“Roots deeper than crowns.”
The motto of Thornvale
From Thuringia to Thornvale
House Bracken’s descendants arrived from Thuringia carrying a small chest of seeds and the records of their former villages. Rather than build a court apart from the settlers, they helped establish meeting grounds where households could speak before their lords. Thornvale’s later resistance grew from that inherited expectation of a hearing. Its charter gave written form to a tradition older than Corvaine’s crown: a ruler should listen before taking what a community needs to survive.
The Unbroken Promise
Thornvale began as scattered settlements sheltered by wooded valleys and thick hedgerows. When an early royal governor demanded grain during a failed harvest, the villagers blocked the roads with thorn branches and refused to surrender their winter stores. Soldiers arrived expecting a quick submission. They found every village ready to endure the same siege.
The standoff ended with the Thorn Charter: taxes would require an open hearing, and the crown would recognize the settlements' shared rights to their fields and woodland. A copy was placed in the citadel; another was read aloud each spring in the village squares.
With the throne empty, ambitious lords now question whether a dead king's promises still bind them. Thornvale's answer is simple. The charter was won by its people, and its people remain. A ruler may command its walls, but earning the valley's allegiance requires honoring the agreements beneath them.
Every state carries its own history. In Law of Kings, players build cities, form alliances, and contest citadels within the same persistent realm. Read the citadel guide for gameplay rules.
Your chapter in Thornvale
The old history explains how this state reached a divided Corvaine. Your cities, decisions, and alliances will shape what follows.