Thirty years ago, the whims of a dying prince tore the heart of Ustalav from its traditional home. Behind was left a gaping cavity, where centuries of subservient arteries and dependant organs gasped and struggled to steal pitiful moments of faltering life. Now, decades later, that hollow festers with remains too stubborn to rot away and rampant infections of decrepitude and indolence, all hidden beneath useless bandages of tradition and formality. What once was Ardeal, the royal heartland of Ustalav, lies reduced, transformed into a stage for grim justice as noble parasites too bloated to follow their host slowly die away, while a peasantry long resentful of their masters’ commands find themselves lost and purposeless. Once the lord of Ustalav reigned from this land, but now the glories all lie dead, and the people starve on bitter memories of better days.
Ardeal takes its name from Ardealia, first wife of Ustalav’s unifier, Soividia Ustav. For 9 centuries, Ustalavic kings ruled from the city of Ardis, driving back wild Kellids, Belkzen orcs, and other threats as they expanded and tamed their rugged country. Here Ardurras, last king of Ustalav, faced the conquering legions of the Whispering Tyrant and fell, breaking the line of Ustalavic kings. After the Shining Crusade, Ardeal once more became home to Ustalav’s royalty, while a newly risen nobility fractured the nation’s fertile heartland into a multitude of fiefdoms. For generations, nobles have squabbled over the realm’s richest lands, some coaxing great wealth from nature’s bounty while others reduce the country’s greatest resources to fields of dust. With the previous prince’s final decree moving the nation’s capitol to Caliphas, Ardeal has suffered decades of withdrawal. Once-bustling noble estates now stand empty, their lands left fallow or in the hands of squatters as the rightful owners followed the royal court to the shores of Lake Encarthan. The sprawling city of Ardis stands as a withered shadow of its former grandeur, its population decreased by thousands, its industries struggling to survive, and dark things creeping in to replace the human deserters. The county, in its decay, even finds itself cannibalized by its brethren, with residents of other counties infringing upon its borders and ambitious counts seeking to claim control of hinterlands that Ardeal no longer possesses the agency to defend.
Ardeal holds much of Ustalav’s most bountiful farmland, with the level grasslands supporting checkered fields of wheat, f lax, and beans, though orchards of pears and quince and fields of hemp and berries are not uncommon. Numerous farms and ranches also cover the county, with most raising sheep, goats, boar, and the region’s distinctive shaggy cattle. In recent years, failed or poorly tended farms have attracted wolves from the Shudderwood, cougars from the mountains, and worse, which prey upon untended livestock while hiding within crumbling homesteads and amid overgrown fields.
A sentiment of righteous bitterness against the country’s government and nobility f lourishes among Ardeal’s people. Abandoned serfs across the countryside find themselves forced into subsistence farming, immigrating to cities, or banding together in pitiful hamlets defending against neighbors turned to banditry. In larger communities, especially Ardis, the opinion grows even fiercer, as shops and industries wither and die daily, casting whole families into poverty. City dwellers with the means to continue on daily face the sneers and begging hands of the growing number of destitute, but such barely compares to the attacks endured by those nobles who remain, who find themselves the targets of harassment and violence. Often, though, the nobles of the realm prove little better off than the commoners, and centuries’ worth of family treasures and precious heirlooms get hocked for any pittance that allows the former owners to maintain guises of dignity. In dark alleys and amid whole abandoned blocks prowl growing numbers of thieves, deluded revolutionaries, and the insane, desperately struggling to survive these bleak days and see a dawn with little hope of being any brighter.
Notable Locations
Ardeal still hosts several corners in which the residents desperately try to avoid succumbing to the county’s decay, or else seek to speed its ruin.
Ardis: The depopulated former capital of Ustalav, Ardis is thoroughly detailed later.
Berus: Winter never comes to the rural community of Berus. Graylings always seem to fill the nets of fishermen, pear trees yield fruit year-round, and f lowers bloom endlessly. The town’s remarkable abundance has been a regional legend for centuries, which made it an obvious destination for droves of the castoff and desperate since the start of the county’s hardships. Fearing ruin, the people of Berus built palisades to encircle their town and farmlands, letting none except those with the direst business enter. Yet since the community’s isolation, a new faith has risen among its people: that of Mother Sighle, a recently awakened earth goddess supposedly responsible for the town’s strange bounty, and who hungers after her centuries-long slumber.
