Good King Omund

At some point we decided the Iconic Censor in Draw Steel should be a dragon knight. Grace was drawing this character, whom I'd named Sir Vaantikalisax, and knowing the dragon knights originally served Good King Omund she asked "Hey what kind of heraldry would Omund have on his shield?"

"I have no idea!" I said, excited because now I had a good reason to come up with an answer. I didn't want to just make up a quick answer, I wanted to first learn who this dude was, and then imagine what kind of device someone like that might have.

This is what I wrote. Afterwords, we'll talk about what I knew before I wrote this.

Iustitia Primum, Deinde Pax -Motto of King Omund. "Justice First, Then Peace"

Good King Omund

Omund I (Malice 26, Chaos 241 - Lyleth 10, Chaos 314) was King of a region covering most of Aendrim and parts of northern Graid and western Corwell from Chaos 271 until his death in 314. His decades-long reign was known during its time as a legendary era of peace in the otherwise lawless and turbulent Age of Chaos. His reign, and the peace he created, ended with his death at the hands of Ajax the Conqueror.

Early Life

The son of two minor nobles, his mother a hereditary knight of Oll (pron. 'owl'), Omund distinguished himself in several battles against the elves of the Elgenwode and Beowode, earning the title Scourge of the Fae. He was considered a fierce elf-fighter.

His reputation was so great, the Lord of Dalrath called for Sir Omund to lead an army into the Great Wode, there to do battle against the Queen of the Orchid Court. Castle Dalrath marked the uttermost northern border of Aendrim, in the Duchy of Urland. Dalrath's proximity to the wode meant its citizens lived in constant fear of raids from the wode elves. But Omund knew this fear was born out of the Baron of Darlrath's ambition to annex more of the wode. His people cut the forest down, his soldiers built more, and stronger outposts in the wode. Omund saw an opportunity.

Omund took volunteers from among those who served with him in Oll and began the weeks-long ride to Dalrath. Along the way, hundreds of soldiers from Tor, Bedegar, and Dalrath joined him. He accepted only seasoned veterans, scaring away anyone less experienced with tales of what the elves did to their captives.

By the time he arrived at Castle Dalrath, his army was many thousands strong. Privately, the Lord of Dalrath remarked to his knights that this was an army that could easily conquer all of Aendrim. But Omund's ambition was subtly different from anything the Baron of Dalrath could imagine.

He took his army into the Wode and there met the forces of Queen Imyrr. The Queen's forces were smaller, but it was their forest. None doubted that Omund's greater army, led by seasoned commanders used to wode-fighting would prevail, but only at tremendous loss of life.

Omund averted this disaster by leaving his army behind and heading into the enemy camp accompanied only by his herald, Lady Rhedyn in the dark of night. His own advisors did not know he had left.

Omund and Rhedyn were quickly captured and brought to the Hall of Rain. There Queen Imyrr confronted the Scourge of the Elves. Though Omund was alone, save for his herald, he showed no fear, and this impressed the elves of the wode.

Omund opened with the preferred greeting between two nobles of different elven houses, selecting the one appropriate for the time of the year, because he knew this would impress his host and captor. Which it did.

Queen Imyrr responded in Caelian, which surprised her court. She asked why so great a wode-fighter would enter enemy territory without his army. Omund asked "Because I did not come here to fight. You will see," and he held up his arms, turning around, "I am unarmed, as well as un-armied."

Her court murmured their appreciation. "This is for the best," pronounced Llyander, the Lightning Strike, consort to the queen. "For came you here bearing arms, you would have been cut down."

Queen Imyrr leaned forward on her throne and peered at Omund. "What kind of man is this?" she asked in her own tongue.

According to the Lay of Omund written by Lady Rhedyn, Omund then did something no Lord of Dalrath had ever thought of.

He negotiated. He invoked the Lay of Dremidydd, an epic song poem written by a High Elf Troubadour which laid out the recent history of the Wode Elves and High Elves, and acted as a kind of treaty between them.

According to the Lay, which Omund quoted in Old Hyrallic, any noble could petition the Orchid Court for a High Elf arbitrator. This stunned the court, and impressed Queen Imyrr who ordered Omund released from his bonds. She agreed to summon a noble from the Sun Court to mediate but while they waited, she sought to learn about this human who quoted their laws back to them in their own language.

Omund proved as accomplished a negotiator as he was a warrior. He lay the groundwork thoroughly. First admitting to everything the Queen accused him of. But these were different courts, he argued. The Beowode, the Elgenwode, each aggressively sought to disrupt trade among the humans, isolating their villages so they could be driven out of the lands. The Orchid Court, he pointed out, had never raided the lands south of Dalrath.

