[hider=Kingdom of Aontas]
[b]Name:[/b] Kingdom of Aontas.

[b]Location:[/b] At the northeast corner of the Sunrise Lands, stradling along the north and south faces of the cliffs of the Great Northern Range, and extending into the taiga and frozen seas beyond.

[b]Description:[/b] Aontas (pronounced [i]Yontis[/i]) is a kingdom of the north, a stretch of frozen mountains and dense pine-forests once home to raiders and barbarians, unto whom civilization and the light of the one true faith—the Church of Aurelia—has been firmly thrust. The people of Aontas, the Aontans, have a reputation in the Sunrise Lands as traders and explorers, master sailors who foolheartedly brave the craggy and ice-plagued seas of their snowy homeland to venture all across the continent and beyond. Theirs is a kingdom dominated by mankind, where beast and elf alike are feared and poorly understood, those exotic beings rarely seen outside the more cosmopolitan trade-ports that dot the coasts. The capital of Aontas is the eponymous city of Aonthall, situated at the southern most point of the so-called 'Icefang', a fang shaped bay situated along Aontas' northern coast. Silverport, the largest city in the kingdom and a major trending centre in the Sunrise Lands, is built along the River Lumen, in the south-west. As would befit its name, Silverport primarily exports silver, harvested from the bountiful mines of the Great Northern Mountains and transported downriver to the port. 

The Kingdom of Aontas is the final product of a successful crusade by the Lumenistic Order, a group of zealous followers of the Church of Aurelia originally founded to defend the shores of Boros, Aontas' southern neighbour, from pagan attackers. The Order, and the kingdom they defended, were struck a major blow by the sacking of a great port city of Boros by a massive war-party from a Aontan tribe, whose lands were along the banks of what is today called the River Lumen. Funded by donations from the Church of Aurelia and the King of Boros, the Lumenistic Order launched a counter-offensive into Aontas, landing on Aontan shores to bring the fight to the pagans at long last. The tribe responsible for the attack, the Hopia, were soundly defeated by the seasoned and well-equipped knights of the Order. The river along which the Hopia lived was renamed the River Lumen by the victors, in their own glory, and the women of the Hopia were taken as wives by the knights, their children raised in the light of Aurelian church. Further conquests followed in successive generations, until the whole of modern Aontas south of the Great Northern Range was conquered and converted by the Order.

Eventually, a champion arose from among the Aontan tribes to face the Lumenistic Order, a chieftain who saw himself as the successor of the mighty warrior-emperors of the Great Northern Empire of days long gone. This champion, known to history as Folam, united by strength and by virtue the scattered tribes of the northern half of Aontas, establishing suzerainty over all the Aontan people yet unconquered and styling himself as emperor. Folam led the Aontans against the Lumenistic Order in the Battle of the White Sky, in the modern kingdom's eastern lands, inflicting a heroic and crushing victory against the Order and killing or capturing nearly a third of their fighting men. As the knights of the Order retreated the field, however, the clear sky that had shone the brightest blue over the course of the battle turned white, and a blizzard rolled in from nowhere, as if materializing before Folam's very eyes. The Aontan warhost was unable to march home through the horrifically fierce blast of winter, and were forced to make camp in the fields and weather the storm. Having taken so few casualties, and with so many prisoners in tow, their camp's supplies of food quickly run out, as days went by without the blizzard shifting or weakening. Folam, the virtuous pagan, sought to share the camp's food and blankets with the fighting men of the Order, but his generals, the Aontan tribal chiefs, objected that any Aontan should die that a foreign invader might live, and refused to properly feed or clothe the prisoners, jealously hoarding all they had. Folam himself, seeing the southern knights shivering, suffering from frostbite and succumbing to the cold, is said to have removed his own bear-skin cape, the regalia of his kingship, and offered it to a prisoner in need. Aurelia, so moved by Folam's gesture of mercy, forgave the Aontan warriors their barbarous ways and dispersed the storm. Witnessing the divine might of the Lady manifest itself, Folam converted, and came to peace with the Lumenistic Order. The territories of the order on the mainland were surrendered to his demesne, and the Lumenistic Order—still possessing the isles of the South Aontas Sea—swore to aid him as loyal servants in converting the rest of his people and upholding the teachings of the Church of Aurelia in his kingdom. So was it that Folam became King Folam I, the founder of the Kingdom of Aontas, and that nation and its people were bathed in Aurelia's light.
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