A white shield bearing a blue lion, rampant, the symbol of pride, sovereignty, and resilience.
Cradled at the center of Steinau, Bornwald is a land of quiet beauty and deep scars. Its northern reaches are rolling meadows and grasslands dotted with wind-worn farmsteads and long roads that once hosted royal patrols. The southern territories blend into dense thickets of young oak and birch, remnants of older forests felled for shipbuilding and war.
A small northwestern shoreline, opening into Maria’s Bucht, gave rise to Oldenkarken, once a modest but thriving harbor village. Now, like the rest of Bornwald, it bears the smoke-black memories of betrayal and civil war.
Bornwald was the heart of the monarchy, the land that raised King Heinrich, the last true king of Steinau. The people of Bornwald were, and largely still are, faithful to the Church, but loyalty to the man they called “the Lion of Anghem” ran deeper than dogma.
A castle-town in the north, Anghem was once the royal jewel of Steinau, a center of law, diplomacy, and pride. With thick walls and its towering Keep, it seemed unassailable. Until the siege. Now, Anghem is a husk of its former self. The bishop’s army breached its gates, executed most of the royal household, and burned the lower town to the ground. The keep still stands, blackened and looted. It is now a military outpost for the bucketheads, though rumours speak of phantoms, loyalist agents, and a surviving heir hiding in its shadow.
This southwestern harbor village once thrived on fishing, craftsmanship, and modest trade with Freahburh and the Hartland coasts. It was famed for its carved ships, salted cod, and it’s miraculous Church. When the king’s army, in retaliation for the Church’s excesses in Forskeld, burned a church, the bishop’s men responded by reducing Oldenkarken to ash. What wasn’t taken by fire was stolen by sea. The church is gone, its altar stones thrown into the bay, and the dockyard sits silent. A handful of fisherfolk still cling to life in its remains, living off memory and meagre nets, watched ever closely by soldiers who suspect them of harbouring royalist fugitives.
The Lion’s Vigil: On the night of Heinrich’s death, every village in Bornwald lit blue lanterns and set them adrift on the rivers. In the years since, loyalists continue the vigil in secret. Lighting a lantern is now punishable by fine or prison, yet each year, the rivers shimmer.
Saint’s Silence: Since the destruction of Oldenkarken’s chapel, no church bell in Bornwald rings. Whether from fear, grief, or defiance, the silence of churches has become a strange form of protest. A whispered saying goes:
“Where the lion fell, even the heavens wept in silence.”
The Oathbound: A group of knights and former guards, known as the Oathbound, are said to still swear fealty to the king. They wander Bornwald’s woods and backroads at night, gathering those who would see the king’s line restored. Their symbol: a crown above a lion’s claw.
When the buckethead army marched to depose Heinrich and raze Anghem, the people of Bornwald stood divided. Many knights and minor houses backed their liege, while some clergy and merchant houses quietly aided the bishop to save their holdings. In the end, Anghem fell, King Heinrich was slain, and Bornwald was gutted. Yet despite their defeat, the blue lion is not forgotten.
Bornwald is a province under watch. Though nominally part of the regency's new order, the bishop does not trust it, and rightly so. Noble estates lie in limbo, stripped of legitimacy but too powerful to raze. Villages are sullen, watched over by foreign troops. The Church works to restore holy sites, but their stonework is often sabotaged.
This is a land that remembers, a land that smolders, and one that may yet spark again.