Rivallonian Monarchy
The crown of Rivalon — the throne at Cathalon that the whole Reclamation exists to restore. The Rivallonian Archival Catalogue of Kings, Queens, and Sovereigns lists twenty-eight rulers under three distinct titles: ten Kings, nine Sovereigns, and nine Queens. The catalogue is a court document with a court document's manners — it records who held the crown and pointedly refuses to say who deserved it — but its punctuation gives the game away entirely.
The catalogue
Kings (10): Osric the First · Roderic the Great · Godric the Holy · Fendric the Just · Theodric the Commoner · Balric the Mighty · Eadric the Rich* · Leofric the Beloved · Alfric the Elder · Aethelric the Studious
Sovereigns (9*): Kynolde the Royal · Ernolde the Steadfast · Sigolde the Victorious · Oswolde the Divine · Dunholde the Dreadful · Gwengolde the Gilded · Haleholde the Stoic · Fritholde the Peaceful · Arnelholde the Eagle · [Isolde the Rightful]*
Queens (9*): Aethelwyn the Joyous · Alwynn the Elder · Hemelwynn the Cruel* · Maerwynn the Strong · Orvynn the Fateful · Seaxewynn the Sharp · Thrydwynn the Righteous · Raewyn the Silent · Freywynn the Prevailer · [Laewendas the Quisling]*
The naming convention
A regnal name in Rivalon announces the title before it announces the person. Kings end in -ric, Sovereigns in -olde (or -holde), and Queens in -wyn / -wynn. Twenty-seven of the twenty-eight names obey the rule without exception.
The twenty-eighth is Laewendas, filed among the Queens with a name that ends in nothing of the sort. Whatever else the catalogue declines to say about her, its own naming law says she took the title without taking the form of it.
By the same convention, Ysolde — listed here as Isolde the Rightful — carries a Sovereign's name, not a Queen's, which matches how The Coalition's pact styles her: Rightful Sovereign of Orathos, while Freywynn is styled Former Queen of Orathos. "Sovereign" is a third throne-title in its own right, not a polite synonym.
The asterisks and the brackets
The catalogue marks four rulers as controversial and refuses to explain why:
"It is not the place of an archival catalogue to speak upon the rightfulness of any individual King, Queen, or Sovereign's status. Several controversial figures have been identified to the reader in this list through the use of asterisks."
The asterisked four are Eadric the Rich, [Isolde the Rightful], Hemelwynn the Cruel, and [Laewendas the Quisling].
Two of them get a second mark the archivist never mentions: square brackets, and only Isolde and Laewendas have them. Both bracketed names sit last in their columns, after the final undisputed ruler of that title. Both are alive. Both claim the same throne right now. The brackets read as an archivist's way of recording a claimant rather than a seated monarch — a name entered in the ledger because it must be, and fenced off because the crowning it implies has not lawfully happened. Rivalon holds that a monarch is made by the Coven of the Lake; by that standard neither woman has been made one. (Reading, not stated fact — flagged in Canon Questions.)
The unbracketed asterisks are a different kind of doubt: Eadric the Rich and Hemelwynn the Cruel sit mid-column among rulers nobody disputes, so whatever is wrong with them is a matter of conduct or succession, not of legitimacy on the throne. Nothing else about either is yet known.
Where the catalogue meets the war
- Aethelric the Studious is the last King — the King Aethelric whom Laewendas murdered with his own sword at Kingfall in 1357, presenting his severed head to court (see Rivalon, World History). The catalogue closes the male line on him.
- Freywynn the Prevailer is the last undisputed Queen — and Freywynn, Former Queen of Orathos, is a signatory of the reclamation pact (The Coalition). A monarch out of the ledger signed the document that sent the party here.
- Haelric, Aethelric's son-in-law, who warred on Laewendas in 1358 and was assassinated, does not appear — he has a King's name and no King's entry. He fought for the crown and never wore it.
- The Reclamation's entire political objective is to strike one bracketed name out of this list and un-bracket the other: restore Ysolde in Cathalon. Laewendas must be the first to fall.
Governance
Rivalon runs Monarch → Dukes → Earls → Barons → Mayors → Commoners, and is uniquely class-undiscriminating — a fact the catalogue quietly corroborates with Theodric the Commoner, a King remembered by his origin. Tributaries pay the monarch in gold. New monarchs are crowned by the Coven of the Lake, thirteen witches of clandestine method. Under Laewendas the structure was sold off wholesale: territories and tribute rights carved up and handed to bandit warlords such as Mindel Cromelon and Cormoran.
(The archive spells the realm "Rivallonian"; the vault's location note is Rivalon. Twenty-eight rulers across an independence dating to 4E 4 would average roughly half a century apiece — arithmetic, not a source claim. Note also the collision between Alfric the Elder / Alwynn the Elder and Eldrich the Elder, whose mishearings include "Aethelric the Elder"; no source connects them.)