The Norkinian Empire

The Norkinian Empire is a sovereign and historically significant realm in north-eastern Inner Patriam, known for its harsh coastal terrain, martial traditions, fortified maritime cities, and enduring cultural synthesis of Drunathaen and Nuokaenian heritages. Often described as the anvil upon which Northern Kallonia was forged, the empire played a decisive role in the War of the Five Nations and remains a cultural and geopolitical cornerstone of the post-Thenithrian era. It is renowned for its sophisticated warrior culture, highly decentralised raider economy, semi-theocratic oral traditions, and its deep spiritual and linguistic legacy.

Pre-Imperial History and Early Origins

The origins of the Norkinian people are traced to the exodus of the Drunathaen following the collapse of the mythical Kingdom of Argonia, an event shrouded in myth and remembered in Norkinian legend as the Shattering of the West. Fleeing persecution and calamity, Drunathaen refugees landed along the jagged southern and western coasts of present-day Norkinia, where they founded fortified coastal settlements amid the frost-bitten wilderness. These early colonies, such as Velkaer, Jursvik, and Haerngar, clung to survival through fishing, timber harvesting, and mineral extraction, but were constantly imperilled by harsh winters and frequent raids from the native Nuokaenian hill-tribes who occupied the mountainous hinterlands.

Nuokaenians, divided into fiercely independent clans and chieftaincies, had long roamed the highlands of central and eastern Norkinia, thriving through semi-nomadic herding, raiding, and mastery of fjord navigation. Their incursions against the Drunathaen coastal enclaves created a climate of constant hostility, prompting the construction of massive stone walls, fortified hill-citadels, and underground tunnel systems and fortified roadways linking coastal cities with interior mining sites.

Over generations, war gave way to pragmatism. Trade between coastal and inland peoples, intermarriage between Drunathaen nobility and Nuokaenian war-leaders, and shared religious syncretism fostered a slow but powerful cultural integration. From this emerged the Norukae, a people not entirely Drunathaen nor Nuokaenian, but something wholly unique. Their language, Noruen, began to take shape, melding the flowing syntax and seafaring lexicon of Drunathaen with the guttural structure and animistic symbolism of Nuokaenian dialects.

The Four Kingdoms and the Rise of Svoll

For much of early recorded history, the Norukae remained divided into four principal realms: Svoll, Sarin, Sjursen, and Druokon. These proto-kingdoms were loosely tied by shared language and faith but fiercely protective of their independence. Each developed its own military traditions, raiding routes, and relationships with foreign states. Svoll, located in the north-central coastal plain, emerged as the most powerful of the four, possessing deep natural harbours, rich iron veins, and a large, semi-professional army that regularly crossed the Sea of Norathkae to raid and trade with the peoples of Northern Kallonia, Aeloen, and to a lesser extent Watol and Southern Kallonia.

Unification was achieved under King Haeduron IV of Svoll, an ambitious and reformist monarch who ascended the throne after the sudden death of his father, Haeduron III, who had succumbed to an unknown illness while Haeduron was only 17. With a youthful court of military reformers and spiritual advisors drawn from the Kuormykresyr, a caste of sacred historian-warriors, Haeduron radically restructured Svoll’s governance. He introduced merit-based command appointments, eliminated hereditary tax exemptions among the merchant class, and established a legally enshrined distinction between state levies and private raiding companies, which would henceforth be taxed on their loot in exchange for chartered protection and legal immunity within Svollic lands.

By the time of Haeduron’s coming of age at 25, the Kingdom of Svoll had become a formidable military power, and even threatened the powerful Empire of Hiwotsukeru that sat upon the northern peninsula of Watol. With the raiding seasons beginning, King Haeduron assembled the largest army any Norkinian kingdom had ever mustered at that time, and marched south to conquer and annex the kingdoms of Druokon and Sjuraen, while leaving the more isolated and weaker Kingdom of Sarin to the north of Hasteinsvoll in the hopes that the Lords of Sarin would bend the knee following Haeduron’s conquest of the south.

Haeduron’s campaigns against Druokon and Sjursen were swift and brutal. The use of professional heavy infantry, mixed with lighter skirmish raider forces, and superior naval forces overwhelmed the fragmented defenses of his rivals.

