Loksenta is an independent colony of the nation of Gwenddon. Following maps created by Gwenddolan fisherfolk, Prince Borsen crossed the Sea of Perryn with twelve ships in 642 Common Reckoning (CR). He disembarked at a fishing ship supply station on a small island on the East coast of the continent of Safara. He immediately established the Kingdom of Loksenta. The island, he named “Cormyn” after the patriarch of his dynasty and declared it the capital of the new nation. Himself, he crowned King.
The Isle of Cormyn was, and is, a teardrop-shaped island between the West Fork and the East Fork of the River Lyvenness. The base of the teardrop hosts both a tall promontory at the mouth of the West Ford and a lowland fronting on the sea. King Borsen built his castle on the former and a set of docks on the latter.
Scouts soon reported that the land to the North and North-east of the Isle of Cormyn was generally too boggy for settlement. To the South lay a dense forest. But to the West, the land consisted of hills and grasslands perfectly suited for both pastoral and arable farming. King Borsen quickly annexed this land into his kingdom, forming the West Province. He set the River Touze as Loksenta’s border. In 644, he began the construction of the fortress Dakor to guard that border.
The Loksentans were not alone in Northern Safara, however. To the North-west lay the Ghantal of the Starntor, called “goblins” by the Loksentans for their resemblance to creatures from Gwenddolan folklore. In 646, the army that the Loksenta Chronicle would record as the Great Goblin Horde crossed the Touze. It captured the incomplete Dakor and pressed on to the banks of the Lyvenness. The Crimson Brigade saved the capital by destroying the Ten Span Bridge that crossed the Lyvenness. The Starntor occupied the West Province and set siege to the city.
In 647, Freyk the Stronghanded arrived with reinforcements from Gwenddon. King Borsen named Freyk Marshal of the Loksentan army. That army pushed back the Horde and retook Dakor. Freyk began construction of the Wall around Cormyn that still surrounds the city. The Wall was completed the next year.
The war entered a period of stalemate, with neither side able to gain significant advantage, in no small part due to the Wall. In 651, both King Borsen and Crilk, the Ghan of the Starntor, died at the Battle of Torvyn. This battle signaled the end of the First Goblin War. The Horde dispersed. Loksenta reclaimed all of the West Province. Prince Elfard became king. As his first official act, he renamed Cormyn “Freyk’s Wall”.
The Loksentans and the Starntor would fight two more wars before a lasting peace was declared in 740 CR. The Second Treaty of Glorb established the border between the Kingdom and the Ghantal as the River Grok and the Lake of the Fallen. The far Western border of Loksenta is the great chasm of Borsen’s Gap, into which the Grok flows. To the South, the signing of the Treaty of Mornon in 650 established the border with the Hokkai giantfolk as the Tokiro River, which flows between the rolling hills of the Hokkai homeland and the Kemyel Forest South of the Isle of Cormyn. These are the current borders of Loksenta.
The Loksentans know little of the continent of Safara outside their immediate environs. Scouts heading North have found naught but bogs giving way to cold, dry tundra. Loksenta may be at peace with the Starntor, but few humans are welcome in the Ghantal. The few scouts allowed have focused on exploring the vast Ghantal rather than the lands beyond it. The far rim of Borsen’s Gap is masked by a magical fog. No one entering that fog has ever returned. Occasionally, strange beings, such as winged cattle and women with the heads of boars, emerge. Scouts traveling through the land of the Hokkai were stopped by the nigh-impassible Strigg Mountains. Ships bypassing the mountains by sea describe a narrow coastline that quickly turns into a dense forest. The few scouts that have returned from an inland journey describe bears that walk on two legs and swarms of insects that blot out the Sun.
Loksenta is divided into fourteen Duchies and three Marks on the border with the Ghantal. These provinces are the primary administrative districts of the Kingdom, although a few of the larger or more populous Duchies are further divided into Eoarldoms. The Dukes and Margraves are responsible for collecting taxes, maintaining infrastructure, and providing basic services within their domain. Each provides a tithe to the King, which is used to maintain the Loksentan military, the Kingdom’s diplomatic corps, and the royal court.
Loksenta is an aristocracy, with a hierarchy of nobles forming the government. Nominally, all power flows from the monarch. In actuality, power has historically been wielded by the Dukes, the Margraves, and a few powerful Eoarls. The monarch wields greater power and received more income as the lord of the Duchy of Freyk’s Wall.
The past few decades of peace have brought two developments that have tilted the balance of power in the Kingdom. First, most senior nobles have chosen to spend most of their time in Freyk’s Wall. They have left the governance of their lands to bureaucracies and minor nobles, both of varying competence and ambition. Residence in the capital allows these men and women to be directly involved in the intrigues that permeate the royal court. Lack of engagement in their home territories has reduced the actual power they can wield.
The second development is the rise of wealthy commoners. The rapid increase of intercontinental trade has brought vast wealth to a few financiers and merchants. Along with this wealth has come a desire for concomitant power. Queen Beornwyn has subtly promoted the newly rich as a counterbalance to the nobility.
Den of the Red Wolf 