Wolde and the Deoric Forest

Wolde is the second youngest city of Iobaria, only marginally older than Castle Valka's full settlement, though the area has been occupied far longer than the city has stood, both by hidden villages and ancient barrow-dwellers hiding within the arching roots of ancient kneeling oaks... and older things of ancient wickedness, hiding among the shaded forest during the day, and stalking it's pitch-black paths after nightfall.

Built upon a narrow bluff overlooking Lake Walden's eastern and western arms, Wolde itself is built around Lastcastle, the final home of the region's Sorcerer-Prince Vasile Wolde. Said to have been a shrewd man of dark tempers, Vasile ruled over the burgeoning city of Wolde for nearly four hundred years before his death, and his many heirs and their children fell to polite infighting and assassinations during the century since then.

It would be improper to call the region of Wolde a single kingdom, as it is ruled by myriad Princes, Counts, Dukes, Marquis, and pettier nobles... But also because it lacks unity. With no crown prince sitting upon the throne and no clear bloodline to follow, it is only a matter of time before the current occupant of Lastcastle, Prince Alexandru Skoti and his family, are displaced by the next would-be ruler.

Further muddling the matter, are the Raven Princes. When Raven's Reach fell one hundred years past, many of it's princelings and nobles traveled to Wolde, or were already within the city awaiting the fall, and became fixtures at court and in the political scene of Wolde. Prince Skoti himself claims the throne and the crown, illegitimately according to his extended family, due to the 'joining of bloodlines', as he has married Princess Kaira Ravnfjord, and their children will represent two ruling families coming together.

Wolde Information

Power Center	Bureaucratic Principality
Alignment	Lawful Neutral
Urban Population	Approximately 8,650
Humans	89% (7,698)
Half Orcs	6% (519)
Half Elves	4% (346)
Other	1% (86)

While Prince Skoti technically holds the throne, much of day to day life in Wolde is instead managed by an extensive bureaucracy employed by the various Princes and Nobles who claim responsibility for specific aspects of day to day life and oversight over the management of rules and people. Largely, this bureaucracy is an invisible guiding hand in the day to day lives of the populace. Outside of major events, births and deaths, weddings and the like, the common man never has need to interact with goverment agents beyond paying the tax man each month.

Guilds and Large Business interests, on the other hand, consistently find themselves mired in mindless politics, endless red tape, and trapped within endless webs of machinations and intrigues between the various nobles of the Hightower district. A truly tiresome affair of which they complain, often, much to the schadenfreude delight of the common worker over whom they loom large.

A state of dysfunction and ill temper so complex that it holds itself together splendidly, in spite of it's various ailments which counter each other with delicate precision.

The City of Wolde

The City itself can be broken into two large sections: The Hightower District and the Scrum. In the Hightower District, built at the top of the bluffs with the Scrum expanding down and around the bluffsides, nobles and wealthy merchants court the favor of the Raven Princes at court, make various deals, and generally live a life so disconnected from the Scrum they hardly notice it, save those unsavory times when they must descend into it for business purposes.

The Scrum, on the other hand, is largely populated by common folk of Wolde. Salt of the earth workers, aspiring entrepreneurs, and traveling entertainers live and work in it's four districts, described below.

The Hammers

The Hammers is the largest of the four Scrum districts and represents the majority of housing and small businesses of the labor class in the City itself. Dockworkers, Lamplighters, Maids, and laborers of a dozen trades and more trudge out of the overcrowded Hammers district before dawn and often do not return until dusk. Scattered across the district are seamstresses, butchers, and other such small businesses that ensure the district functions on a day to day basis.

The Hammers gets its name from an uprising of a large number of laborers employed by several guilds, most notably the shipwrights and the blacksmiths, who attacked their very employers and drove them out of the district. While there was great rejoicing in the weeks and months to follow as the laborers took the district, it was swiftly overpopulated and those directly responsible for the violence were rounded up and summarily executed.

The Hammers have continued to decline ever since.

Lakeside

This aptly named district is host to the city's docks and warehouses built right above and along Lake Walden's western reaches. Home to taverns, gambling halls, the majority of the city's inns, it also holds the Shipwright's Guildhall, which stands proud among the higher eastern portion of the district, built over an outcropping in the form of a massive galleon. Common business is held in the bilge, while offices are held in the hold, and the meetings of the guild proper are held on deck in rain or shine.

While many of the dockworkers live in the Hammers, plenty live in Lakeside near to mainly service industry workers. Barmaids and waitresses, cooks and cleaners, the working class of Lakeside generally remains within the district, often for the majority of their lives.

Bellhaven

Formerly known as Twelvehaven, Bellhaven was the primary Religious District of Wolde. Only three of the original Churches of Crisis remain, along with the House of Champions and the Hall of the Manifest. The eight temples largely stood in a ring around the central district which held gardens and museums, arthouses and inns. But over the years, blacksmiths and foundries were built in the area to supply the temples with worked goods, cast bells, and other services.