Haeduron sallied into Druokonic territory with a rapid determination, cutting through the disorganised and primarily raiding-focused skirmish forces that the kingdom maintained, before reaching the capital of Hasteindruokon. Although initially laying siege to Hasteindruokon’s ageing Great Wall, King Haeduron sent forth a huge fleet of raiders from Hasteinsvoll to the north and Hasteinalaein to the west across the Norukaren Sea in Aeloen to land in Hasteindruokon and open the gates of the city’s Great Wall from within. The raiding fleets arrived within a day of one another and numbered almost six hundred ships in total, and despite a small naval skirmish with a handful of Druokonic ships that had remained docked at Hasteindruokon since the beginning of the siege, the fleet made landfall at Hasteindruokon’s port, at some parts tying ships together like giant wooden spines stretching out into the sea to allow for Svollic troops to clamber across the many ships like a bridge to reach the coast.

Haeduron’s plan worked brilliantly, the mixed force of Heavy Infantry and Raiders swept over Hasteindruokon and quickly made their way to the gatehouse of the city’s Great Wall, and following a short scuffle with the guards on the wall, the raiders opened the gates and Haeduron’s main forces flooded through. The city capitulated and with it the entire Kingdom of Druokon.

Believing himself and his family were to be executed and the city razed by Haeduron, the King of Druokon pleaded with the young Haeduron to spare his family and the city in exchange for taking his life. Haeduron refused, instead offering the King of Druokon a vision of a new world, one in which a united Norkinia ruled undisputedly. With this vision, King Haeduron offered the King of Druokon a place at his side as an equal to the Kings of Sarin and Sjuraen within a ruling council with Haeduron as the High King of a united Norkinian Empire. The King of Druokon accepted, becoming “the Lord-Defender of House Druokon and its territory”.

With the rapid defeat of the Kingdom of Druokon, who maintained a military second only to the Kingdom of Svoll itself, Haeduron sent envoys to the Kings of Sarin and Sjuraen to meet atop the sacred Mount Nuro-Orgoth, where an ancient Nuokaenian blood temple stood atop near the centre of the continent, to discuss the terms of a unified Norkinia without bloodshed, with the Kuormykresyr acting as mediators and guarantors.

Discussions and debate took place over the course of four days between the Kings of Norkinia until an agreement was reached. Haeduron would be crowned as High King of Norkinia while the other three Kings would retain their territories and the ability to tax and govern their territories while paying a percentage back to the Royal Household in Hasteinsvoll. In exchange for this, resources would be spread evenly across Norkinia to allow for all regions to rapidly develop and grow while King Haeduron would institute his military reforms as he had done as King of Svoll across the newly-created Kingdom of Norkinia.

The inland kingdom of Sarin, nestled among the Kaerkvol mountains and long famed for its stubborn independence, resisted subjugation, with the Hajaen of Sarin refused to acknowledge any Svollic authority, while the much smaller and weaker House Sjuraen accepted subjugation under the High-Kingship of Haeduron.

Following further decade of trade disruption and bloodshed, Haeduron finally brought Sarin into the fold through a mixture of brilliant military tactics throughout the rough terrain of Sarin territory, and strategic marriages between minor Sarin Hajaen and Svollic Hajaen. By the end of his reign, Haeduron IV stood as the first undisputed High King of the Norkinian Empire, laying the foundation for what would become one of the most resilient states in Patriamic history.

Culture and Society

The culture of the Norkinian Empire is a uniquely blended construct forged by centuries of war, survival, and spiritual continuity. It is structured around notions of kinship honour (hyrmarth), shared hardship (ynvraeln), and ancestral guardianship (hjaessumyr). These values permeate every layer of Norkinian life, from its martial institutions to its legal traditions and storytelling customs.

At the top of the social hierarchy are the Hajaen, landed war-lords descended either from the ancient Drunathaen noble houses or the Nuokaenian chieftains who submitted and integrated during the unification era. The Hajaen control fortresses, ports, and levies, and are expected to serve as both military commanders and judges in their domains. Their authority is not absolute, however, as the legitimacy of any ruler is dependent on public recognition by the Kuormykresyr, who act as both record-keepers and moral arbiters.

