Surviving Together

When the Beasts came, only those places that had enough Starsteel managed to survive. What resulted was a collection of wealthy towns and cities only just able to provide for the people that had managed to flee to them. As it became clear that the Beasts would not stop coming, it was decided that humanity had to spread out once more in order to fully utilise the world’s resources through careful cooperation.

 

People were selected, equipped, and sent out to either rediscover lost towns or create new settlements near the places that had sheltered them. Over the years, those that managed to survive saw fit to send some of their people further still. Thus, humanity slowly came in contact with itself once more, humans from different settlements meeting in search of homes.

 

In ages past, this might have led to war. However, with the Beasts making apparent that cooperation was necessary for survival, the would-be settlers instead found themselves trading, exchanging services, and mingling amongst each other. As people continued to fight for survival, such exchanges led to the emergence of the global network. Fenblith, too, began its position as a trading hub in this manner.

Biaupier

On clear days, Fenblithians can make out the outline of Biaupier across the waters of the sea. In ages past, it was a wealthy region, able to thrive on the production of luxury goods. This allowed its people to amass quite a fortune in Starsteel, which they happily wrought into extravagant jewellery, tableware, cutlery, and more.

 

When the Beasts came, these indulgences were given up, creating enough weapons for Biaupier to come through the turmoil less injured than most regions. This isn’t to say only few people died, however, and the survivors found themselves largely forced to forgo the production of luxury goods in exchange for tilling the land as best they could.

 

The exception was Marmontier, the wealthiest city in the region. Having withstood the Beasts even better than the rest of Biaupier, the city maintained a warrior elite which served as customers and patrons to the city’s artisans. As the global network grew, these artisans’ skills were used to barter for food, allowing other people in Biaupier to leave the fields and rediscover their ancestors’ trades, adding to their region’s wealth once more. And there is one region in particular which is consistently called upon to feed Biaupier.

Riestaten

Riestaten’s landscape bulges with wheat and barley, the region once having served as its wider country’s breadbasket. By pure happenstance, a contingent of Starsteel carrying warriors was visiting Riestaten when the Beasts came. They managed to protect Wandorf, the biggest of the local towns, letting the locals shelter within the town’s wall.

 

Realising they would soon need to harvest more food, the people in Wandorf tore down any structures they could miss. They used the stones and timber to build a wall in the nearest field, creating a protected enclosure in which to grow their crops.

 

However, it wasn’t long until it became apparent that the land they had cordoned off wouldn’t be enough. Thus, they went to the fallen towns nearby to tear down structures there and build another, bigger wall. So they continued – breaking down inner walls and reusing them in outer walls – until the entirety of Riestaten was surrounded by one massive defensive work.

 

As Wandorf’s population grew, its people resettled Riestaten’s abandoned towns. Eventually, they began using the local river to trade their grain, often for additional rocks to bolster their wall. But to do so, they often needed to cross one particularly dangerous region.

Modland

The drenched soil of Modland is largely unsuited for most types of farming, supporting only grass in any volume. For generations, the people here lived off livestock, but that ended with the coming of the Beasts. Now, they are left to subsist on what little plants they coax from the ground and what little trade they can do with the peat they cut from Modland’s many bogs.

 

Thus, many Modlanders seek to leave. However, with their traditional skills having become obsolete and having little opportunity to cultivate new ones, they find but few places willing to take them. This rejection has bred much resentment, which in turn has bred something much, much darker.

 

It is said that for every Modlander trying to be a decent member of the global network, there is a Darkheart calling these soaked lands their home. Little is known of how they spend their days, but there are whispers that they have taken up their old ways, keeping Beasts as livestock. How much of this is true is hard to ascertain, but it is not without reason that there is but one place near Iseron deemed as dangerous as this sodden delta.

Waynairde

Iseron ends at its northern forests, but its rivers flow down from beyond the woodlands. Those brave enough to go up these waters will find themselves in the foothills of Waynairde, a green and mountainous region. It is not an unwelcoming place, by any measure. Indeed, the Waynairdians do their best to be fruitful members of the global network. They are hindered in this, however, by the most dangerous people anywhere near Iseron: the Blade-Folk.

 

Living in the mountains to the north and west, these warrior people are the bane of all Waynairdians who seek a peaceful existence. Refusing to take part in the global network, they instead keep to their old ways, warring amongst themselves and raiding throughout Waynairde whenever it pleases them.

 

Locals have done their best to fend off the invaders, but between the Blade-Folk and the ever-present Beasts the population of Waynairde has been stagnant for generations, even dwindling in some places. Thus, even though the region’s resources are much the same as Iseron’s – barring Fenblith’s Starsteel, of course –, its people have been unable to flourish. But perhaps, if the Hunters of Fenblith could be persuaded to travel upriver, this might change in the near future.