Source material we surely can trust 
All of the source material comes from a trove of historical records of the ancient kingdom pulled into our world through a multidimensional door by an anonymous former newspaper Editor in a fog-shrouded Midwestern town, and shipped to the loyal, haggard staff of Royal Road West for translation and adaptation.=
In this section we attempt to consolidate all knowledge of ancient Kesteva – which grows day by day – and to curate our world’s only online copy of The Kestevan Chronicle.
Kesteva is an ancient kingdom in Atalanta. It was settled three centuries ago by followers of Aelfric & Aelin, who fled the Old World in search of freedom. Over many hard months, these hardy pioneers crossed the high Parthian Mountains into the verdant new land. Once past the mountains, Aelfric & Aelin and their followers continued their march a thousand miles west to the sea, founding cities as they journeyed. These and the lands in between became the kingdom of Kesteva.
In appearance, politics and sound Kesteva somewhat resembles medieval Europe and medieval Asia (or what many imagine them to have been). In studying the historical records and converting them into role-playing game material, however, the staff at Royal Road West have uncovered crucial differences: There are what we would call monsters. There is magic. Gunpowder is unheard of. Everyday electricity does not appear to work (though lightning does).
Most Kestevans are humans, but not all. They are not alone: Sentient wolves and half-trolls and dwarves and elves and dark elves live among the humans in the cities and villages, eking out their livings by tilling the soil or keeping shop or adventuring through the vast wilderness that remains even three centuries after settlement.
The Kestevan Chronicle – as so far translated
and interpreted by staff at Royal Road West
Latest entry, translated and added July 6, 2018:
Year 157, July.
Recorded in the Great Kestevan Chronicle. We note an intersection between the mystery of vampirism and the mystery of Ragnarok. Not long ago, the Royal Librarian of Kesteva took possession of a book that purports to be a history of the Order of Agropo. The Order (so says the book) was an order of necromancers that existed in a previous age of our world of Atalanta. This claim makes no sense unless one believes the cultists who preach that Ragnaroks have struck our world. A Rangarok, they say, is the end of all things in the world, and yet the rebirth of the same world. It is supposed that a single woman and a single man survive each Rangarok and thus … but such things are written of elsewhere. The book claims to be written by someone in our world who found a door of many dimensions into the pre-Rangarok world in which the order existed. It gives clues to support the claim, but these do not concern us here. What does concern us, and the reason the Royal Librarian did not dismiss the book and its Ragnarokist thought out of hand, is that its description of the Order of Agropo is so thorough as to be familiar. The order’s temple, it seems, matches closely one of the “lost cities” of the Wild Wood. The Wild Wood has many abandoned cities of unfamiliar architecture and no inhabitants save marauding kobolds. The book’s description matches very nearly the description a company of adventurers gave after an unsuccessful journey into the Wild Wood, down to a particular marble image found upon a particular door. The chronicler here hastens to add that no exact descriptions must be given in this text, but he notes that the Royal Librarian has dispatched another company of adventurers with a letter of marque to enter the Wild Wood, locate the lost city in question and attempt to retrieve certain artifacts described in the book concerning the Order of Agropo. He is sending them with a caution not to open a certain crypt also thought to be located there, for it is the crypt of a vampire … if the book is accurate, that is, and the Royal Librarian stresses the exploratory and open-minded nature of the expedition. The vampire supposedly was one of the order’s early successes; the members seem to have found the secret to vampirism and begun practicing it on each other as a source of eternal life. But to return to the upcoming expedition: The chronicler shudders to think of the significance of such finds should they be made.
Here begins the Chronicle:
Kesteva
The land of Kesteva stretches from the eastern mountains that separate and protect it from the Old World to the Western Ocean. By the south it is protected again by a vast mountain range, on the foothills of which lies the Wild Wood, and to the north hills and mountains define its friendly boundary with the desolate northern lands.
Beyond the mountains to the east lies, as said, the Old World, and of that Kestevans do not like to often speak, for it is from whence they fled. To the north: desolation. And to the south, beyond the mountains, lie the kingdoms small and large that surround the warm Sheltered Sea, the cradle, some say, of humans just as the north is the cradle of trolls and the east the cradle of gnomes.
To the west, out into the ocean, many islands exist, but through them mariners may navigate, all the way down to the Sheltered Sea, where they find the greatest of trade. The Sheltered Sea, by the way, is called Great Sea by those who live upon it. This is regarded by Kestevans as a joke, for their whole country of land and hill is nearly as large as that sea.
Aelfric and Aelin
Aelfric and Aelin were baron and baroness of lands in an Old World kingdom. Their story is told in Skaldic poems and prose. And so it was that Aelfric and Aelin and their followers escaped the Old World and entered the new. They called the land Kesteva, which in the language they shared with the Old World means “Lasting.” On the day these multitudes came down from the great mountain range to the foothills a young boy had asked Aelfric whence they would go, and Aelfric had said simply “West.”