The Kuormykresyr are a caste of ceremonial warrior-historians and priest-poets who wield immense social and religious influence. They preserve the oral and written histories of every clan, recite the deeds of the dead during feasts, and carry ancestral blades into battle as living symbols of memory and vengeance. Their duties range from officiating duels to advising kings. Unlike typical clergy, they are trained in combat from a young age and often serve as elite battlefield heralds and morale bearers.

Religion in Norkinia centres around the veneration of ancestral spirits, sea-deities, and seasonal forces. Temples, called Thrykarkuokye, are often carved into sea cliffs, mountain passes, or the roots of ancient forests. Ritual offerings include salt, polished stones, runic iron charms, and sacrifice of livestock during harvest and storm festivals. The dead are typically cremated with their weapons, and their names are recorded in the Grymrkaeten, the living songs of the Kuormykresyr. Norkinian High Kings are cremated atop

Economically, the empire sustains itself through a mixture of state-run mining, trade monopolies, and privately licensed raiding, a system which has existed in continuity since Haeduron’s reforms. Most major cities are located along the coast and built with defensive architecture, multi-tiered walls, kill-alleys, and underwater tunnel networks. Inland roads are few, with movement often dependent on river routes or snow-cleared caravan lines in winter.

The Noruen language is both poetic and highly structured, featuring a system of metaphoric compound words and context-based intonation. Written Noruen employs a runic script taken largely from the Thenithrian language of Myrenvaldi, and is used for formal records, banners, and tombstones.

The War of the Five Nations

The War of the Five Nations was the single most consequential event in the Norkinian Empire’s recent history. Initially reluctant to intervene in what was perceived as an internal rebellion against the Kingdom of Thenithria, Norkinia remained neutral until its interests were directly threatened. The assassination of Norkinian merchants and dignitaries in the city of Aentlan, allegedly sanctioned by Thenithrian agents, and continued interference in northern sea trade routes forced the hand of High King Haerothon II, who launched a punitive campaign in Southern Kallonia.

Haerothon’s campaign ended in tragedy. At the Battle of Laengorn Pass, his army was ambushed and annihilated by Prince Anathaen of Thenithria, who used superior terrain control and disciplined legionary formations to devastating effect. Haerothon himself was slain, his body left behind as a trophy. The death of the High King shook the Norkinian political order.

His successor, High King Bjarn II, rose to the throne and immediately appointed Roljar of Sarin, a disgraced war veteran and exiled Hajaen, as supreme commander of the Norkinian war effort. Roljar, commanding both the remaining professional forces and newly raised levies, rapidly secured key ports along the eastern Kallonian coast and forged a direct alliance with the fractured Coalition of the Realms, led by King Oustarn of Pacis.

Together, Roljar and Oustarn led a joint campaign to retake Northern Kallonia. After a series of victories, the decisive blow came at the Battle of Kyrhun, where Prince Anathaen was slain in a duel with Roljar atop the cliffs overlooking the sea. The Coalition-Norkinian host then laid siege to the capital of Thenithria itself following a short-yet-bloody campaign in Southern Kallonia. In a symbolic gesture, Roljar discovered the already-deceased King of Thenithria, cloaked the body, and carried it out of the burning palace to the feet of High King Bjarn, halting all fighting as soldiers on both sides recognised the war’s end.

Postwar Dominance and Legacy

Following the fall of the Kingdom of Thenithria, the Norkinian Empire emerged as the preeminent power in Inner Patriam. Unlike previous empires, Norkinia did not seek to annex all of its former rival’s territories. Instead, it asserted influence through treaty enforcement, military deterrence, and cultural soft power, often hosting diplomatic congresses and offering military training to emerging states.

The postwar era saw the expansion of Noruen as a secondary lingua franca in Northern Kallonian courts, the export of Norkinian steel, lumber, and shipwrighting expertise, and a cultural renaissance in epic poetry and oral history, particularly around the exploits of Roljar of Sarin and the Kuormykresyr orders.

Today, the Norkinian Empire is viewed both as a guardian of northern stability and a bastion of traditionalism. Its harsh climate and complex House politics remain a challenge to centralised governance, but its people continue to uphold the values of honour, remembrance, and endurance that have defined their nation for centuries.

The Norkinian Empire