Alternia Comics

Geography: Til Gaertan is on the eastern coast of Maddengrahl. To its
north are the Guardian Mountains, while its eastern border is shared
by the kingdom of Cryndal and the plainsmarsh. To the south is the
part of the Wyldegonne frontier known as the Bhali. The foothills of
the Guardian mountains extend about halfway through Til Gaertan.
Here, they are called the Themfar Hills, and are well known for their
plentiful gold and silver mines. In fact, much of the currency used
throughout Maddengrahl is made in Til Gaertan. This and their
position on the eastern coast give the Gartenians, as they call
themselves, a great deal of leverage when it comes to diplomacy with
the other nations. On the west coast, Floregh remains at odds with
Otoria, the empire that once ruled over them, and the rest of the
coastline of Maddengrahl is in the wilderness of either Coradel North
or the Wyldegonne, so any trade coming from other continents will find
the only safe ports on Maddengrahl in Til Gaertan. The most important
of these ports is Gartena Bay, for up that river a ways is the capital
of Praendel. There are not many rivers flowing through Til Gaertan,
but this one goes all the way from Gartena Bay in the southeast corner
to its headwaters in the northwest corner, cutting a diagonal line
across the kingdom. All the roads in Til Gaertan are well maintained
and well guarded, and much of this is paid for by the tarrifs the
Gaertans are able to levy on all the goods that are moved along them.

People: The people of Til Gaertan are well aware of how most others
think of them - as greedy, conniving merchants whose good fortunes
have landed them in a place where they can live off the wealth of
greater nations trading with one another. Some resent it, but most
just ignore it. After all, someone has to watch over those goods as
they are moved, and it is only right that the Gartenians earn
something for ensuring the safe passage of not only trade caravans,
but also diplomatic envoys and settlers coming from other continents.
Knowing their own reputation and how precarious their position is, the
Gartenians tend to be a little suspicious that other forces may be
moving against them to take away their advantages. This has been made
worse lately through the establishment of the Gartenian Church about
fifty years ago, which claims the monarch of Til Gaertan as the mouth
of God on Ifrai, and denounces all other faiths as faulty (in the case
of other Christian denominations) or outright heresy (in the case of
any non-christian faith or philosophy). The intensity of this
zealousness differs from one community to another and even between
people, but any citizen who openly disagrees with it is shunned or
worse. People of other faiths are nominally protected by law against
violent crimes, but not against harassment under the name of
evangelism, and so tend to either keep their beliefs to themselves or
leave. Still, the religion has unified the Gartenian people, and they
are always quick to cooperate for the common good of eachother and the
kingdom. People of other nations who discounted Gartenians as a bunch
of greedy zealots have been surprised many times by how fervently they
will rally to help eachother in times of need, or how fervently they
defend their homes and the homes of their friends and neighbors
against monsters or bandits. If a newcomer of any creed shows a
willingness to do the same, that newcomer will find a kind of grudging
acceptance. "He may not be a good Christian, but he's a good
Gartenian," is a saying that is said more and more in Til Gaertan.

Government: Til Gaertan's government is a monarchy passed to the
eldest child. The current monarch is Queen Finnmeia Cassaniadh. It
was her grandfather, King Claudemain, who established the Gartenian
Church, so she is the third monarch of Til Gaertan to also be the head
of its church. The rest of the government is a dynastic feudal system
with a clergy that is slowly integrating itself as part of the ruling
class; it varied from one place to another, but Gartenian Priests have
been taking on responsibilities such as managing crop collection,
trade negotiations, and even military matters. In some cases, nobles
have taken oaths and become men and women of the cloth, themselves,
but it is also a way for commoners to rise up in the ranks of the
heirarchy and take some control over the destiny of their country and
their people, much in the same way the military has been for Kagnar.
More and more often, nobles are seeing men and women who once worked
in the fields or followed orders as soldiers sitting next to them at
court and even arguing with them. It may not be long before a
common-born clergyman is telling a noble or two how to run their parts
of the kingdom.