But that first night of encampment in the foothills, Aelfric awoke in sweat and trembling, and with a fire in his eyes, for in his sleep he had had a vision. Aelfric roused everyone in the camp and bid they gather around the fire in his camp, and he stood on a boulder that all may hear. And he told them under a starry sky that they would go west indeed, and more, that they would march to the great western ocean of which the scholars in their party told, and that they would break camp that same morning and depart on their journey. For now, Aelfric told his many companions, their flight was over, and their destiny was begun.
At the foot of the mountains the Kestevans fortified their encampment that it might warn their people of incursion by the old enemy. They felled trees to build a wall and laid out a patterns of streets with rooms for houses, granaries, markets and reservoirs. The entire people dwelled within and outside the walls for a month and tilled fields and built shelters and workshops and so on, before the majority continued toward the sea. Several hundred remained, and they included people skilled in the arts of agriculture, and fighting, and building; of cooking, of making oils and inks; and so on that the outpost may thrive. Aelfric declared the outpost a commonwealth and appointed a mayor, and decreed the purpose of the settlement was, contrary to settlements of the Old World, to allow the people who dwelt there to live full and prosperous lives. These principles he laid out in a manuscript his followers called The Great Instruction, and in it he specified how the city was to be managed. The city, this work declared, was to be administered by the mayor and people elected to form, together, a town senate
The settlement was bountiful, but the land would not support the many thousands of the displaced. One night, as he lay asleep under an aspen, the gods spoke to Aelfric in a dream, and when he awoke the next morning, he declared their true journey was west, all the way to the sea. And he decreed that they should not lose their familial
Before they departed, coals of the great hearth that had warmed them so long were taken and kept safe.
When the new city was founded, these coals were kindled into a new fire, and so on, so that when the western ocean was reached, a dozen children and grandchildren of the first settlement were founded, all burning with the same fire.
Many thousands continued west, on and alongside the wagons, horses and oxen that had survived the long mountain passage. There was food, and from the rivers fresh water, and as they did so founded more outposts, and selected some of their number to remain behind and settle the land, and each was a commonwealth, built and purposed for the common weal and the benefit of all, and these settlements traded with one another, for in some regions grain was the chief resource extracted from the land, and in others salt, and in others iron or tin or copper, and in still others fish, or timber. And Aelfric and Aelin together decreed, for the people had given them this power, that each was responsible to its people, and yet all were of the same people. And so the journey continued, settlements added along the way, and with wintering over by the voyagers at times, and with obstacles of terrain at other times, but with a mission to reach the sea, so the waters soon enough were in sight, and in between the ocean and the mountains lay a dozen outposts, each growing.
Upon reaching the western sea, Aelfric and Aelin knelt on a cold rocky beach and dipped their hands into the cold ocean water and proclaimed the journey at an end. It was here the last Founding City was built, by those remaining, and who were still in their thousands. This city was named Kesteva, after the land, and it would be the capital of a new kingdom. For upon reaching the shore, a cry bubbled up among the crowd that Aelfric and Aelin should be king and queen of this land, and it was so.
Year 21.
Here Alfred, son of Aelfric and Aelin, accepted the crown at the great castle, and sent his father a gift in memory of his mother. Then the Kobolds ventured north and raided the great city of Roxen, and Alfred led the army and put down the incursion. And Alfred also in this year ordered the Kestevan Chronicle commissioned that the deeds and history of the nation may be remembered, and also historians were appointed to gather ancient lore and to record it in the same Chronicle.
Year 22.
Here gnolls from the south attacked the city of Roxen, and two wizards who dwelled in Roxen and were advisers to the king unleashed blue lightning against the massed gnolls, killing many, and stunning the rest so that the militia at Roxen was able to sweep away the invaders and drive them back to their lairs in the Wild Wood. And upon hearing this Alfred bade the wizards and Roxen’s mayor to visit him in the high castle at Kesteva, and they did so, and he praised them before the entire city and gave thanks for their services and bestowed titles and small wealth upon each.
Year 25.
Here Alfred ordered a Library built in the capital city of Kesteva and appointed Edwin, a Factotum-adviser to the crown, Royal Librarian. And Edwin began amassing artifacts of the land and books, and warehousing them in the capital till the building could be finished. This year also died Redwolf, one of the first followers of Aelfric and Aelin and Count of Slevia.
Year 26, March.
