The government of the Human nation is a rather traditional model; there is a hereditary monarch who rules the land, and he has various lieutenants who rule over specific regions on his behalf. The difference is a matter of scale; instead of a King ruling over a vast area there is a lowly Baron as the monarch, and instead of Dukes and Counts as his lieutenants there are petty Lords and Mayors. Each township in the nation has a Lord or Mayor, Lords being hereditary and Mayors being elected. Armley, Cheslyn, Dunstable, and Mortehoe each have a Lord, while the more distant Ambergate and Tideswell have Mayors instead. The Baron technically also holds the title of Lord of Mondegreen, but Baron Ebraen Coel has delegated those duties to his son, Alliver.
Smaller villages in the nation are led by either Reeves or Ritters, again the difference being that Reeves are elected and Ritters are hereditary. Butterwatch, Denning, Downey, Lothar, Palesdon, and Seidle all have Reeves, while the rest of the villages have Ritters. Other smaller settlements exist that don’t appear on the map; they fall under the leadership of the nearest town or village. All of these settlements and villages fall into one of the townships and answer to the Lord or Mayor of the town. Armley Township includes only Butterwatch, while Ambergate Township includes only Palesdon. Tolsen, Grovel, and Denning are all part of Cheslyn Township, while Sableton, Hoskin, and Bray fall into Mortehoe Township. Between those two is Mondegreen Township, which includes Vander and Illsop. On the north side of the Bay is Tideswell Township, which encompasses Lothar and Downey. Finally, on Perry Island, Dunstable Township controls Seidle, Cobury, and Oundle.
Geography
The Human nation is probably the most geographically fragmented. The bulk of the nation is situated on the south side of the Bay, separated from Willem’s Land by Prewett Sound. This section features the only river in human territory, the Sulliver River, which forms the border with the Alfar nation. The area around Mortehoe and over to the ruins of Southwold are covered by the Roscoe Forest. This forest is largely evergreen pines and spruces, but there are stands of the purple-leaved blackwood trees as well. Further east the wood gives way to open farmland. The terrain eventually becomes rocky in the area of Denning and Grovel and continuing on to the coast, though patches of this terrain are still suitable for farming. The coast of the southern land is fairly tame, much of it featuring quiet beaches, though there is a notable rocky prominence near Cheslyn at the Point, which is the site of a large lighthouse. The coast is, however, extremely rocky at the mouth of the main Bay, the only low points being the nestled locations of Butterwatch and Armley.
On the north side of the Bay, adjacent to the Hodekin nation, is Tideswell Township. This area, as well as the Alfar territory up to Nefyn, is the most fertile farmland in the Bay, producing as much as one-eighth of the Bay’s food each year. In the north, Ambergate Township is also situated in the centre of grassy farmland; and just across North Circling from that region is Perry Island. The entirety of the island is covered with a large Bamboo forest, except for a copse of blackwoods inside the walls of Blackwood Abbey, from which the abbey takes its name. Before the Freeze, the island was forested with blackwoods, but the quicker-growing bamboo has since completely taken over. The coasts of Tideswell and Ambergate Townships are simple strands, but Perry Island is much more rocky, especially in the north around Seidle. This rockiness extends out in the form of the Mardon Islands, which are largely uninhabited, save for one or two lone souls hiding from the rest of society.
Industry
A large part of Human nation’s industry is devoted to food. Farming, fishing, herding, hunting, even a little whaling; all practiced by the humans of the Bay and all putting food on the table. Whaling and butterbast hunting are centred around the mouth of Butter Bay and so are primarily an industry of Butterwatch and Armley. Those two, along with the other coastal settlements, especially Tolsen, Seidle, Palesdon, and Bray, all have robust fishing economies. Tideswell and its neighbours are primarily farming communities, though Tideswell also serves as a waypoint for trade goods crossing the Bay. Ambergate has a similar role as a centre of both farming and trade further north, with Palesdon housing the harbour itself. Farmland dots the countryside from Prewett Sound all the way to Denning, though it becomes spottier in the east due to the rockier ground. During the growing season, everyone not normally involved in food production is expected to pitch in, and there are even laws mandating this, meaning that in the spring people are shipped out of the towns to tenements in the country to work the fields. The Roscoe Forest has a great deal of hunting, and there are even some herders in the area around Mortehoe.
In contrast, non food-related industry is much less rampant. Whaling provides useful oils which are used in lamps and candles, and reindeer and other animals provide hides, leather, and wool. Illsop and the other Roscoe Forest settlements have some logging, reduced in recent years due to the destruction of the lumber mill in Southwold, but are preparing for a resurgence with a new mill now completed in Mortehoe. On Perry Island the bamboo is cut for construction material as well. The only mining operations in the Human nation are the copper mines in Grovel and Denning; there used to also be iron mines in Sableton and Hoskin, but the easily minable veins have all been tapped and run dry. However, because of those mines and the silver mine across the Silver River in the Alfar nation, there are metalworks and even a mint, the only one in the Bay, in Mortehoe. Cheslyn is home to the Human nation’s shipyard, operated by the Morgeth family, and Cobury is well known for its horses, generally agreed to be the finest to be found in the Bay. Unlike the other nations, the humans have no standing military camps, but there is a militia training yard in Mondegreen, and many civilians have basic training there at some point in their youth.
Possible Adventure Hooks
The mint in Mortehoe is a ripe topic for adventure. Despite the sense of community that bind the Bay together, there are always unscrupulous individuals who seek to gain at the expense of others. A group of bandits might attack the mint and make off with sackloads of coins. Perhaps someone important was injured or killed in the attack and there is now a bounty on the heads of the bandits. Shipments of copper from Grovel and Denning, silver from Sulliver, or gold from Carsett are also potential targets.
Dunstable and Mondegreen, being the largest towns in the Bay, both have their share of internal strife. From petty thieves and pickpockets to organized criminals and potential revolutionaries, all of these could lead to adventure. Tracking down a treasured pocket watch that was stolen from a struggling merchant could turn out to be simple, or could lead to a tangled web involving the Blackwood Scions attempting to storm the Silver Keep or assassinate the Baron.
An attempt to get a fishing trawler repaired in Cheslyn could set your adventurers on a long chain of tasks involving bribing clerks, investigating late wood shipments, transporting messages, and retrieving macguffins from the varker-infested ruins of Southwold.
Wednesday: Southwold
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