Death of the Good King Alvarus IV, The Bloody Scurry and the Rise and Fall of The Asterland Dynasty

The Reign of Alvarus IV

Alvarus IV was largely regarded as a good man and a brilliant tourney knight during his youth. When his father, Alvarus III, died at the age of 55, Alvarus IV took the throne with no children or spouse to his name. Alvarus was considered a handsome man with the traditional red hair and amber eyes of the Cornayan family line. However, for unknown reasons, he never married or had children, leading to rumours of his asexuality throughout the courts, although these were never confirmed.

At the age of 38, only two years into his reign, Alvarus IV contracted a sickness from a horde of infected gold rescued from the ruins of Old Agaar. The king had a great interest in the fey histories of the world and would have adventurers bring him their findings to be added to the now colossal treasure room in The Skyhold. The sickness spread rapidly from the adventurers to the king, who saw each group personally. Within three years, the entire group of explorers was dead. The king’s physicians attempted to stop the disease from spreading, but the process was slow and painful, leaving him in a deformed and scarred state.

From that point on, Alvarus wore head-to-toe robes of blue and white linen, with a starstone mask covering his face entirely, leaving only his eyes exposed. He was left without one hand, missing several fingers and toes, and bearing several large wounds that required constant attention.

The Influence of Chronus Asterland

In the king’s weakened state, his small council became far more influential in the realm’s decision-making, most prominently the Sword of the Rivers, Chronus Asterland. Cornay had built its empire on foot soldiers, but to expand, it would have to take to the seas. Chronus Asterland was obsessed with discovering what lay beyond the Great Sea. His seat at Freystorm, connected to Freystorm Bay, was one of the main points for Cornayan forces to cross the Great Sea.

Asterland filled the weakened king’s mind with the idea that if he became the king to cross the Great Sea and claim whatever rested there as Cornayan soil, he would be remembered for that and not for his deformities. Alvarus was swayed and began the construction of the Granite Fleet, consisting of two hundred ships and roughly twenty-four thousand men (nearly all of the fighting naval men of the Sun Coast). They successfully crossed the Great Sea, as no man had done before, after three years of construction and three months of sailing.

The Conquest of the East

Upon landing in the new world, Asterland’s men were met by representatives of the governing forces there, who granted them guest rights. However, sensing danger, Asterland returned to his fleet, leaving his eldest son as a show of goodwill to the men of the Northlands. The Granite Fleet then began their invasion of the Northland, resulting in the imprisonment and torture of Asterland’s eldest son. This was meant as a deterrence, but Chronus did not falter—he had two more sons and was paranoid that the eldest was planning to unseat him as head of the house.

The Conquest of the East began on a cloudless day in 500 PB, with the Cornayan forces establishing a point of operations on a small island off the coast of what is now The Aberlands. That island contained a destroyed fortification of orcish origin, which became the King’s new home for the rest of his living days. During the Conquest of the East, King Alvarus IV became increasingly sick and suffered from terrible dreams, which he considered omens and prophecies.

Alvarus IV's Visions

One of Alvarus’ visions was of a holy land to the east, which he believed held the cure to his ailment and a resurgence of the fabled Cornayan Magics. There had not been a true seer in the Cornayan line for centuries, and it was largely debated whether such magic ever truly existed. Either way, Chronus Asterland fed into these visions and used them as justification to push through with the war against the Northlands. This warpath across the Northlands drew the attention of the southern Shehirian Republic, which manned its walls and prepared for war.

Alvarus’ visions became more frequent and vivid as his state deteriorated, with notable recurring dreams of eight lights snuffing out a blue star, a cloud of ice choking the hornblower’s song, and a child being born burning like the sun wrapped in an Asterland banner. It was this final vision that led him to try and end the Conquest, with an unfinished letter back to his small council warning them of Asterland’s deceit and manipulations. Alvarus IV suffered a seizure halfway through his letter, after which he hastily wrote down one of his final visions:

“The star is dark at last, I see the great granite towers fall to the tide, the realm is left without its protectors, the gates are clicking open.”

