his staff of slaves and kitchen staff.

And with a great remorse the wizard had all one-thousand souls executed, performing his incantation over the dying men as they choked on slit throats.

At the completion of the incantation the wizard stepped down from his ritual and ordered the bodies be burned. The following morning the mage was found dead in his chambers from mysterious causes. Shortly there after the kingdom of Kanyea began to wither as a strange blight took hold of their crops and starved them. The king Anyr had his opening, and with the kingdom starving marched through without opposition. Arrived to the capital Vijyana he saw the cession of the kingdom to him by a dying king.

On his return to his home with the title of Kanyea in his grasp - and a new liege selected to rule from there – things turned south. One by one, his servants and officers grew sick with a fever. Those who did not come down with the infliction reported strange sights and sounds within the castle: men crying, women cursing, calls for retribution. Even the king himself came down with a powerful fever as all those under his roof succumbed to illness. Only his aging mother was allowed to live as she tended to the slowly dying within the castle and within the town around it.

Over the coarse of the season the dead began to outnumber the living and anyone who could fled from the collapsing house of Rynseer. Only Marlyn remained.

At her son's sickbed, she wrote in recollection how the young lion would lay in his bed. Moaning in pain and complaining about being yelled at. His wroth had dulled to misery, his strength turned to helplessness as he claimed to be visited by specters. Even Marlyn wrote she had seen the face of death as it lingered in the corner of the room.

There was no warmth, not even in the south as the seasons passed and warm winds washed old Rynstead clean of all that remained. The young king died in his bed as a thunderstorm shook the keep as Marlyn sat at his side.

Anyr had left no formal heirs and many of his relatives were too far abroad or already landed and with wars of their own to make good on their claims to the Rynseer title.

Initially, Marlyn's sister made a claim to the kingdom, but met opposition from the dukes and nobles of the islands who fought back as they did among themselves. The island was for a second time embroiled in civil war over the crown, and many of the priests of the Shapahli subjects commented it was the same circumstances that brought down the old house.

And in the kingdom Kanea the newly made duke Svyn Enywyr sat by, mustering his men.

Stepping back from the conflict he allowed his betters to gore themselves and the Old Houses of the island to spill over and try to claim the island for himself. The good duke took it on himself to muster a messenger and a fast ship, and sent worth to his brother Aelius for men to build a host.

As the messenger was sent Svyn watched the battle from abroad, taking on men from who fled from the conflict with an open embrace and becoming the wise sage of the south-east.

On his messenger's return he had a bolstered support of fifty-eight thousand men donated from his brother in the north. Though more cosmopolitan than his own men, he took the donation in good stead stepped into the growing war.

He had read the stories, and he wished not to have any rivals abroad to take advantage and recreate the conquest of Ranvir Rynseer. Holding more men under his banner than the other lords had remaining Svyn marched on and took the castles of all that opposed him. Forcing the nobles to bend their knees on by one to him. His war took two years, and on the final day he was crowned king of Aylsfyn, and founded the kingdom as it exists now.

The former capital of Rynstead was moved to the old Shapahli city of Monavdu where it remains. The city of Rynstead itself exists as a ghost on the wilderness. A dark reminder to the use of dark and bloodied magics and a memorial to the wrath of Anyr. Travelers who venture forth into its walls tell stories of restless spectres; courtiers, warriors of both Kanea and Anyr's lost and angry, and the distressed wraith of the mage.

List of Kings since the foundation of the House of Rynseer's Aylsfyn Kingdom:
Ranvis “The Glorious” Rynseer – thirty-three years
Withwall “The Drunk” Rynseer – eight years
Marlyn “Queenmother-Regent” Rynseer (Regency) – 16 years
Anyr “The Terrible” Rynseer – 16 years
Svyn “The Noble” Enywyr – 30 years
Regald Enywyr – 24 years
Anastos “The Hawk King” Enywyr – 53
Malius “The Inquisitor” Enywyr – 20-years thus

Pic: <Maybe not today>
Religion: The primary worship of the people of Aylsfyn is that of ancestor worship. Though details differ between regions and heritage, with those more directly related to the north men worshiping Morhall, the final destination of the righteous dead. The Shapahli direct their worship to that of Ganjir, the Angle of Death and his pantheon of helpers.
Population: 1,090,000