Though Iron Fortress on Ouman Island was no longer Kendick's royal capital, both its location and its nature made it the heart of the entire Moonshadow Archipelago.
This had originally been the site of the Ffolk druids' holy temple and royal capital. Over a thousand years ago, for reasons unknown, the Ffolk as a whole moved their capital to Karkalidir on Kynes Island in the south.
The original Iron Fortress had then, in the blink of an eye, become the largest and most impregnable stronghold of the Northlanders on Ouman Island. It also produced Coriel's most unconventional paladins, along with their advanced paths: temple warriors and grail knights.
Though they worshipped the Holy Light, theirs was the most terrifying and violent kingdom in the entire Kendick Dynasty, inhabited by the most warlike people of the Moonshadow Archipelago.
What baffled outsiders was that throughout these dozen-odd centuries, the Northlanders and the Ffolk had remained locked in conflict. Even those born of marriages between the two peoples were rejected by the mainstream. Yet the two still maintained a tacit relationship of coexistence, and whenever foreign powers invaded, they would join forces against the outside enemy—as in this Moonsea War.
After the Supreme Queen, Alicia Kendick, ascended the throne, the Northlanders were for a time so won over by her bearing that they formally joined the Kendick Dynasty.
The Moonshadow Archipelago had always stood isolated overseas and refused trade or contact with the coastal city-states of the Sword Coast. As such, outsiders' knowledge of the archipelago was often riddled with errors; some could not even distinguish the relationship between the Northlanders and the Ffolk.
Yet now, this kingdom—small in population but exceptionally fierce—had plainly fallen before Luskan's sturdy ships and heavy guns.
Upon Iron Fortress's walls, once bristling with sharpened spears, Aklam stood