According to their own legends, the three brothers Bruno, Saxo, and Friso came from the other side of Chthonia, leaving because of overpopulation, and interacted with the founders of Mawhawk before settling here. Few others believe any of this beyond the reasonable impetus of overpopulation. Their language is a Norlander dialect, perhaps closer to the Common spoken in Aengmoor than others. Some of the older Redwood elves remember meeting them for the first time in the northern portions of the forest, which the Ktharians call the "Kiril".
Long ago, the eastern Sekutharians came to Ktharia to trade. Realizing that they had found a disunited and landlubberly people, the self-styled "Northern Lords" took to raiding. At first they concentrated on the coasts, but then they sailed up the rivers up to the cities in the centre. One town was reduced to ruins as a result of annual raids.
Eventually, many Sekutharians decided to settle amongst their cowed Ktharian kinsmen. While some of the settlers were productive and valuable members of the new, mixed society, their rulers were scarce better than the raiders they replaced.
Following the rise of the Realm of the Evil Egg, the northern Kiril began to sink; the resulting swamp cut the Ktharians off from Fleder and depressed the economy of the Northern Lords. The Ktharians took the opportunity to rebel; they formed a naval league, using techniques taught them by disaffected Sekutharian settlers and agents from the Duchy of Ten (well-versed in swamp combat, and then under the sway of the Evil Egg). In 3995 BAC, this league broke the hold of their oppressors, forcing the Sekutharians to find easier pickings further afield.
Those pickings were to be had in Chthonia, both in the Northlands and in some not-so-North lands. Having endured two seasons of this, Chthonia declared her intention to "restore the exiles" to the free lands of the Ktharians. Whether this was short-sighted sabre-rattling, or part of a cunning strategy to divide Chthonia�s enemies, remains in dispute. Certainly the Northern Lords knew better than to trust the Emperor; apart from their long history of recreational pillage, many jarls had made common cause with Chthonia's avowed enemy the Evil Egg. But the newly-freed Ktharians panicked. They immediately allied with the Evil Egg, helping to spark the Coot invasions of 3993 BAC. Unfortunately for the Evil Egg, the Ktharians did not concentrate their energies upon Aengmoor. It has been claimed that the Evil Egg sent a navy into Borkshold - but in fact, it was their unruly Ktharian allies who did it. This expedition was a strategic fiasco; it caused minimal damage and brought the Northern Lords onto Chthonia's side, even against the western Sekutharians. However, the Ktharians did succeed in sacking Borkshold and kidnapping the more important jarls. The Ktharians had learnt that they could become pirates too.
Their pirates were still fighting in the Aeng Sea region, under their own banners, circa 3980 BAC. It is unclear whether piracy is condoned by Ktharians as a whole - most likely, it depends upon whom their pirates target. It is also unclear whether the Ktharians still back the Evil Egg, or even if they have been assimilated into that vile realm.
Many Ktharians have become famed (or notorious) for their exploits upon the high seas. Here follows a list of the best-known:
Stortenbeker is a native of Fleder. Fleder is not exactly the most loyal base of Uther's support, and Bartertown is known to serve the interests of the Sekutharians, the Iron Duke, and the Evil Egg. Perhaps that is why he took up ship with the Ktharians as a lad. His chief notoriety came about when he led the raid on Borkshold. In decadent Mawhawk, there is still a price on his head for his sack of allied Borkshold, and agreement to his capture is a condition for Aengmoor's surrender. The Evil Egg would also dearly like to catch him for this unapproved campaign.
After the war, he formed a freelance buccaneer band called "Proviandbroeders" (Provision-Brothers) or "De vrienden van dyauz en de vijanden van de wereld" (The friends of God and the enemies of the world - oddly, he seems to belong to the Chthonian Church). The Spook may one day send a mission to re-establish contact.
Stortenbeker should be in his fifties, assuming he has avoided the noose. He owes his nickname - loosely translated "Pour-cup" - to his legendary tolerance for alcohol. According to legend, the great mast of Stortenbeker�s ship is hollow, filled with all the gold from their campaigns; presumably a portable hole is employed.
Lieutenant of Stortenbeker.
Pier Lüng was ethnically Sekutharian, born on a Northern Ktharian island, Siltstone, at a time when it was under an unusually tyrannical jarl. Since Siltstone is so far to the north, everything "known" of him is hearsay.
It is said that when Pier was very young he joined a resistance group of Siltstoneian fishermen. Pier and other men of Siltstone and surrounding islands went to sea. Their depredations were aimed not only at Sekutharians, however, but at Aengmoorites as well. Their emblem was a gallows and a torture wheel, which they wore sewn on their clothes.
At its peak, Lüng's gang numbered five hundred and terrorized all sides of the Northlands. Eventually the City of Fleder plotted against him and ambushed his fleet. Many were killed or lost at sea; 74 were captured and swiftly hanged. Pier Lüng was one of the missing. It is rumoured he lives on in the service of the foul Evil Egg.
Born Pier Gerlofs Donia, he was a local landowner - a big man, with large eyes, wide shoulders, and a bushy beard. He looks every inch the affable northern bumpkin - except when angry. On those occasions, he wields an immense two-handed sword, over six feet long and 150 gp in weight.
One fine day in 995, a rogue troop of Sekutharian mercenaries burnt his village, and his farm, to the ground. A grief-stricken Pier raised his own gang, the "Zwarte Hoop" (Black Hope), its motto: "Ktharin voor de Ktha'ar" (Ktharia for the Ktharians).
He got help from the Duchy of Ten, but because his men were hopeless on land (the Sekutharians were much better fighters, and then had the advantage of numbers) he fled to the sea. As pirates they robbed and plundered Sekutharians and their (then) Chthonian allies, and even won a battle against a fleet of Chthonian pirate-hunters, capturing 11 ships. It was no coincidence that the Ktharians ousted the Sekutharians on that very year.
Two years later, the Emperor of All made his vow to "return the exiles". While Stortenbeker launched his expedition against Borkshold, the Ktharians elected Pier the leader of the fleet against Chthonia. Pier built a navy of �signal ships�, small, agile vessels with a crew of only 30. With it, he ambushed a Chthonian fleet of 36 ships. He captured 28 of them and carried away 400 men.
After that he was feared throughout the Marches; some even called him the Cross of the North. He captured, robbed and plundered scores of merchant vessels and made them into warships. He even plundered the city of Jackport. It is said that the Zwarte Hoop now numbers 600 or more.
In Ktharia, Pier is viewed as a liberator. He was feared for his rough and merciless behaviour but admired for his love of freedom and justice. He once wrote a letter to one of his enemies in which he described himself as the "King of Ktharia", the Duke, Count, and Baron of several cities, and the "Captain-General of the Ktharian Sea".
Lieutenant of Pier, and equally big (hence the name).
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