Redhand

Government: The Principality of Redhand was until recently a member of the commonwealth of feudal states known as the Shield Lands. While his father had been loosening ties with the Shield Lands over the last decade, seeking closer relations with the County of Urnst, with the ascension of its most recent ruler earlier this year it has formally left that association. The current ruler is Prince Zeech of the house of Arabasti. He is the absolute ruler of the realm and is owed fealty by a number of barons who govern lesser fiefs.Each barony's ruler is the direct vassal of the Prince. Typically, a fief will be subdivided by its baron into smaller fiefs administered by knights who owe him or her loyalty, with the number varying depending on the size of the fief.Geography: Redhand is bounded in the west by the Shield Lands. In the east it's border is the Artonsamay River and the County of Urnst beyond. To the north lies the Great Land of Reyhu, one of the so-called Bandit Kingdoms. To the south is the Nyr Dyv, the "Lake of Unknown Depths".

Redhand is almost divided in two, north and south by the Yellowflow River whose headwaters lie in the geysers and hot springs west of White Plume Mountain. By the time it reaches Redhand the sulfurous waters for which it is named have become diluted by purer tributaries. The Yellowflow runs the length of Redhand before emptying into the Artonsamay's marshy delta.

Redhand's western lands are dominated by a range of uplands known as the Red Hills, but the Yellowflow Valley and most of its eastern lands are remarkably fertile lowlands. Most of its border with Urnst is part of the Dyvynmere Marsh.

History: When Furyondy broke from the Great Kingdom in 254 CY, the nobles of the Nyr Dyv's north shore, including the Viscount of Redhand, refused to acknowledge the new Furyondian king in the capital of Dyvers. Loyal to the ideal of ancient Aerdy but wholly opposed to the decadent regime in the Great Kingdom's capital of Rauxes, these nobles failed to declare complete independence, instead existing somewhere in-between autonomy and their former status as vassals to the viceroy. When similar circumstances resulted, ultimately, in the formation of the lawless Combination of Free Lords to the north, which became known to their neighbors as the Bandit Kingdoms, the southern nobles banded together, forming an alliance as the Shield Lands, to be a bulwark against the depredations and chaos of the north. Since the Earl of Walworth commanded Admundfort, at the time the only notable city in the region, he was chosen as the Knight Commander of the combined forces of the nobles. Within a handful of years, the new capital saw the formation of the Knights of Holy Shielding, a Heironean order that formed the core of the confederation's army.

Redhand continued as a full-fledged member of the Shield Lands until the Rebellion of Hamaldar the Cruel, a Shield Land's lord possessed by an evil artifact, threatened the confederation's very existence. In its aftermath, the Knight Commander pushed the individual lords of the Shield Lands to accept garrisons of Knights of the Holy Shielding. This did not sit well with the Viscount of Redhand and was the beginning of souring relations with the rest of the Shield Lands.

In 513 former subjects of the archfiend Iuz, who had mysteriously disappeared in 505, seized his summer capital of Molag on the western border of the Shield Lands and formed the devil-worshiping Horned Society. When this inevitably led to full-scale conflict in 550 CY on the Shield Lands' northwestern border, Redhand refused to commit any more troops than they already did to a conflict they saw as being far removed. At the same time the then current Viscount negotiated a peace with their bitter enemies to their north, in Reyhu.

In 574, while patrolling the the border with Reyhu along the Tangled Thicket, Zered, Baron Trallant, eldest son of the Viscount Gozzo, was slain by bandits from Riftcrag. The younger son, Zeech, not being bound by duty to Redhand had indulged his adventurous impulses and traveled widely, eventually joining the exiled Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom while in the Archbarony of Ratik. Unlike most of the knights of that order, who devoted themselves to the lawful good god of battle, Heironeous, Zeech swore himself to that god's lawful evil half-brother, Hextor. Having just returned to Redhand, to avenge the death of his elder brother, Zeech led a retaliatory expedition against Riftcrag. During the attack, that realm's ruler, Plar Lintoff was slain by Zeech. His triumphant return to Alhaster was greeted by throngs of adoring citizens.

The next year (576) he married a half-elf noblewoman from the Fellreev Forest, but months later tragedy struck when an assassin murdered his parents while they dined. Outside of Redhand, blame fell on Zeech, and the Knight Commander of the Shield Lands, Earl Holmer, misjudging the mood of the Viscounty's people, sent a detachment of knights to arrest Zeech on suspicion of murdering his parents. Zeech ordered the expulsion of all Knights of the Holy Shielding from Redhand. During the expulsion, some Knights holed up in the Cathedral of Heironeous and in the resulting siege it burned. Zeech then formally forswore Redhand's part in the alliance of the Shield Lands and declared it a fully independent state and principality, with him as its first Prince.

Transportation: Like most of the Shield Lands which it until recently was a part of, Redhand's roads are very good and well built. They also benefit from having been originally part of the Great Kingdom's famed dirawaen road system. The Furyondy-Urnst Road runs the entire length of the principality, and also meets with the Old North Aerdy Road just west of Alhaster.

Water transportation via the Lake of Unknown Depths also frequently calls on the capital city of Alhaster.