Midgard

Midgard is presented less as a stable contemporary country than as a vanished power whose history still determines the politics of the southern lands. It was once the domain terrorized by Vainqueur Knightsbane, later destroyed by Balaur and assimilated by Gardemagne; its disappearance leaves behind legends, displaced power, and a dangerous political vacuum that continues to shape the surrounding region.

Historical Midgard

The clearest surviving image of Midgard is inseparable from Vainqueur Knightsbane’s reputation. The Count of Provencal recalls that the dragon was the bane of Midgard for centuries before vanishing fifty years earlier. Legends credit Vainqueur with fighting a Wild Hunt party single-handedly and trading blows with a level sixty-seven elf knight, feats that place the dragon near the limits of the known heroic order. Victor Dalton therefore regards Vainqueur as nearly invincible, especially because only the legendary Shining Knight was said to approach such a level.

Midgard’s destruction is attributed to Balaur, after which the territory was assimilated by Gardemagne. In later political discussion, Vainqueur is described as an elder red wyrm who terrorized Midgard before its destruction, was presumed dead during the Century War, and then reappeared as a living force in the south. The chronology turns Midgard into a historical hinge: it is the lost realm that made Vainqueur a legend, the war-torn past that obscured his fate, and the vanished political order against which his return is measured.

Landscape and Regional Memory

The southern lands associated with Midgard are also marked by ecological devastation. The Sablaris, a dark elf empire that ruled much of the southern continent, Ishfania, and Barin, was seized by cultists of Sablar the destroyer. To hasten their patron’s universal entropy, they caused a magical cataclysm that transformed the empire into a red desert. Although this account concerns the Sablaris and Ishfania directly, it explains the wider region’s ruined geography and why former centers of power appear in the narrative as deserts, badlands, and contested remnants rather than intact states.

The territory later claimed by Vainqueur lies between Gardemagne and Ishfania, bordering the sea, and is described as a small empire by name rather than by scale. Its volcano is large and reaches the western sea, while the surrounding countryside consists of brown soil, sparse vegetation, badlands, arroyos, and the beginning of an immense red sand desert. A small village stands at the mountain’s foot, with primitive encampments near the desert’s border. Vainqueur remembers having flown over the region two centuries earlier, when it was considerably greener, linking the present landscape to the long environmental decline that followed the region’s catastrophes.

From Imperial Ruin to Frontier

The post-Midgard south is populated by communities living under successive forms of coercion. Gnoll tribes in the encampments south of Vainqueur’s castle had lived in fear of Furibon, who allowed them to remain and keep their gold only if they obeyed him. Most fled when Vainqueur waged war against the lich, while those who stayed later came to Murmurin seeking work. Vainqueur condemned their former service to Furibon, then forgave them and incorporated them into his labor force, turning a population shaped by fear into subjects of a new regime.

The resulting frontier remains unstable. Vainqueur’s castle contains lava, food reserves, towers, and room for his hoard, but the land around it is poor and sparsely settled. His minions build a large bridge to transport raw material from the mountain and rebuild towers destroyed during the War of the Hoard. The gnolls carry much of the castle’s black stone, although their laziness, cowardice, and conflicts with other minions lead Vainqueur to eat twenty troublemakers before order is restored. The episode shows how the old imperial landscape is being converted into a fortified monster polity through labor, punishment, and construction.

Political Consequences of Midgard’s Fall

Midgard’s disappearance creates the conditions for new claims over the south. When Ishfania’s army is destroyed and Brandon Maure dies, the region ceases to exist as a nation even though its demon-infested desert still contains valuable resources. Gardemagne’s king fears that the Eversun Empire, Barin, or Prydain may attempt to seize those resources and provoke another Century War. Midgard’s earlier destruction therefore becomes part of a recurring pattern: the collapse of one power does not end conflict, but instead exposes territory to rival states, adventurers, demons, and dragons.

Vainqueur’s return intensifies that uncertainty. Gardemagne’s officials call him a new threat in the southern political landscape, an archetypal dragon whose name was associated with the greatest calamity of the age before King Balaur surpassed him. His occupation of territory between Gardemagne and Ishfania is simultaneously a danger and a possible buffer against Brandon Maure. Kia recognizes that a dragon with class levels could bully towns into surrendering gold, while Vainqueur and Victor Dalton appear, at least provisionally, closer to amoral mercenaries than to an indiscriminate calamity.

Legacy and Reconstitution

The decisive transformation of Midgard’s legacy occurs when Gardemagne recognizes Vainqueur’s territorial claim. After Maure’s defeat, the king proposes a treaty under which Gardemagne will acknowledge Vainqueur as Emperor of Ishfania and recognize the territory as an official adventurer state. Vainqueur may retain the benefits of the Adventurer Guild and rule the land according to his own wishes, provided that his country never takes arms against Gardemagne and that both sides fight together against outside threats.

This settlement does not restore Midgard. Instead, it replaces the vanished realm’s imperial history with a negotiated monster state, using diplomacy to formalize what conquest and occupation have already begun. Midgard thus functions as both warning and foundation: its destruction demonstrates the volatility of the southern continent, while its memory supplies the scale against which Vainqueur’s return is judged. The location’s significance lies in that tension between disappearance and recurrence, as old calamity becomes the raw material for a new political order.