(Originating with the Royal Library in Skara’s Chronicle and added to the official Kestevan Chronicle in Kesteva) A traveler entering Skara one gray night this winter relayed to this town’s librarian an encounter he claimed to have that shook him to the bone. The traveler had been to the vast wood outside town, the place known generally as the Wild Wood, and it was there the encounter had taken place. On the subject of why he had been in that dreadful place of mist and murder he was evasive. On the subject of what he had encountered he at first to the librarian seemed evasive, but as he continued his demeanor looked to be less of evasion and more of terror. It was a thing beyond nature, he said, and he trembled as he did so. This thing, he said, looked human, save that its flesh looked almost perfect, but for a pale pallor, and its strength more powerful. Its eyes—these too were not normal, but they emitted a faint red glow in the darkness. He had encountered the thing in a clearing, which the Ragnarokists had declared sacred and in which the same had built a stone altar. They were alone, the traveler and the thing, and the thing was feasting upon a deer that it had neither cleaned nor cooked. When the thing spoke, it uttered not a word of Common but some strange foreign tongue the traveler had not encountered. The traveler backed out of the clearing, and the thing left its bloody dinner in the clearing and with speed approached. The traveler told the librarian that he raised both daggers he carried and crossed them in defense. At that gesture, the thing recoiled as though rejected by some unseen force. With haste the traveler fled the clearing and the wood and made his way through the darkness into town.
Year 30.
Here the Royal Library of Kesteva was completed, and collections filled its shelves and galleries. Edwin the Royal Librarian stood before the people of the city and said in a loud voice: “May this be a treasury of knowledge for all the people and aid us in our best pursuits.” A feasting-week was declared, and the Royal Mint issued special coins of silver to each person who entered and walked the halls of knowledge.
Year 31.
This year the Kobold raids in the southeast resumed, and Alfred dispatched Graywolf, brother of Redwolf, to defend the cities there. Graywolf brought the Royal Army against the raiders and repelled them. Then Graywolf led the Army into the Wild Wood in pursuit and with a wish to root out the Kobolds in their lairs. He fought with the Kobolds at Black Brook and lost almost all of his army. Ethelfrith was slain at Threakstone Bridge. Alfred decreed watchtowers be built all along the southeast to warn of raids, and patrols began.
Year 33, June.
Recorded in the Vadstena Chronicle and incorporated into the Great Kestevan Chronicle. A young merchant of Vadstena reported to the constabulary of a curious incident that took place in her home the very night before. She explained to the recording officer that she was asleep after a long day at the exchange, and after her retirement to bed, a vampire visited her. “Visited” her, asked the officer. Yes, the merchant said. She awoke with a start when all was pitch black and sensed a dead presence towering over her bed. As her eyes adjusted, she perceived the outline of a large, menacing thing with its arms outstretched as if to embrace her. Her eyes adjusted further, and she perceived what might be a human. She knew it was a vampire by his “look,” she said. The undead thing was most dreadful, she said: dashingly handsome, with powerful teeth that protruded from its mouth when it grinned, and a velvet cape that took away the cold she felt when the undead thing wrapped her in its embrace. The vampire held a dreadful, revolting stare upon her, the merchant said, and she said she stared back into its wilting eyes. To her surprise, the vampire blinked and moved back, as if confused. The merchant took this opportunity to strike the igniter by her bedside and light the lamp that sat there. Bathed in sudden light, the vampire shrunk back. Without thinking, the merchant shouted, Who are you barging into my room, and she thrust the lamp at the cold undead thing. The vampire flashed its long, sharp, pearl white fangs for a moment but, to the merchant’s surprise. moved to the door. She thought she heard a dry, convulsive sobbing as it fled into the hallway, and more to her surprise she thought she remembered in its outlines the face of a boy she had once known, long ago. The recording officer reports no more of the interview, and that an inspection of the merchant’s premises immediately following showed no signs of forced entry, though the officer also notes that vampires can turn themselves into mists and might have entered the residence that way.
Year 35.
Here gnolls rose up from the south and like their Kobold brethren attacked the marchland cities in the south. From the west, traders appeared in longships and met our kingdom’s merchants at Kesteva, and at Viken. The traders brought spices and other goods unfound in the new kingdom, and left with wheat, and furs, and woods exotic to their origins.
Year 37.
This year appeared the comet in April, and it shone through day for three months. This year Alfred sent an army into the Wild Wood against the Kobolds, and his general, Brightling, plundered a Kobold stronghold and brought gold and silver and electrum to the King’s Mint, and a special issue of coins went to all the people of the kingdom. And in this year Alfred approved a trading company of merchant-adventurers to make contact with the west by sea.
Year 38.
Here the adventurer Mallarch ventured into the Rampart Mountains and recovered a fabled troll-treasure and presented it to the Royal Librarian at Kesteva, and received 400 gold marks, and a coastal estate, and fineries for his accomplishment. And the city of Kesteva recorded 15,000 beings for the first time, and another Founding City, Skara, recorded 428, and Viken 4,233.
Year 40.