Military: Til Gaertan's primary military focus is the safety of the
goods and people passing through its lands. After all, how could Til
Gaertan demand tarrifs if they could not guarantee the safety of all
who pass through? As such, much of its ground forces are mounted.
They are not so much cavalry as they are well-trained scouts on
horseback who operate in small units to watch the roads and keep them
safe. Gartenian nobles keep more conventional forces in reserve, or
guarding their castles and territories, but although these mounted
scouts are put under the operational control of nobles in the area
they guard, their first loyalty is to the throne of Til Gaertan. They
were once simply known as the Riders of Gaertan, but since the
establishment of the church they have also come to call themselves the
Riders of the Cross, and there is a distinct religious fervor that has
been added to their already formidable reputation. The aforementioned
conventional forces are often used to safeguard travelers when they
stop to rest while going through the kingdom. The true pride of Til
Gaertan is its navy, however, which is used to safeguard ships coming
into or leaving Gartenian ports. Although they are not quite as
war-hardened as the Florghen navy, they do travel much, much further
out to sea, creating a vast space on the water that is practically
free from piracy. This area is sometimes called Til Gaertan's "Second
Border," and the ships that patrol it the "Wall-on-the-Waves."
Gartenian naval vessels can be found in almost any port around Ifrai,
as they are sometimes asked to provide an escort for trade goods.
They have a longstanding, sometimes-friendly and sometimes-not rivalry
with the Seafaire and the Explorers' Guild of Crencoast for whose
sailors could be called the greatest in Ifrai.

History: King Claudemain claimed that he had discovered evidence that
Jusella Christ had, in her lifetime, borne a son into the world before
her ascension back into heaven. He also claimed that he and his
family were the descendants of that bloodline. This proclaimation,
predictably, changed Til Gaertan forever. Most of this has already
been explained in the "people" section. One of the problems that
merchants expected the Church has to bring to trade is that they would
sometimes be harassed or worse by more evangelistic Gartenians, even
though Queen Finnmeia's father, King Cornelain proclaimed that no
visitor passing through his kingdom would be harmed for not being of
the true faith. However, that proclamation was taken very seriously
by most Gartenians, and almost anyone who did not take it seriously
heeds it anyway. Gartenians understand that their very livelihood
depends on the merchants who pass through doing so unharmed and
unbothered, and know that to upset that would jeopardize the continued
prosperity of not just their own homes and neighbors, but of their
whole nation. Any overzealous Gartenian who harasses a passing
merchant or diplomat is likely to find a mob of their angry neighbors
the next morning, wondering why that zealot saw fit to endanger the
flow of money that keeps all of them fed. By now, those same
merchants and diplomats know that they are under the protective,
competent, fervent, and expensive care of Til Gaertan whenever they
pass through its borders. In more recent history, Queen Finnmeia
began to annex the area just south of her nation known as the Bahli
fifteen years ago. The Bahli is a part of the Wyldegonne famous for
its fields of silver wheat. As it has excellent soil, settlers have
been moving there for several generations now, and a number of
un-claimed, independant farming communities arose that, until the
invasion, had largely taken care of themselves. The queen's reasoning
that she presented before the other nations of Maddengrahl was that
since much of Til Gaertan's food comes from the Bahli, she should be
allowed to safeguard her people's wellfare by stationing troops to
guard it from the dangers of the Wyldegonne. The invasion failed in
large part thanks to the Bahlin's Free, a rag-tag band of rebels who
used guerilla tactics against the invading army until it pretty much
gave up and left. There were rumors that the Bahlin's Free were
trained by secretly sent members of Floregh's elite River Patrol.
Floregh denies this, but they did speak out openly against Til
Gaertan's attempt to annex the Bahli. As a result, relations between
Floregh and Til Gaertan were strained almost to the breaking point
until Floregh found itself in conflict first with Kagnar, and then
against the Black Prince. While many thought that Til Gaertan might
move to join with Kagnar against Floregh's "meddling," the war with
the Black Prince seemed to resolidify the bond between Floreghns and
Kagnarans. For her part, Queen Finnmeia dispatched some of the Riders
of the Cross to help the Sherand Brothers round up the Wyldegonnean
horses that were so critical in defeating the Black Prince, and so for
now at least, the tensions across Maddehngrahl seem to have settled in
the wake of a common foe. Even the bad blood with the Bahli has
thinned a bit as Gartenian border guards and Bahlin's Free fighters,
who now serve as a kind of common militia and road-watch for the towns
of the Bahli, cooperate against orcs, bandits, trolls from the
Plainsmarsh, and other threats that endanger the people of both Til
Gaertan and the Bahli.