[hider= Kingdom of Eru Barrens]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/5bkhsnS.jpg[/img]

[color=f7941d]Why would you build a kingdom in a lands that doesn't want you there?[/color]
[color=00a651]Why would you make lemon-aid if life gave you lemons?[/color]
Liege:
The current King Danallian The Second is a wisened old man chosen for the throne not by birth, but by brilliance in his youth. Now, his age is beginning to take over, leaving him on off days, and brilliant days. Currently, he has a series of caretakers who provide him tests to determine if he’s too dangerously intelligent to make decisions, too dull to make decisions, or if he’s in the sweet spot.

Position:
The Eru Barrens is an expansive grasslands and desert spanning the lands just south of the Shiverland Kingdoms. Due to the rainshadows created by the mountains, and powerful storms rolling from west and curving south at a predictable rate and pattern most of this landscape is actually barren. Many of the fauna and plant life have adapted to the climate. Most notably, streatching from the mountains and half way across the kingdom’s landmass are large platueas named “The Looking Glass of Erudite”. This name was given for the land mas taking a near circular shape while the plateaus looks to be broken from one single long line of planes – thus shattered glass.

Structure of Cities and Towns:
Due to the destructive power of the frequent storms, There are often plenty of flooding and high powered winds. On most of the plains the largest threat are the high powered winds destroying homes, removing trees, or flinging debris at speed. Within the The Looking Glass, floodings and rushing rapids become massive threats in the chasms.

Most of the cities are often built in locations where they are protected from the high winds by natural land formations, or with the construction of wind blades that break up the force and speed of winds. There are some major trading cities and towns built underground inside massive cave systems once hollowed out by the constant floods however.

Most buildings are primarily built of formed stone and cement. Should the homes be exposed to the weather, they are often built with domes or bladed roofs extending to the ground in the direction of the wind. Only the cities or towns most protected from the harsh winds use wood as the primary construction material.
Capital:
[img]https://img00.deviantart.net/9a4e/i/2017/338/c/d/urithiru_by_breigewillow-dbvsrh1.jpg[/img]
Home of the king and the most difficult location to siege is Lanaru, Tower of Defiance. Or Often called The Tower, Citadel of Sarcasm, or Insult to Ari and Ira (Death). This location is a marvel of engineering, and had quite literally been born from an engineer’s sarcasm taken a little too seriously. Within the center of the broken plains of The Looking Glass, there was a large plateau wedged between two of the lands highest mountains that had been rounded at all sides by weathering to form the rough shape of a cone. This mountain was between two other mounts of similar height, but had not been worn so badly. When the ancient engineer first proposed his idea, he did not have any designs, he simply jokingly told the crown amongst the arguing scholars and engineers “Why don’t we just bastardize that damned pointy hill in the middle of nowhere. We could make it a tower! Make all pretty like!”

The result is a tower of 800m in height built of ten tiers of concentric platforms with varying numbers of floors within each platform. The lowest platform is about 1.5km across and also holds several entrances into the tower proper. On the balconies where the powerful storms do not touch, there are gardens, farms, and pastures for livestock. Resident Nobility and Royalty is held on the upper most floors. Water fills reservoirs on multiple floors and uses the aid of gravity to provide plumbing. The water pumps are powered by the winds of the storms to push water up to the highest reservoir which then falls down to each lower floor till the reservoirs have been filled.

In history, the tower has been sieged a number of times by enemies testing the King’s claim. However, this quickly proved just how insanely difficult it is to siege this tower. Due to the self sustaining nature of the tower, and that the tower also acts as a city… the lands around them provide absolutely no cover. Sieging armies are exposed to siege weapon fire and archers with the benefit of high ground. There are no buildings for armies to shelter in to surround the tower. The broken plains are ravaged by powerful storms two times a month in fall and winter, and three times in spring and summer. The Chasms are subject to flooding, which have drowned numerous invading armies without notice.

Specialty: Logistics, Rhetoric, Bureaucracy, Music, and Engineering.
This nation is most well-known for Bureaucracy and Law however. It will not be uncommon to hear of jokes regarding the need for forms and papers just to relieve one’s self in a public outhouse. That did actually happen in history, but it was quickly thrown out because of how inconvenient and poorly timed it was.

History: The Kingdom of the Eru Barrens was once part of the Shiverpeak kingdoms. However, infighting began between two brothers in Royalty, and thus resorted in the split. At first, the lands the brother had taken for himself were completely uninhabitable. But it did not take very long for the new inhabitants to quickly adapt to their new surroundings after observing nature’s various patterns, and discovering multiple landmarks that provided protection from the elements. Various oddities have been found, from Cave systems so large that it holds its own climate and atmosphere, to large sweeping plateaus that shields one of the major Port towns known as “Storms Breach of Aardmoedier”.

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[hider= Jeckle The Bard]
Name: Jeckle
Age: 36
Appearance: A thin dark brown skinned man. His scalp is shaved clean of hair, as well as his eyebrows. The eyebrows have been painted on with the use of some makeup, as is fashionable in these lands. He wears a set of thin robes and colorful wraps of silk on his body. His left side is exposed, showing off his chiseled muscles, while the right is covered and creates a long sleeve. He wears a head dressing with bolts of cloth that extends down just underneath his rib cages.
Dirty Little Secret: None. This man is way too open to actually have one.
Skills: A Smooth talker, and a Bard.
Motto: “All stories have been told before. The only difference are the names!”

[/hider]