Great Northern Highway

The Great Northern Highway was to be the greatest achievement of the builders of roads, the Irian Empire's rule. While the empire was whole there were two attempts at creating the highway, and a third route was created long after its collapse. Since its inception it has been a way to join the landsman realms along the eastern reaches of Allornus together, and has allowed their armies and their wealth to aid one another in times of need. In more recent times, however, it has benefited only Ralstaa, and the high kingdom has become, in many ways, the ancient highway's new master.

The First Northern Highway


In a time when the race of men was still young, new-come to the lands of Allornus, they wished to remain united though their tribes were scattered. Irik came to believe that roads - not merely marked paths trodden bare by traffic, but the raised, rubble-hardened highways his people had pioneered. And to that end he commanded that, as a gift to his brother and sister Divh, his people would commit to undertake a great work over the course of generations, to forge a highway that would join them all as one. The path of the first great northern highway was to begin at Irikhan Mora, and stretch along the sweep of the southern coast, through Ralstaa by way of Ralsholm, all the way to the cold gates, to terminate at a city that once lay some leagues north of Petyorgrad, where there is now only frozen ocean. But the highway barely reached the lands of the Dun when the sundering sent most of the land upon which it sat to drowned oblivion. And in that time, and for centuries after, all was darkness.

The Second Northern Highway


After the chaos of the sundering the Irian Emperors restarted their old mission, building a highway that would originate at Irikhan Mora again, and this time follow the line of the Sirolas Mountains (though hundreds of leagues south) through the Caperkils, via Tohl Lora, to the cold gates up Kutsani, with plans to extend west into Idalgarten, then through Svalanik, and eventually over the Ironheads to the Unchallenged City. There were even plans to found another highway that would lead around the western edge of the mountains, through to the imposing Haedrasian capitol, forming a great loop that connected the four mighty landsman civilizations, but the highways had scarcely left Kutsani's northern gate when Mol-Vannemat and his family fell to assassin's blades, and the empire collapsed forever.

The Current Northern Highway


As it stands now the Ralstaan Principality of Caldare, whose hate of the Irians has been law since the Ralstaan reformation, has somewhat subverted the course of the highway as it once lay. Now, instead of passing from Irikhan Mora, the highway wends north from Tohl Caldare, rejoining the path of the second highway at Adwynmawr and continuing through Tohl Dannis, Tohl, and out of the High Kingdom to Tohl Graihaen, past Aulorn's Gate and terminates as it always did at Kutsani in Vo Gabrov. Noble born second and third sons often join a body known as the Royal Road Wardens, which is filled out with criminals not fit for execution, whose job is to police the road. The entire length of the road, from Tohl Caldare to Kutsani is considered sovereign territory of the High King, even that which falls within the border of the Dunsain lands and Vo Gabrov.