[narrator] Three centuries past, the Shattered Realm of Valdris was one.
A kingdom of roads and harvests, of towers lit at dusk, of ordinary people living ordinary lives beneath the watchful rule of Archking Valdris Ironmourne. At the heart of his power sat the Valdris Crown — five emerald shards set in ancient mithral, each one a fragment of the land's own life-force, bound together by craft long since passed from living memory.