Alvarus IV was found dead over his writing desk on a sunny evening in spring, 512 PB. His cause of death was found to be non-suspicious by the court physicians, and the letter containing his doubts about Chronus Asterland was burnt by the Small Council—all of whom were swayed by the Sword of the River’s words. An election was called, and within the year, Chronus Asterland was named King of Cornay.

The Bloody Scurry

The Conquest of the East consumed the Asterland Dynasty, a bloody fifty-year war that became known as The Bloody Scurry—named ironically for the slow pace at which the Cornayans took the Northlands from the natives and the rapid succession of Asterland Monarchs that died during its duration. The war ended in the year 550 PB, with Queen Elsada II on the throne. Queen Elsada II took the throne at ten years old and was largely puppeted by her small council. She cared little for the war and wanted it to end—an ambition she saw completed at 25 years of age.

When the war ended, she formalized the tradition of naming the second-born child the Prince/Princess of Lolmor, having twins of her own that she didn’t want to end up fighting each other as her brothers had. Her relationship with her husband was largely political, a marriage between herself and the Lolmorian monarch Lazare Lolmor. He became king consort to the Cornayan throne and forfeited his lands to her, his soldiers becoming a turning point in capturing The Aberlands by pincering the Northland fighters between the Cornayan Western and The Lolmorian Eastern Fronts. They were married two years before the end of the Conquest of the East, although their relationship became a point of much-gossiped discussion due to Elsada’s supposed secret concubines and the lack of any real connection between the pair.

The Usurpation by Ser Gregor Sunjoy

Elsada was, in truth, never romantically invested in Lazare—nor was he in her. The pair married for political gain, a practice that was not uncommon, but they made very little effort to develop any feelings for each other. Both King and Queen kept secret relationships and affairs outside of their marriage, one such affair resulting in the birth of the Queen’s twins. Elsada tried to pass the twins off as Lazare’s children to the nation at large, but an ambitious minor Lord by the name of Ser Gregor Sunjoy investigated the birth and discovered the truth. Sunjoy, who was distantly related to the original Cornayan line, led a usurpation in the year 581 PB - using his distant heritage as a claim to the throne. Elsada, Lazare, and the remaining members of the Asterland house were all publicly executed, and Gregor Sunjoy was named King of Cornay by his followers.

The Aftermath

The Sunjoys have ruled Cornay for centuries after, comfortably and relatively unchallenged. Their anti-fey attitudes allowed them the support of many of the Cornayan houses as well as the support of their Agaarian neighbours to the west. The Lolmorians viewed the affair to which the Asterland twins were born as a betrayal of their royal line and so supported Sunjoy’s ascension as well. The Aberlands were happy to see their previous tormentors go, so the original Northlanders supported the Sunjoys, but the Asterland loyalists in the Aberlands were unhappy with the brutality with which King Gregor removed their previous monarchs to further his claim.

The Asterland Twins were imprisoned at their family seat of Freystorm, trusted to a loyalist Asterland family member, Tobias Asterland, who saw his chance to rise from lesser lord to head of the family. The twins went missing shortly after their imprisonment, presumed to have been slain by the young lord and burnt in a private funeral. To this day, there are rumours of cursed waters in Freystorm Bay due to their desecration in the act of kin slaying—a curse that seems to cause sickness in those who drink the water unboiled, leading to violent fits and bleeding. Tobias' descendants would continue to inhabit Freystorm for centuries, sitting on the Throne's small council as a reward for their loyalty during King Gregor's rise, and would continue to be the richest and most influential force in southern Cornay.

The relationship between Sunjoy and Asterland was a tenuous one, one built on rewarding the breaking of oaths. Could such a trust, built on deception, ever be solid? And would the future Sunjoy monarch, Queen Guinnevere "The Pious" view their sinful acts as a reason to break their centuries-old alliance?

Only time will tell.