The Iron Duchy did not greet visitors with banners or music. It greeted them with stone, steel, and silence.
Endless steel grey mountains rose like jagged blades thrust into the sky. Their peaks were not soft with snow but hardened with frost that never melted, even under summer sun. The wind that moved through the passes carried the scent of iron and ash, as if the land itself had been forged in a furnace and left to cool unfinished.
Training grounds were carved directly into the cliffs. Platforms of black stone jutted out over thousand foot drops. Chains anchored massive iron dummies to the rock face. Deep cuts in the stone marked where blades had struck over decades. No structure here was built for comfort. Everything was shaped for endurance.
Warriors trained in silence.
