The Skargardian Keep rose beside the main royal castle like a second heart of the kingdom, older in spirit if not in stone. It was a vast square-shaped structure with high white walls and corner towers that caught the evening light long after the lower buildings had surrendered it. Even from the outer approach, it carried a different presence from the palace itself. The royal castle was built to govern. The Keep had been built to be remembered.
Its history was old enough that people repeated it over the centuries. A thousand years ago, when the kingdom was first founded, the land belonged to two figures who later passed into legend: a male elf and a human woman, both of whom were counted among the important members of the Resistance against the Demons. They had also fought in the war against the Demons along with the Human God, Kaelor, and after his death, they carved out a kingdom of their own there. Their child, born of both bloodlines, became the first true king of Skargardia.
