Before Hrafn’s invasion. Before Barow’s lightning strike. Before Mindo’s fleet. There was the Order of Taryn, and for four hundred years there was nothing else.

The Order was founded in the aftermath of the Second Elven War — the conflict that produced the Treaty of the First Crossing and sealed the Sundering Sea. Four generals who had fought together since childhood decided that the chaos of competing city-states had made them vulnerable. They pooled their territories, established a common law, and named the resulting entity after the city where they signed the agreement.

Taryn’s Hold was chosen because it was central, defensible, and had good water. It became the capital of the known world almost by accident.

The Order’s claim to legitimacy is simple: they kept the peace. Four hundred years without a major internal war is, by any historical standard, extraordinary. They achieved it through a combination of military dominance, diplomatic skill, and a very sophisticated intelligence operation — the division that eventually produced Bartholomew.

Bartholomew did not sell the Order out for money. He sold them out because he had concluded, eight years before the invasion, that they were going to fall. His analysis was correct. When the fall came, Bartholomew was already working for whoever came next.

The tragedy of the Order is not that they were corrupt. It is that they were competent, and competence was not enough.

Lore

World Building

Order of Taryn