Langitheath: Thirty years ago, when the Loslimor family sold their rural estate, the manor and its 900 acres passed hands several times in quick succession before being forgotten by any single landowner. Left with no lord or income, the dozens of peasant families occupying the land gradually drifted away, abandoning the estate—or so most believe. Every spring, new rows of f lax grow in spiraling fields surrounding Langitheath, interrupted by vast runes or circles of f lattened plants. Some travelers tell stories of passing near the estate and seeing small figures capering amid the fields, or of encountering strange children with eyes as cold and blue as f lax f lowers.
Countess Solismina Venacdahlia
For two decades, Solismina Croscamille entranced the people of Ustalav with her talent and beauty, sweeping the country as a leading lady of national theater. Few reviewers could resist her waves of raven hair or nymph-like carriage, and she commanded the adoration of peasants and nobles alike. Her charms won her armies of suitors, but in 4648 she settled for none less than Count Olomon Venacdahlia, lord of Ardeal. Marriage and the birth of her children did little to impact her lifestyle, with her four daughters, Lasara, Radania, Opaline, and Floriama, being raised largely by nannies and valets. Yet what matrimony and motherhood couldn’t do to temper Solismina, age inevitably did. After the difficult birth of Floriama and a lengthy convalescence, the countess made her return to society with a self-penned, self-themed performance titled Worth the Wait. The play proved an utter embarrassment, not only for the vicious reviews, but even worse in that Solismina was utterly upstaged by a cast of younger belles. The play ran for but two of its scheduled forty nights, the second performance ending prematurely as the countess raged upon the crowd for whistling at the entry of a younger starlet.
While Solismina did not abandon public life after the disaster, her society became more insular, as she surrounded herself with sycophants and former associates. Clinging to memories of her heyday, the aging countess views herself as Ustalav’s most charming socialite, the pinnacle of what an Ardealian lady should be. Rarely leaving her Ardis estate of Lavender Hall, she spends most of her days abed, refusing to acknowledge the weight of her age and instead constantly complaining of being “overtaxed” or “susceptible to the vapors.” While few events rouse the 65-year-old countess from her rooms, yearly and without fail she sits with her daughters for the family portrait, wherein her daughters are painted as they are, while she is ever depicted at the height of her beauty. Her daughters’ encroaching years savagely delight the countess, who secretly blames them for her own loss of beauty.
Noteworthy Personages
Several souls make their homes within Ardeal, clinging to dreary lives or seeking new hopes amid the dust.
Ailson Kindler: Ustalav’s most famous writer, the author of Galdyce’s Guest: Feast of the Nosferatu, Her Wounds Never Bled, Steps Upon the Sanguine Stair, and dozens of other tales, lives comfortably in Ardis’s community of Grimol Hall. A former adventurer, Kindler fled Ustalav after facing vampiric horrors beneath Caliphas. Her journeys led to a long career as an investigator of grim mysteries and member of the Pathfinder Society, though tragedy ultimately jaded her and ended her official affiliation with that organization. Today she lives as a semi-retired author, her romances drawing liberally from her adventuring experience and providing sage advice to savvy readers.
Reneis Ordranti-Caliphvaso: Born in scandal, the alleged son of former Prince Valislav Ordranti and Countess Carmilla Caliphavso’s long-missing sister, Millaera, potentially holds the most direct claim to Ustalav’s throne. Sequestered by his aunt since birth, Reneis knows little of his parents or the world beyond his family’s country house at Briargate, but from a very young age has been groomed to be the first Caliphvaso to wear the crown. More than 30 years old, Reneis possesses a fine physique and analytical mind, but lacks social grace and complains of recurrent headaches. Prince Ordranti regularly invites his would-be nephew to court, but Countess Caliphvaso continually crafts well-reasoned refusals. To this day, Reneis and Prince Aduard have never met in person.