The Kingdom of the Cambria

Cambria carries its root meaning — combrogi, the compatriots, the fellow-countrymen. Not a place: a people. The article is deliberate.

The crown

One man holds the Prestige. He goes about his life in the world, and the kingdom hunts him. He reports in; his ring of safety grows the longer he holds out and shrinks when he takes an objective. When he is caught, the crown passes and the hunt begins again with a new man to find.

A man who has held the crown never hunts again. His part is done, and he keeps the standing of it for life.

The grades

Aspirant
Sworn, and not yet blooded.
Hunter
Conferred by his Pedagogue after their first shared hunt.
Ranger
Hunted three hundred miles from where he began.
Knight
Closed to within four hundred metres of the crown.

Every one of them is earned by a deed. None of them is for sale, here or anywhere.

The Realms

The whole inhabited world is enclosed. A man’s realm follows his lineage, not his address — he answers to the realm of the man who brought him in. Within a realm stand its Houses, and within a House its Clans, which is where a man actually lives: his hall, his brothers, his colours.

  • The North Reach
  • The Western March
  • The Heartland
  • The Southern Cross
  • The Cordillera
  • The Meridian
  • The Occident
  • The Eastern Bastion
  • The Saharan Gate
  • The Rift
  • The Golden Road
  • The Rising Sun
  • Oceania

How a man comes in

  1. A member vouches for him and issues an invitation — one a month, six in a lifetime.
  2. He reads his Pedagogue’s letter and the Triads, and takes the Oath of the Recruit.
  3. He joins his Pedagogue’s clan and lineage, and draws the same monthly allotment as every other man.
  4. After their first shared hunt, his Pedagogue puts the ring on his hand himself.

No purchase admits a man, and no purchase is required to compete. The Box a Pedagogue may send is a gift of regalia — the ring, the coin, the colours — and the letter and the Triads are free to every recruit.

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