Barony of Ungams - And the City of Harp

In the Nightside Region, there is a barony, one of the younger, southern Baronies, settled only a short 600 years ago.  It is currently ruled by Baron Virondis Pulchky, also known as the Music Baron, from the City of Harp.

The capitol city of Ungams is an interesting place, as it contains some very fascinating locations, and also because of where it is located in the Valley.

It is near the Nell Nod forest, and all of the different threats that come out of there, and it is also located near the edge of influence of the Sun King Tribes.  In the plains around the Barony, the Khozaki people dwell, with their great herds of riding lizards, the Fethta.

Along the edge of the Nell Nod Forest, the Temple of Light was built by Padre Kelvin, in the year 603, about three hundred years before the establishment of the City.  At that time, there were only scant and dispersed settlers in the region, often living in fortified hillforts, or they were purely nomadic.  At this time, the Westroners in the area were in a state of constant strife with the Khozaki people, and it often turned into violent raids and small scale warfare between settlements and nomdic groups of the two cultures.  The only thing that brought them together was horrific Mass Frenzy of the Sun King barbarians in the 8th century.

Within the city is the great Cathedral to Saint Horace, called the Stone of Life.  The Cathedral is itself built as a series of tiered semi-circles, the front (outer edge of the circle) of all of them forming a smooth face to the front, forming the face of the Cathedral.  This face is decorated in the typical fashion of Westron Cathedrals - lots of fluted and decorative pillars; stained glass windows; gargoyles along the various levels of roofs and balconies.  The top of the Cathedral, along the front outer edge, has multiple towers and steeples, all topped with gargoyles.  Most of the gargoyles of the Stone of Life Cathedral have the faces of Animals, rather than devils or grotesques.  The back of the cathedral, is as mentioned, a set of tiered steps - 8 stories high - and each story having an open semi-circular balcony.  At the center of a circle that the semi-circle building would form, there is a flat green park, with radial walks covered in decorative white pea gravel.  At the center of the radial works - the center of the park - there is a rising white obelisk coming out of the ground.  All up and down the obelisk are carvings of the various different types of animals (non-magical) of the Valley.  Every point of the semi-circular building is equidistant from the Obelisk.  The Stone of Life, as it is called, is key to the worship services of the Order of St. Horace.

One of the domes at the top of the Palace of Seven Harmonies

The seat of power is the Palace of Seven Harmonies.  This is at the heart of the City, on the tallest of the five Harp Hills that make up the base for the city.  The center hill, called Oldoon, has the Palace built on top of it.  The Harp Hills are what give the name of "City of Harp" to the capitol.  Underneath the hill of Oldoon, however, exist the Dungeons of Suel Sonas.  Suel Sonas was a vizier, then an official title in the City of Harp, in the first century after the founding of the Barony.  It was thought that the growth of the Barony would be enhanced if there was a place to put convicted criminals, including those that practiced crime out among the nomads and settlers.  So, Suel commissioned a group of Dwarves to come and build the underground penal site.  The dungeons were named for him, and although he passed away several years before the dungeon was completed, still it was named for him.

The current ruler, Virondis Pulchky, is 8th regent of the city and the barony to hail from the Aeryfell family.  Within family tradition, each new generational member, and especially those who are considered for the Throne in Ungams, must exhibit some musical talent.   Baron Pulchky, when he came to the throne, was already an accomplished player of the large Hawm flute.  He had done a number of compositions, and his playing is most excellent.  He continues, as Baron, to play whenever possible.  He, more so than any of the early Aeryfell barons or baronesses, patronize the musical arts.