The Queen agreed. This was true.

In fact, Omund pointed out, in the scenario facing them it was the people of Dalrath who sought to take more of the Elven lands. The Queen agreed, but grew suspicious. Why was this man confessing so readily?

Omund then delivered his master stroke. "We agree that my army is the greater. I could take your land from you and you could not stop me. But just as we both know this is true, we both understand the tragic cost of such a war. Your people, your whole way of life, extinguished. My army, brought almost to ruin."

The Queen said nothing. She knew her people could never be conquered, but her court, its traditions, could be extinguished, leaving her people to fend for themselves in the wode.

"So let us make peace," Omund offered. He proposed a treaty that laid out the borders of Dalrath, borders much farther south than the Baron's current outposts and expeditions. This would return much land to the elves. The treaty would include terms for what would happen if either party violated the treaty.

The Queen, still skeptical but listening, asked why the Lord of Dalrath would agree to such a thing.

"Because," Omund said, "I have been among the people of Dalrath and they are tired of war. Their lord promised them quick and easy victories but now it is years later with many dead and no end in sight. If I and my army emerge from this forest with no casualties, a signed treaty in hand? The people of Dalrath will no longer look to their Baron for protection and justice. They will look to me. My word will be law there."

Was such a thing possible? The Queen's retinue believed Omund's reasoning sound. A treaty with the elves and no bloodshed? Omund assured them with language they understood.

"The people would consider this same agreement from their lord a betrayal of all those lives lost. But me? 'The Scourge of the Fae?' 'The Terror of the Wodes?' The people will say 'Only Omund could go to the Elves.' The return of your captured lands would be a minor detail to them."

Ah, politics. This the Queen understood.

"All we have to do," Omund explained, "is agree not to fight." Did Omund know this act would put him on the road to ruling most of Aendrim and Corwell? He might have.

At dawn the next day, Omund and his army emerged from the wode. It seemed to his soldiers that they'd spent weeks in the wode negotiating the terms of the treaty. For the people of Dalrath, they'd only been gone a single day. The unruly nature of time in the wode made Omund's feat seem even more miraculous.

The triumph proceeded exactly as Omund predicted. The people of Dalrath showed him with praise and accolades. The Baron of Dalrath had no choice but to join them.

The army Omund brought to Dalrath was known as The Army That Never Fought. They would keep this sobriquet even after dozens of battles against the soldiers of the Dukes of Urland, Gant, Falladen. It was a romantic ideal the people held on to, even after many brutal battles.

Rise To King

Omund saw a weakness in the feudal structure of Vasloria. Each Duke ruled a large area of two or three baronies, their power came from their promise to protect the barons from the other Dukes. And, for a few years, they did. But that was generations ago. Now the Dukes used the Baronies as banks, existing only to fuel the dukes' military ambitions against each other. The dukes spent, and the barons paid.

Omund well knew the barons of Oll, Bedegar, Dalrath and others. He knew they would rally to him if he supported their cause of independence from the Dukes. Starting with the barons of Dalrath and Oll, Omund built a coalition, marching first south, the east.

He spent three years bringing the Dukes of Western Vasloria to heel. He could not dislodge them entirely, their power was too well-entrenched, but with the support of the Barons he could act as a check against the Dukes' power.

In Chaos 272 when Omund was 31, he forced five of the seven Western Dukes to sign the Treaty of Dur Marr. The treaty forced the Dukes to swear fealty to Omund and listed the protected rights of the Barons to rule their land with many expanded freedoms from the Dukes' tyranny, as well as the first language protecting the rights of serfs and freesouls. The treaty established Omund King of Aendrim & Corwell, though there were dukes and barons in each land who refused to sign, their lands became more and more lawless in the years afterward as more of their citizens migrated to Omund's land.

Dur Marr, a Gol keep ancient and abandoned when Omund used it as his eastern fastness, would grow over the decades of his rule. By the time of his death Castle Omund, as it became known, was a massive structure with many ancient levels below it excavated. Military and religious leaders had been using the fortress at Dur Marr for many ages and part of Omund's power was due to the tomes of lore his wizard, Vitae, found below.

Omund was named King of Corwell & Aendrim, even though he never conquered all of Aendrim and only about a third of Corwell. And he conquered some of Graid! But people are rarely precise about these things.

Device

His colors are checkered red and gold, red from his father's red-and-blue crest and gold from his mother's gold-and-black crest. Much noble heraldry in the Age of Nations features red or gold in Omund's memory.

