The flaming crown jewel of the Border Principalities, ancestral bastion of the Raduel Dynasty, and home to the frontier defenders called The Dragon Gaurd. BLOOD STONE CASTLE IS NOW COMPLETED! CLICK THE PHOTO AT RIGHT FOR 40 NEW PICTURES!

fter generations of bloody incursions along the borderlands, the Northmen hoards had chipped away the defenses of the Old Imperium to a point where the Patriarchal Council determined invasion could not be turned back. In the spring of 542 IC, Arthur Raduel, a respected general and Imperial regent on the northern borderlands, was ordered to abandon his border fortresses and assume positions more suitable for defending the vulnurable heartlands of the Empire. Raduel was torn between duty to the Empire and his conscience, which would not allow him to leave the borderland peoples to the unspeakable cruelty of the northern barbarians. As rumors of invasion grew ever louder, Raduel chose to defy his orders and protect the brave citizens he had grown to love and respect. Arthur Raduel choose the fortress city of Nazarine to be his stronghold in the defense of the borderlands. Located on a jutting river promitory in shadow of the Great Barrier Mountains, it was not only ideally suited for strategic reasons, but was also the center of commerce and culture for the enitre region. On the First of Autumn of 542 IC, in the expansive Civic Plaza of Nazarine, he gave an emotion-filled speech to the citizens of the borderlands and his Imperial garrisons. He told the citizens that he intended to stay and fight and probably die to protect the borderlands, instead of retreat with his tail between his legs in defense of an empire that cared little and did even less for the well-being of it's citizens in the far provinces. He declared that an amnesty would b allowed throughout the borderlands to anyone desiring to escape the impending invasion and would be allowed to leave for the santuary of the Imperial hinterlands. He also declared that anyone citizen of the borderlands who wished to stay would be issued a weapon and trained to fight. This proclamation was spread throughout the region within days and it is said that not one single citizen of the borderlands chose to leave. A handful of officers with families from among the Imperial garrisons expressed their desire to leave and they we sent on their way to the Imperial capital in a small caravan of wagons, stripped of weapons, armor, and anything else deemed necessary for the defense of the borderlands. Raduel arranged for his own family to journey south with the wagons as he could not ask his wife and young daughter to share his convictions to stay and die. Preparations to repel the looming invasion continued throught the next several weeks at a desperate pitch. Everyone in the borderlands knew there would be no help from a corrupt and crumbling Imperium, from which now many were officially branded traitors. There would also be no quarter given by the Northmen, who rarely took prisoners, and those they did take alive soon wished they were dead. All over the borderlands sprang up impromptu military training grounds where it seemd that anyone and everyone capable of wielding so much as a stick was being drilled in the military arts by Raduels remaining officers and soldiers. In the high passes in the Great Barrier stood stone tower keeps which were intended to safegaurd the borderlands and were intended to warn of invading Northmen. Many of these towers had been damaged by recent Northmen raiding parties. Great attention was given to repairing these structures and the former Imperial garrisons were now bolstered by local volunteers, many of whom had never handled a weapon before their recent crash-course military training initiated by Raduel's proclaimation. [TO BE CONTINUED...]

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