![[characters_banner_2.webp]] `Apr. 22, 2025` · [[Horseapple]] · #Fragment #Characters #Bannerlord > [!custom-callout]- All mentions > *Pulled from* [[3-Travels-in-Calradia-(DLC)]] — “We did not stay to find out who won. One of my companions was Fiogrin, a bard, who said he had watched a number of battles, as the Battanians will pay highly for eyewitness accounts of fighting set to song. By all means, he said, watch the beginnings, when the armies are drawn up in their battle-lines with everyone's armor clean and shining, and you can identify every lord present by his banner. But don't stay for the end, when everyone is running this way and that, bloodied and maddened and slashing at anything that moves, and the looters are moving down from the hills to defile the slain. That, he said, you can improvise. So we returned to our journey.” — “From here, we turned southwest, climbing the long rocky slopes of the Uchalion plateau, the last refuge of the Battanians. Fiogrin was very talkative on the journey. To me, the Battanian landscape is all rocks and grass and oak-groves and heather, but to a bard it is a tapestry of stories, particularly fanciful explanations of place-names. Over there is the village Diantogmail, which sounds a bit like the Battanian words for "slippery" and "stoat." Clearly, that was where Old Mon had pursued one of the Emperor's magicians, who transformed himself into a stoat to escape. (Needless to say there is no record of an emperor who employed magicians.) Over here is where the hero Calain, gripped by battle-madness, bit his shield before fighting an enemy and spit out the rim and formed that clump of rocks, Basciath, Shield-Snack.” — “As we crested the ridge and entered the Uchalion plateau itself, the land dropped away a little bit and we found ourselves in a great grove of ancient yew trees, twisted and dark. The Battanians take the trees on the outer edges to make the staves for their bows, but, according to Fiogrin, those in the center are sacred. Centuries ago, he said, the holy men of the Battanians hung human sacrifices from the tree-limbs. He says that the practice has long since died out, but it was hard for me to stare into the darkness and not imagine bones and skulls in the rustling upper branches.” > &emsp;&emsp;<br> ![[encyclopedia_calradica.gif|center|300]]<br> >*“A massive `Mount & Blade` wikipedia.”*<br>About [Encyclopædia Calradica](About-the-Encyclopædia.md)<br>About the [Project](Project-(Pillar).md)<br>About the [Author](Horseapple.md) <br>&emsp;&emsp;