During an upheaval the Temple of the Fearful collapsed into the eastern arm of Lake Walden when the cliffside it was built upon collapsed. A decade later, a district fire spreading outward from one of the foundries burned both the Temple of the Fallen and the Temple of the Blameless. In each case, the church decided it was better to fold the faithful together. And now the three remaining Temples of Crisis hold shrines and antechambers devoted to the three fallen houses.

Now called Bellhaven, the district's bells still ring out to call the faithful to service, to mark the time, and to remind the populace of the everpresent divine. But so, too, do anvils ring in a chaotic din across the district.

The Marqs

The Marqs district is primarily inhabited by Artisans and Journeymen belonging to the various guilds of Wolde, and it is one of the more wealthy Scrum districts as a result. On the easternmost side of town, opposite the western Hammers district, the Marqs district is built into and along the rocky cliffside overlooking the eastern reaches of Lake Walden. Quaint cottages with window-gardens stand on either side of narrow footpaths and foster a wonderful sense of community in the district.

Named after the fallen Marquis Ralston, who fell battling against the Zaporan invaders to the East, the Marqs is a relatively young district, created when the citizens of Wolde brought forth the Hammers district. Built by craftsmen of measurable skill, it quickly surpassed the rowhouses and townhomes of the Hammers in beauty and comfort. And as the Hammers continues to decline, the Marqs only appear more lovely in comparison.

Potentially dangerously so.

The Hightower District

Home to the Wealthiest members of Wolde Society, both noble and royal alike, the Hightower district is built upon the highest section of the cliffside town, back from the water's edge, it boasts breathtaking views of the Forest to the North and East, and the lake across the South.

The Hightower District contains less people than any other district, but sprawls across a wider area than the Marqs or the Bellhaven, giving it an expansive and open feel broken by sprawling estates, small clusters of businesses, and the mansions of nobles. Girded by a great stone wall, the district is well defended and, ostensibly, is the fortress to which the rest of the city should retreat during wartime.

Unfortunately for the Scrum, the Hightower Aristocracy has no intention of ever opening it's doors to the rabble of the city, many of whom will certainly be killed should an invading force ever move on the city itself.

The Hightower District can be broken into three very loose segments, described below.

Lastcasle

The Lastcastle built by Vasile Wolde nearly four hundred years ago, after several of his holdings were destroyed in various wars against Iobar and the other Sorcerer Kings of old. Meant to be less of a true fortress-castle, as his prior holdings, and more of an estate to be handed down to his family line, the castle itself is designed to be a sprawling home of opulent wealth and comforts.

The central castle building is possessed of eight buttressed towers, some nearer than others, with sweeping balconies and grand windows to take in the glorious views of Wolde, beneath the towers ballrooms, libraries, and even a museum make up the bulk of the first and second floors, while galleries and sumptuous bedrooms make up the third. Beneath, in the basement, the kitchens in the heat of summer and the dead of winter to provide not only for the current occupants and their endless parade of guests, but for the expansive staff of servants who keep the manor in peak condition.

The Downs

The Downs are the enclave of the Raven Princes. Built in a style reminiscent of the baroque homes and palaces of Raven's Reach before it's fall they have, however, taken some of the design choices and materials from traditional Wolde architecture. Resulting in mansions with high pitched roofs, functional and decorative buttresses, and wide sweeping windows and balconies.

When the Raven Princes fled the Reach in the days and weeks before it's fall, many brought servants and their families, workers of crafts, and traditional ideas with them. So while the Raven Princes, themselves, are the cock of the walk in the Downs, it is primarily populated by workers creating traditional Raven's Reach furniture, clothing, and metalwares, making it an excellent place to shop for something a hint less common, but quite popular.

Assuming you can afford it.

Greenway

The Greenway stands on the northernmost part of Wolde, a sprawling expanse of mansions and farmland abutting the Deoric Forest on it's North border, and Lastcastle and the Hammers to the South. Home to many of the wealthiest members of the city, it represents land-grants offered to various minor aristocrats and the small farming communities that stand upon them.

Even the peasants of the Greenway can be said to be wealthier than those who live in the Hammers, as they often fill their tables with the fruits of small gardens and hunts in the old growth before their harvest is ever gathered by the tax man of whichever effete and oft uninvolved lord claims dominion over the holding they work.

There are many among the Hammers who would kill, given the chance, to work as a farmhand in the Greenway. If only to escape the tight conditions of the rest of Wolde into green fields and rolling hills where sweet grasses are fed to lowing beasts to fatten them up for harvest.

Dangers in the Streets

The city itself has dangers and threats of it's own. From resident monsters hiding in the sewers, to backalley muggers eager to meet any traveler that might be easily rolled. Below are some of the more common and vulgar threats. Most of which are human, or at the least humanoid.