Here the merchant-adventurer Clataan returned from a voyage west and told of thinly populated islands to the sea while farther south, out of view of the great mountains that protected Kesteva, several small kingdoms vied for power over one another, but his offers of trade were received warmly. And the adventurer Tarpin ventured north beyond the mountains and was not heard from again this year.
Year 70.
Here Alfred died, and his son Edward became king. A great funeral procession marked the king’s passing, and a thousand Royal Army spearmen marched alongside the catafalque, and the king’s body was placed in the earth at the great cemetery ridge overlooking his beloved city of Kesteva, and his beloved kingdom of Kesteva. And mourners came from all around the nation, in wagons and ox-cart and on-foot, for messengers on fast horses had spread the word throughout the land. And even those who were too far to meet the memorial and the burial arrived to pay honors at the gravestone, which was guarded night and day by a squad of elite soldiers, and after doing so went to Kesteva Castle and paid respect to the new king, Edward, who wore a black band for six months. And it is said that a young girl in a yellow dress arrived one day several months after the funeral and knelt at the graveside and said in a soft voice yet overheard by many of those present: “May you be remembered for your great deeds for our people, that you did not let our family starve.” And this puzzled the people, and it was revealed that the winter before his passing, the good king had visited the child’s town and observing hunger during the hard cold had quietly distributed foodstuffs from his own baggage wagon and bid the people there not to boast, nor to pay him thanks, but to share the bounty with their neighbors and to greet their fellow townspeople as friends whenever they met on the streets from hence forth, and they did so.
Year 71.
Here Edward was crowned king of Kesteva.
Year 111.
In this year’s autumn, a dragon appeared in the gloomy skies over the Pyrenne Mountains near Vadstena. The sighting was from a distance, by many people in the town, for they had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the town’s founding during Aelfric and Aelin’s march to the sea. The dragon soared over mountain peaks and never descended to the town, yet its appearance was treated as danger and as a bad omen coming as it did upon the sacred anniversary. Riders were dispatched across the realm, and several to the capital city called Kesteva, and in doing so Vadstena fulfilled its obligation and one of its founding purposes, as a sentinel against invasion of the Old World, though the invasion anticipated during its founding would have been from the Old World countries of humans. A dragon, it must be recorded here, had never been seen in Kesteva at all, and till that point existed only in legends imported from the Old World and such as survived from the ancient dragon ruins found throughout the realm, and in the old texts and stories of other races’ long-gone civilizations. A great fear fell upon the whole realm, for the existence of dragons threatened all humans, and for the appearance of such a foul beast on the anniversary of the founding of the kingdom’s first settlement. Some said it was the comet-star that had appeared first on the eve of Founding Day the year previous, and others said the dragon itself was the herald of worse to come. But regardless, a great fear fell upon the whole realm that autumn, and winter was recorded as the coldest in memory, but the dragon did not appear again the rest of this year.
Year 157, July.
Recorded in the Great Kestevan Chronicle. We note an intersection between the mystery of vampirism and the mystery of Ragnarok. Not long ago, the Royal Librarian of Kesteva took possession of a book that purports to be a history of the Order of Agropo. The Order (so says the book) was an order of necromancers that existed in a previous age of our world of Atalanta. This claim makes no sense unless one believes the cultists who preach that Ragnaroks have struck our world. A Rangarok, they say, is the end of all things in the world, and yet the rebirth of the same world. It is supposed that a single woman and a single man survive each Rangarok and thus … but such things are written of elsewhere. The book claims to be written by someone in our world who found a door of many dimensions into the pre-Rangarok world in which the order existed. It gives clues to support the claim, but these do not concern us here. What does concern us, and the reason the Royal Librarian did not dismiss the book and its Ragnarokist thought out of hand, is that its description of the Order of Agropo is so thorough as to be familiar. The order’s temple, it seems, matches closely one of the “lost cities” of the Wild Wood. The Wild Wood has many abandoned cities of unfamiliar architecture and no inhabitants save marauding kobolds. The book’s description matches very nearly the description a company of adventurers gave after an unsuccessful journey into the Wild Wood, down to a particular marble image found upon a particular door. The chronicler here hastens to add that no exact descriptions must be given in this text, but he notes that the Royal Librarian has dispatched another company of adventurers with a letter of marque to enter the Wild Wood, locate the lost city in question and attempt to retrieve certain artifacts described in the book concerning the Order of Agropo. He is sending them with a caution not to open a certain crypt also thought to be located there, for it is the crypt of a vampire … if the book is accurate, that is, and the Royal Librarian stresses the exploratory and open-minded nature of the expedition. The vampire supposedly was one of the order’s early successes; the members seem to have found the secret to vampirism and begun practicing it on each other as a source of eternal life. But to return to the upcoming expedition: The chronicler shudders to think of the significance of such finds should they be made.