Omund's mother's family crest featured three owls, as they were founding members of a hereditary order of knights in Oll. His father's crest featured two eagles. At the time, noble heraldry favored those mundane creatures found in the local forests. Supernatural creatures on one's device was considered at worst bad luck and at best bad taste.

For his crest Omund broke from tradition choosing to feature no element from his mother or father, preferring instead a single gryphon guardant. Centuries later, in the age of nations after the Council of Aberdanon, the kings and queens of Vasloria would all take supernatural winged creatures as their coat d'arms in memory of the First Good King in Vasloria, whose history of justice they sought to emulate.

The gryphon on Omund's device sits on its haunches, a position reserved for conquering generals or famous diplomats. In Vasloria, it was considered a knightly virtue to retire from one's victories in order to devote yourself to peace. Omund embodied both the general and the diplomat at the same time.

The gryphon's mouth is open, a position reserved for those holy few who were never ordained in any church but who nonetheless "called the faithful" inspiring them to deeds of great piety. This honorific is known as the Clarion Call.

Similarly, the gryphon holds in one of its foreclaws a life-like heart. There is no blood on the heart. This symbolizes the dedication of the king to the heart of the land (its people, traditionally). The absence of blood indicates a ruler who was chosen or anointed rather than one who gained the crown through conquest, though surely this is a matter of debate. Omund certainly used violence, and a lot of it, to consolidate his kingdom. But compared to other conquerors, Omund was almost a pacifist. He never fought a battle larger than a skirmish. His army's reputation was formidable enough to cause most enemy commanders (who were, after all, the very Baronial leaders Omund sought to represent) to surrender before battle became necessary.

The motto is from his mother's side of the family. Iustitia Primum, Deinde Pax "Justice First, Then Peace." It was a lesson his mother taught him well; it is very easy to send a knight in to stop two parties from fighting. This behavior favors the oppressor. It is much harder to establish first who is in the right. Her family's original motto translated as "Peace without Justice is No Peace."

Behind the Scenes

That's basically what I know now. I would expect this write-up to get longer for a Vasloria project and include his education, how he met Mortum and what their relationship was like, what other events happened during his reign, and then the coming of Ajax and how it all ended. But this is a good start I think.

I invented Omund years ago when I wanted to run a more low-politics game set in something closer to classic fantasyland. Far flung towns and villages where the roads aren't safe, the barons are the only government and only a very local one at that, and there's all kinds of fantasy beasties in the forest.

I was inspired a lot by The Sword In The Stone, the first book of The Once and Future King a book my mom read to me as a kid, and which I would reread many times over. Probably the single work of art that had the biggest impact on me.

Specifically that bucolic section at the beginning where The Wart is living with Sir Ector and we're learning about life on and in a medieval castle, and there's knights and wizards and witches and a guest appearance by a Saxton thief named Robin 'ood whose name everyone gets wrong.

I was also imagining the early Xanth books which I read as an tween (which I think is the right age) featuring friendly talking zombies and sarcastic pint-sized golems and people regularly conversing with plants and animals. A magical world, not exactly a fairy tale but certainly fairy tale adjacent, where if there's ever a serious problem (there are never serious problems in those books but for the characters involved, they seem serious) everyone knows you can just go talk to the magician in the woods (an adventure in itself) and get an answer to whatever problems you're dealing with. And the answer never satisfies and just leads to more adventure.

Also inspired by Parzival written in the early 1200s by Wolfram von Eschenbach and the sense that this story is just one of a whole host of adventures set in the real world, contemporaneous with the author, but a kind of magical-realism version of the real world. There's a quote that always struck me where Eschenbach, writing almost like a kid's book author, is describing the feast at Camelot and King Arthur declaring no one can eat until an adventure presents itself. Eschenbach sort of turns to the audience and says, almost as an aside "these days that would take quite a while, but in those days adventures happened" and it's just delightful.

I did all this because I wanted to run a game after Omund's reign where things have gotten a lot darker (but not too dark, this is still a fantasy game after all). Because I thought that was appropriate to a fantasy campaign. "Everything's great!" does not lend itself well to the kind of adventures I wanted to run.

I wanted something a little more Flash Gordon with different factions none of who trust each other, and the heroes have to bust their ass trying to get these factions to put down their differences, trust each other, and work together. That's the Vasloria you folks know. I felt like I needed an inciting incident that led to all this distrust and that was the Death of Good King Omund.

I was running a game set in a dark age and I wanted a golden age that preceded it, and that's how we got here! I've never run a game during Omund's reign but if I did I think it would be pretty Xanth-like with more chivalry, slightly less horny, and a lot less heinous sexism.

Could be a lot of fun! :D Hope you folks got a kick out of this!