Entwood

Entwood is an independent city-state in Aesala, governing the city itself along with surrounding farmland, villages, roads, and the territory required for its defense. It is best known to outsiders for the siege of 8752 SE and the unusual magical and mechanical defenses developed during that conflict. Its most consequential political feature, however, remains unknown to most of its inhabitants: the eight noble families that form the Council of Entwood are not successive generations of rulers, but the same vampires who have governed the city for centuries.

The council traces its origins to Luther Mortanas, who helped establish Entwood’s government before the losses and infernal bargain that transformed the later course of his life. Mortanas sired the original rulers of the eight families as vampires, providing the continuity they believed mortal government could not reliably preserve. Mortanas eventually ceased to be part of Entwood’s government, but the system he helped create endured.

Government

Entwood’s public government is an aristocratic council composed of eight noble families: Chrestmere, Briarthorn, Zhou, Yarnibrith, Sorsk, Lionmantle, Sagefallow, and Wan-Lei. To the public, these families appear to be hereditary political houses whose descendants inherit their places in government. The leading family rotates according to a predetermined schedule, preventing any one house from permanently claiming precedence over the others.

The apparent succession of generations is a carefully maintained fiction. The vampires do not have children who inherit their positions. Instead, a councilor eventually stages a death, withdraws from public life, alters their appearance, assumes a new first name, and later reappears as the supposed descendant who has inherited the family’s responsibilities. The family name remains unchanged while the individual identity presented to the city changes. Over many generations this has allowed the same rulers to remain in power without openly revealing their nature.

The council is not merely ceremonial. Its members govern Entwood directly and make the city’s major political decisions, while magistrates, guards, administrators, and other officials carry out ordinary civic government. A small number of trusted confidants know the truth of the arrangement; Nicomachus Ruanar was among those entrusted with the secret by 8752 SE. The council has never permanently lost one of its members, so Entwood has no tested tradition for how a true vacancy among the vampiric rulers would be filled.

The Eight Families in 8752 SE

The public identities used by the governing families have changed repeatedly over time. In 8752 SE, the council was represented by the following nobles:

These names represent the identities the vampires used during that period rather than separate mortal generations. By 8813 SE, some may have adopted later identities while the underlying membership of the eight families remains unchanged.

Philosophy of Rule

The council regards its immortality as a political solution rather than merely a personal privilege. Its members believe that even a just ruler can leave behind institutions that later generations weaken through ambition, incompetence, rivalry, or short-sightedness. Their answer is to remove generational succession from the highest level of government while allowing the rest of civic life to continue normally beneath them.

The council has long used the history of Arkrist as an example of the problem it believes it solved. In the account favored by the Entwood nobles, Cailynn Sunshard replaced an ineffectual warlord, created more just institutions, and governed successfully for centuries, only for factional conflict to erode much of that work after her natural death. In 8752 SE, Bheman Lionmantle used that history when explaining the council’s philosophy to the Brass Blades: Entwood’s rulers intended to preserve the wisdom and experience of good government without allowing death to force the city into repeated cycles of uncertain succession.

That system has provided extraordinary continuity. Councilors can remember the consequences of decisions made centuries earlier because they were personally involved in making them. It also means that the citizens of Entwood live under rulers whose true identities, nature, and permanence are deliberately concealed from them. The council sees the deception as necessary to preserve stable government and prevent fear of vampirism from overwhelming judgment of its actual record.

Feeding and Secrecy

The eight nobles do not all sustain themselves in the same manner. Some rely upon willing volunteers. Others feed upon criminals. Still others make extensive use of animal blood. Nicomachus Ruanar developed an alchemical preparation capable of making animal blood sufficient to sustain a vampire, greatly reducing the practical need for human feeding among councilors willing to use it.

These practices are kept within the same narrow circle of secrecy as the council’s true nature. The methods chosen by individual nobles therefore reflect personal ethics and preference rather than a single publicly administered feeding system. The fact that the council has remained hidden for centuries depends as much on trusted intermediaries and disciplined behavior as it does on the repeated fiction of hereditary succession.

Defense and the Siege of 8752 SE

Entwood maintains an organized city guard and defenses appropriate to an independent city-state, but the attack by the Grand Army of the Djozanates in 8752 SE required measures far beyond ordinary preparation. The Brass Blades helped secure military aid from Danto, while Nicomachus Ruanar developed new weapons intended to compensate for the scale of the attacking force.

One of those defenses was a cannon powered by Shriekstone, an unusual material associated with the abandoned dwarven city of Gorneduhr. When the Blades were unable to recover as much Shriekstone as originally hoped, Nicomachus pursued an alternate plan and completed the Fist of Beskatel, a large manned construct used during the defense. The siege also revealed that many apparent Djozanate soldiers were actually members of the Drow revolutionary organization Venorik Killianen concealed by magical deception.

The survival of Entwood did not transform the city into a center of mass-produced magical artillery. The weapons of 8752 depended on unusual materials, specialized expertise, and emergency circumstances. They did, however, leave Entwood with a strong institutional memory of combining conventional fortification with magical and mechanical defenses when facing threats that ordinary city forces cannot contain.

Modern Entwood

The same eight vampiric families continue to govern Entwood in 8813 SE beneath later public identities. Their long rule has made the city unusually stable compared with many neighboring states, while the secrecy at the heart of that stability remains known only to a limited circle.

Entwood has also become important beyond its immediate territory. By 8793 SE, it was one of the largest hubs of the Aegis Regnum, alongside Elgaard. Its regional importance therefore rests not only on the longevity of its rulers, but on the city’s defenses, institutions, and connections to organizations operating across much of the world.