Region of Calontir
See also the Baron Geoffri of Wareine Interview
Master Juan mka Brocke Hanke[edit | edit source]
I was around for a great deal of putting Calontir together (I was the 12th member of the Shire of Three Rivers). And so, I remember a few things. If you read the long interview link (Baron Geoffri of Wareine Interview), you will find Geoffri talking about "baby steps." This is not how I viewed the matter, although we worked well together. My concept was that, if you wanted to convince the Board of Directors (who could outrank the Crown of the Middle if it wanted to) that you should be made a Principality, and you don't have hardly any peers, then what you should do is set up a structure that is exactly like a Principality, but not official. That was the Region. Officially, as Geoffri notes, the only existence that Calontir had was that there was a Deputy Seneschal to the Middle Kingdom Senescal, for the Region of Calontir, whatever that was. That was it. We didn't even have legal boundaries; just a deputy to the Kingdom seneschal for an unnamed and undefined thing called the "Region of Calontir." The only real differences between the Region and a Principality was that Regional awards were not official when we were giving them out, and we didn't require a fighter to have a prospective consort to enter CalonTourney, where the winner would become the Champion for a few months, and then would become Warlord. We did have a rule that you could not succeed yourself, which is why Brummbar didn't win all of those tourneys.
So, we puttered along, with an absolutely ENORMOUS debt to the recently departed Elwyn of Fountain Grove. She was the person who succeeded Geoffri as Deputy Seneschal for the Region of Calontir, when Geoffri's mundane work forced him to move out of Calontir. Remember that, for most of Elwyn's tenure, she WAS the Region of Calontir, legally. Her position as the Deputy Seneschal for the Region of Calontir was ALL that we had, officially. She had to go through the push for Principality, and then for Kingdom. She burned to a crisp about the time we became a Kingdom, and never got a Pelican, but I'd give her 23 Pelicans for what she did. She had to intermediate between the likes of Brom, Ternon and me against Laurelen, his wife Ithriel, who was the Middle Kingdom seneschal in question, and Alen Elegil, who didn't like anything we did. It is true, BTW, that Alen, as King, and Ithriliel , as Seneschal, came to an event in Forgotten Sea. Not many of us had ever even seen them, but I had. As soon as I came in view, Alen ran right over to me and ordered me to not let on that I knew who he and Ithriliel were! They wanted to go to a Royalty-starved area and remain incognito. That was where Alen first picked up his bad reputation here. In fairness, he was the sitting Middle Kingdom King who crowned Chepe and Arwyn as first King and Queen of Calontir.
Another note about Elwyn of Fountain Grove. Being the only official person in any capacity in the Region of Calontir (whatever that was), she had to put together our application for Principality - the application that got sent to the BoD. I've seen the letter she got in response. It says, approximately, "PRINCIPALITY? This is the best KINGDOM application we've ever seen. Of course you can become a Principality." Elwyn, having never seen a Principality application before, was just totally relieved when she found out that she had NOT bungled it. As Calontir, we should remember this. We turned in the best KINGDOM application the BoD had ever seen, when we were applying to become a Principality. We really did have our act together.
Elasait adds: "Brock Hanke, as I recall he didn't want to be that king. I remember a story about Aelflaed of Duckford, who was steward of the Society at the time, going toe-to-toe with him about how Calontir *was* going to become a kingdom, and if he didn't want to show up to our first Crown Tourney/Coronation he didn't have to, because it was the Board's vote that made us a kingdom, not whether the king of the Midrealm chose to attend the event or not."
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