Aerdi History

  Darmen merchant caravan, c. -240 CY Art by Merlkir At the end of the Ten Month War, in the plains south of where the Adri Forest and Grandwood converged and between the Flanmi and Mikar Rivers was a loose alliance of the Principalities of Cranden, Rax and Darmen. They had only been free of a long tributary status to the Thellari kings for about twenty years. Some scholars refer to these states during this period between -262 CY and the founding of the Aerdy Kingdom as the Three Houses. The Cranden, in the north, were the most ambitious, desiring to regain their former lands on the western side of the Flanmi in the north of Thalland. Even given that kingdom’s weakened state after its series of wars with the Bladelands and soon to be convulsed by inner turmoil, the Cranden Principality was far too small and weak to perform this feat. The Darmen, in the south, were more concerned with adding to their trade network, which was the most widespread of any of the Aerdi houses. Darmen merch

The Headless Prince Art from Old World, Mohawk Games The end of the Ten Month War marked the end of the dominance of the southeast Flanaess by the dueling Thellari and Medegi states, though Thalland still stood as the strongest state in that region. Despite their defeat in the Ten Month War the lands belonging to the Medegi Principality were still larger and richer than most of the remaining Aerdi principalities. But still it was clear that Thalland and Medegia’s dominance of the region was declining in power and influence. With their patchwork of holdings in the former Bladelands combined with the Naelax Principality proper, that house would have easily matched the Medegi in power were it not for the constant intra-house disputes among that fractious clan. A divided Ehlissa lay to the west, south of which was a handful of Suloise states dominated by various mutually hostile branches of the House of Zelrad. Compared to all these, the Aeridian principalities of the Rax, Cranden, Darmen,