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Galuntrung Keep first appeared in the histories of the Kingdom some centuries ago, when an unknown Lord of the Stein family vested his fortunes on its construction. This he did, to secure for himself, and his family, a place of power from which to rule the commonfolk of his fief. For many years, the castle became a symbol of the pains that arise from any feudal system; the Stein family were not kind to their subjects, and taxed them relentlessly. Peasant uprisings were put down violently, thus spawning a pitiful cycle of resentment and revenge, where every few years a son of a slain farmer would rise up against his Lord.

This continued from the Keep's founding, to its undoing, when during the Korsh Invasion, the King neglected to assist the Stein family in their darkest hour. The result was the total sacking of Galuntrung Castle, and the villages that surrounded it. Only the keep remained, thoug it had been reduced to a hollow and burnt out ruin.

With the castle's fall, the Stein family faded in obscurity, and the ruins became dormant for generations. Every so often, vagrants or bandits would make their home in it, only to be eventually driven out by the local sheriffs. For decades, Galuntrung was more or less forgotten, and no Lord sought to rebuild over the bones of an archaic and hated family.

However, when Kalar Splint, a heart broken and raging vigilante, founded his Rangers, Galuntrung Keep became the perfect home for a geurilla force. Nestled on the western edge of the White Woods, its forested surrounds provided it perfect cover, and plenty of yew to be used in the construction of longbows. Additionally, any advancing force of determined brigands would be broken apart by the trees and forced to fight scattered.

To the present day, Galuntrung Keep remains Kalar Splint's base of operations, and it is from there that he is able to launch raids against bandit camps with total impunity. In times of dire need, when a settlement has become compromised by external threats, the keep is used as a refugee shelter.

The Crown pays little attention to Galuntrung Keep, preferring to turn a blind eye to Kalar and his band of vigilantes, rather than take action against his questionable attitudes to the Kingdom's justice system. If nothing else, the continued existence of Galuntrung Keep reduces the pressure on the Crown's armies and watches.

The structure of the keep itself has received little love from the Rangers, who have made no effort to rebuild the curtain wall. Instead, they revel in the idea of defending the mish-mashed structure as it is, believing that any real defensive battle would be fought in the forests around them, as opposed at the keep itself.





The Rangers of Galuntrung are a famous band of vigilantes, perceived romantically throughout the Kingdom as guardian angels, who risk themselves for strangers. They are adept archers, skilled in the use of the longbow, and rely heavily on guerrilla tactics with which to subdue their enemy. Traditionally, they hunt down criminals, and execute them without trial - a practice that has at times received scorn from the Crown in some form or another. However, though their form of justice is cold and absolute, the commonfolk support their endevours whole heartedly.

The Rangers found their beginning twenty years ago, when Kalar Splint, husband to a murdered wife, and father to two murdered daughters, tracked down the highwaymen responsible for the slaying of his family and killed them in Shadowsong Forest. This act ignited a spark in Kalar, who dedicated himself to killing those who would harm others without good cause. Over the course of the months that followed the avenging of his family, Kalar murdered several bandits, rapists, frausters and thieves. Sometimes his actions blurred the lines of morality, but it mattered little to those who he avenged.

Soon, tales of a hooded ranger that stalked the forsests of the Kingdom became the core subject matter of many bards. Kalar's exploits made him a reluctant victim of fame, which brought him into confrontation with the law. Arrested for murder, Kalar was spared the hangman's noose by a sympathetic judge who shared in Kalar's views of those that used their strength and power to abuse the helpless. He got off lightly, and vanished.

Going from village to village, from west to east, he gathered a broad following of have-a-go heroes and indebted "clients", all of whom swore their alliegence to him. With such support, Kalar was able to tackle larger bandit gangs, and though his first operations were bloody disasters, he soon became a competent commander. He cut a bloody swarth across the land, driving bandits into obscurity, and enabling remote settlements to prosper.

Kalar finally ended up at Galuntrung Keep, which he made his base of operations. From there, his ability to project how power to the surrounds increased tenfold, which rendered him an unofficial Lord of those people that dwelt within sight of the keep. However, being stuck in one location damaged his ability to launch forays further afield, and soon lawlessness returned to the Kingdom's southern, northern and western extremities.

Still, the east prospered, and the Rangers' ranks swelled. Today, they are perhaps the Kingdom's largest military presence within a hundred miles of the White Woods.

However, they refuse to swear allegiance to a Crown. Kalar saw the Kings and Queens of his country as merely biggoted fools, disconnected from reality and from the plight of the commonfolk. The lack of army patrols in the remote areas of the Kingdom only served to backup his feelings, and so he chose to remain fiercely independent of any form of state regulation. Though, on the same note, he has never openly challenged a soldier of the Crown - even if said soldier was as much as a bandit as the roughians Kalar put to the sword. The Chief Ranger knew that civil unrest between himself and the Capitol would only cause misery and harm to those he sought to protect in the long term.

There is perhaps a thousand rangers all told, though not all are active at any one time. Many, unlike Kalar, do not ail from troubled pasts, and have families and obligations to look after. Therefore, rangers are rotated every three months, though the Chief Ranger reserves the right to call for a general muster in times of crisis. Such a move would take days to organize.

Each ranger is trained in the use of the longbow and the sword, though skills vary drastically between members. Typically, the best of them are those who willfully serve full time, and it is they who form the vanguard in any attack.

To help lead his men, Kalar has a number of lieutenants who take care of the day-to-day running of the organization, leaving him free to personally take part in patrols and engagements.