While the Bandali interior is choked by the serpentine ruins of the past, the fertile eastern reaches are held by the Kingdom of Aethelgard. It has been centuries since the fall of the Ishteka Empire—so long that the lived experience of slavery has faded into myth and half-forgotten ghost stories. To the citizens of Aethelgard, the Yuan-ti are not former masters, but distant, cold-blooded monsters that haunt the deep jungles like any other beast of the wild.
The Faith of the Eternal Sun
Aethelgard is a bastion of the God of Light. The state religion teaches that the sun is the unblinking eye of their protector, who once cast down a great darkness (the Primordial Serpent) at the dawn of time. The King of Aethelgard, @King Aldric Erikson , is seen as the Light’s chosen steward, supported by a pantheon of minor deities representing Honor, Harvest, and the Hearth.
Because of this faith, the Kingdom maintains a policy of "Divine Purgation." Any creature that shuns the light or carries the "taint of the scale" is viewed as an affront to the gods. Knights and Paladins of the Order of the Radiant Heart patrol the borders with silvered blades, tasked with smiting any Yuan-ti "monsters" on sight, viewing them as soulless husks devoid of the divine spark.
The Three Crowns of the Kingdom
The kingdom is anchored by three primary power centers, each serving a vital role in Aethelgard’s prosperity and defense:
1. High-crest (The Capital): Built atop a massive sea-cliff, High-crest is a city of white marble and gold leaf. This is the seat of the King and the High Prelate of the God of Light. It is a hub of diplomacy and high culture, where the most elite Paladin orders are headquartered. The city’s Great Lighthouse is said to be fueled by a shard of the sun itself, visible for leagues across the Bandali plains.
2. Verdan (The Garden City): Located in the lush river valleys, Verdan is the breadbasket of the kingdom. It is a sprawling metropolis of tiered hanging gardens and canals. While High-crest focuses on war and faith, Verdan is the center of trade and arcane study, where scholars attempt to catalogue the strange flora of Bandali—often unaware that the "ruins" they find in the nearby woods were once Ishteka temples.
3. Woodward (The Bastion of Iron): Nestled against the edge of the Great Forest, Woodward is a rugged, industrial city of wood and stone. It is populated by master smiths, hardened rangers, and the kingdom’s finest infantry. Woodward serves as the frontline against the "monsters of the deep green." It is here that the most frequent skirmishes with Yuan-ti scouts occur, though the soldiers here treat these encounters as pest control rather than a holy war against an ancient empire.
Forgotten Chains
The irony of Aethelgard lies in its ignorance. The very "monsters" they hunt were once the masters of their ancestors. The humans, elves, and dwarves who live in harmony within the Kingdom's walls are the descendants of the Ishteka slave-caste, but the records of that era were burned or lost during the Great Silence of the Serpent.
To a knight of High-crest, a Yuan-ti Pureblood is simply a "cursed shapeshifter," and an Abomination is just a "giant snake-demon." They have no concept of the Great Serpent or the Ishteka history. This disconnect makes them dangerous; they underestimate the Yuan-ti’s cold intelligence, treating them as mindless predators rather than a calculating civilization that is slowly, quietly, beginning to stir once more under Ssendis.