“The land of Hounds is where empires go to die,” goes the old saying, and the history of Dacai a’Coinn (dah-KAI-ah-KOYN) bears that out. The Duchy is a land of hills and valleys, of deep woods and burbling streams, taking up all of the Kingdom’s western border with Aurendale and stretching across half of its southern border along the Spine. The last of the lands of Rivermark to join the Kingdom, its people are fiercely independent and notoriously skilled at violence. When the forces of the Aurellian or Vauldan empires invaded, the Coinneanar (KOYN-yah-NAR) were forced back into their hill fortresses, but they made the invaders pay in blood for every inch of ground. When raiders from the Dalean Princes or Jarls of Iskaldur struck, they found only howls and death. The people of the Dacai have never learned how to forgive or forget, and they have historically nursed grudges until either they or their targets died of old age.
Farming the rocky and often steeply-sloping ground is difficult, but the hills are more than fertile enough for thriving sheep and cattle herds to roam across them. Many large swathes of primordial forests squat over the valleys within the Dacai, filled with savage beasts and other, more eldritch entities. The foothills of the Spine are rich in silver, gold, and Mithryl, and the Province makes a considerable sum of coin extracting and exporting its natural resources.
The Duchy’s great pride are the many Galloglaich and Reiver Clanns that call it home, who offer their services as mercenaries, military trainers, and hunters to folk across the Continent. Dacai a’Coinn produces many ferocious fighters, skirmishers and line-breakers who take grim pride in their home Province’s history of sending invading forces limping home; with the beginning of a new Churning, they know that there will be blood upon the wind once more, and that the Hounds of Dacai will once more be called upon to tear apart the enemies of their Kingdom.