Taeghas is a great duchy with a long and noble history. The land was first settled by House Boru when they ventured into the Sea of Storms to find new homes. The fertile and forested lowland regions along the river Ashlen were especially attractive – but not uninhabited, both sidhe and goblins called the land home. The Boru eventually drove out the humanoids, but where in turn pushed out by the arrival of descendants of the First House, coming from over the Seamist Mountains to settle in this new land. Thus it came to be that north of the mountains the Boru prevailed, but south of them the newcomers held sway.
After Deismaar things remained largely unchanged. Roele largely ignored the Western Coast, and the smaller kingdoms of southern Taeghas were left well alone. The now lords of Boeruine had other plans though, and while Roele was away conquering Cerilia they moved south and reclaimed ‘their ancestral lands’. When Roele finally brought the Boers to heel in preparation for his final subjugation of Vosgaard, he actually affirmed their claim to all the lands ‘north of the Ashlen and south of the Anseren’. Not out of any love for House Boer, but because he needed their warriors and their loyalty – things best earned by gifts and fine words rather than coercion.
After Roele’s death Boeruine quickly rebelled, creating an era of strife and warfare, as the descendants of Roele struggled to reunite the Empire. In this they were successful. To weaken House Boer the lands of Taeghas were taken from them – both the northern and southern portions – and made into a new Duchy called Taeghas after its first ruler.
The Duchy of Taeghas figures but little in the Imperial Annals during the Hegemony period. It was ever a backwater place. It had rich farmlands in the interior, but was otherwise sparsely populated. It was also a divided place – the men of the north and the men from the south were of different stock, and hard as they tried no ruler could be said to be popular in both parts of his realm.
During the 7th and 8th Centuries Taeghas began to rise in prominence. Whereas other older richer realms were content with their lot, the Dukes of Taeghas were eager to embrace both the new expansion into distant lands and the renewed religious vigor of the age. Their greatest claim to fame is the invasion and conquest of Mor Atha in the 9th Century – which did nothing but drain Taeghas of wealth and foster dissent and eventual rebellion. The bloodline of the Taeghan Dukes became extinct, if you do not could their descendants on distant Mor Atha.
After the Fall of the Empire Taeghas quickly became the primary battleground for Avanil and Boeruine – each seeking to ‘reclaim’ what was ‘theirs’. Little did they care that the men and women of Taeghas no longer counted themselves anything but Anuirean and Taeghan. When the fighting was over precious little was left, and Taeghas sunk into an age of deep and dark feudalism. Later it got worse. In the north men from the Western Isles and Rjurik would raid the coasts and river valleys, even settling there. In the south the same also happened, with heathen Tenouireans coming and going as they pleased along the coast and up the Ashlen. It was so bad that only the enmity of those two groups kept either from overwhelming Taeghas.
Salvation came from an unexpected quarter in the form of the wizard Khorien, somewhere around 1300 HC. Little is known of his background, but it is believed he was of Rjurik stock, and that he had trained with the Stormwardens of Boeruine. He married Ranele, the daughter of the count of Stormpoint (which at that point was little more than a large fishing village). Their children and children’s children would eventually unite Taeghas under one banner, striking upon some deep hidden understanding of the Taeghan character – a rugged independence and open-mindedness. Trade flourished, fallow lands were reclaimed, law returned and armies kept the borders safe. Then, in the early 16th Century, as Taeghas stood on the verge of becoming a major naval and commercial power, history caught up with the realm. Renewed war between Boeruine and Avanil quickly engulfed Taeghas in an eerie reenactment of past horrors. Until the day when Duke Khorien fell in battle, and his family died when their castle was torched – with them still inside.
Taeghas of toady is once again impoverished, occupied, and divided. In the north Boer lords, many of them little more than mercenaries-turned nights, hold sway. They are universally despised, but they rule with an iron fist. In the south Duchess Aubrae Avan rules; turning her part of the realm into little more than an extension of her father’s domain. The commoners actually adore her, but the nobles despise her foreign airs, and the merchant class absolutely hates her heavy taxes and extravagant spending.
