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Ladies and gents, the castle of Anvard, circa LB and Dust. Yes, that's Neuschwanstein Castle. For some reason, that's the only picture of Neuschwanstein I've found so far that really works for me as Anvard; a lot of the other ones aren't as dramatic and, I guess, fantastic as that one. I quite like Hohenzollern too; here's another good picture of Hohenzollern, with some dramatic landscapes. My mental image, as it is (I don't do images very well) is sort of a combination of the two, though more with Neuschwanstein's surrounding geography, I believe. Here's another dramatic picture of Neuschwanstein.
Before I came back from break, I spent some time coming up with rather dramatic history for Archenland, which I've almost never dealt with before in my 'verse. Lewis gives a taste of Archenlander history and legends here and there, but it's not something he deals with in detail either. It is yet to see how much of Archenland's legendary past will come into play in Dust, though probably just hints here and there. For example: a king of Archenland married a daughter of the river god of the Winding Arrow, and thus brought everything that its waters touched under his control, so there's a sizable portion of the Great Southern Desert that's technically Archenlander, though don't tell the desert-dwellers that. The mountains get higher, larger, and more dramatic the further west one goes: out of the domain of Aslan and into the province of Cybele, the Mother of Mountains, who gave the second king of Archenland the castle of Anvard. Gladis the Bold was a descendant of his, a princess who ran away from Anvard to face down the White Dragon of Arrowshead Peak alone and unaided when it was ravaging the land. (And sometimes I have to resist the urge to digress and write about her, because from what little I know of her, she's pretty awesome.) The kings and queens of Archenland descend in unbroken succession from King Frank I and Queen Helen of Narnia. And there's a reason no king of Archenland has ever won a battle on Narnian soil.
Before I came back from break, I spent some time coming up with rather dramatic history for Archenland, which I've almost never dealt with before in my 'verse. Lewis gives a taste of Archenlander history and legends here and there, but it's not something he deals with in detail either. It is yet to see how much of Archenland's legendary past will come into play in Dust, though probably just hints here and there. For example: a king of Archenland married a daughter of the river god of the Winding Arrow, and thus brought everything that its waters touched under his control, so there's a sizable portion of the Great Southern Desert that's technically Archenlander, though don't tell the desert-dwellers that. The mountains get higher, larger, and more dramatic the further west one goes: out of the domain of Aslan and into the province of Cybele, the Mother of Mountains, who gave the second king of Archenland the castle of Anvard. Gladis the Bold was a descendant of his, a princess who ran away from Anvard to face down the White Dragon of Arrowshead Peak alone and unaided when it was ravaging the land. (And sometimes I have to resist the urge to digress and write about her, because from what little I know of her, she's pretty awesome.) The kings and queens of Archenland descend in unbroken succession from King Frank I and Queen Helen of Narnia. And there's a reason no king of Archenland has ever won a battle on Narnian soil.