River Rats

It isn't terribly uncommon for a bloated corpse to drift to the shores of Lake Walden. If dressed as a sailor, he may have tumbled from a ship. If dressed as a gentleman, he may have tumbled from Bellhaven. But if he is a common man he likely ran afoul of the River Rats. A gang of smugglers, conmen, thieves, and cutthroats, they largely 'rule' Lakeside's criminal element.

Though they commonly afflict the Lakeside district, their leadership, and even the majority of their number, do not reside in the district full time. Instead, they board shallow-bottomed boats to cross the shallows of the Narrows of Lake Walden to return to camps, villages, and hidden enclaves along the south shore and the rivers that lead down toward Leister and the Marshlands.

Sewer Rats

Oft accused of taking their name from the River Rats, the Sewer Rats are a distinct criminal organization largely operating in and around the Hammers. Largely made up of current and former members of the Waterworks Guild, the Sewer Rats learned a great deal about the hidden waterways of the city of Wolde, and how one might use the various tunnels to swiftly, and covertly, traverse the city.

Before the fall of the Hammers, the Sewer Rats were a fairly respectable sort of criminal. Racketeers and Conmen, they used their ability to travel, and control, the sewers as leverage against the guilded men in the area, and used that money to manipulate gamblers and those in need of money with impossible to repay debts.

When the Hammers fell, the Sewer Rats largely fell, as well, becoming more common thieves with a higher legacy.

The Greys

Killers, thieves, racketeers and kidnappers, the Greys are more formally known as the Prince's Constabulary of Wolde. While they'll happily, eagerly, and promptly enforce the will of Wolde's sprawling Aristocracy, the Greys spend much of their time patrolling the more downtrodden regions of Wolde hunting down criminals and finding them wherever they look.

Dressed in easily spotted grey longcoats bearing the Seal of Wolde on the left breast and the back, Greys wear a simple leather breastplate and bracers under the coat for protection. The coat has a false-vest which buttons over the armor to provide an appearance of civility these men and women might otherwise lack.

Each Grey carries a whistle to summon additional Greys when blown, as well as a belaying club used to enforce order on those who dare to fight back. Inquisitives among the Greys, however, forgo the uniform and instead dress as well to do members of society bearing only a pin to show their office, and a brace of pistols typically hidden under their jacket.

During times of social unrest or warfare, the Grey are given helmets, pauldrons, and bracers of metal to increase their defensive capabilities. And belaying clubs are typically traded in for shortswords, longswords, and heavy shields.

The Blackfeather Conspiracy

Little is known about the Blackfeather Conspiracy, save that they appear to have their fingers in many pies, and that their calling card is a black feather, typically of a pigeon or other common bird of Wolde dyed black. When the Greys find such feathers at a crime scene, the case goes unsolved. Uninvestigated. The local handbills thus posit ludicrous theories that the Blackfeathers are a league of the highest members of society turned to criminal enterprise.

The Deoric Forest

The largest old growth forest of Iobaria, the Deoric Forest represents some of the oldest growth in the land. Dark and sacred, deep, and wild, the forest has been occupied by a variety of different people over the course of its existence.

A myriad of footpaths, deerpaths, and overgrown cobblestone roads meander amid the darkness beneath the heavily entwined canopy, whose leaves burst into brilliant color each autumn, and are largely shed in winter.

There are, however, copses of ancient pine trees which remain evergreen even in the deepest winters.

Hidden beneath the shaded boughs are ruins of villages, towns, and even fortresses and castles reclaimed by the forest once the occupants perished or fled for various reasons.

The Forest itself is named for one such culture which faded into antiquity and extinction leaving behind only standing stones that mark what were once homes, fortresses, and barrows scrawled with ancient runes and cuneiform writing of warnings against threats long since past from this world.

Settlements of the Forest

Three small towns exist within the Deoric Forest, each as vassals of Wolde. And beyond them there are countless villages in the Old Growth which can be found by following just the right paths through the woods. Though due to time and circumstance, those smaller villages may or may not exist by the time you reach them.

Lacoras

The logging community of Lacoras provides the majority of the lumber needed by Wolde's slowly growing capital. Populated primarily by elves, half-elves, and half-orcs, the town has a significant rustic charm, with most of the populace engaging in a variety of forestry-centric sporting events and games. Lograces, caber-tossing, and competitive tree climbing being amongst the favored. The town is boisterous and bold, and welcomes visitors so long as sunlight glints off the ripples of Lake Walden.

But as soon as the sun passes beyond the treeline, attitudes become unfriendly, even hostile, to travelers.

Leister

This small fishing community along the rocky coastline, Leister has been growing in recent years as Prince Alexandru Skoti works to bolster the economy of the nation through shipping and international trade. The community itself was once very quiet and peaceable, but the recent influx of outsiders and soldiers from the Capital has created new tensions within, and without, the small town.

To compound the town's problems, new criminal interests join with the long tradition of smugglers and pirates within the Junian Sea, placing the town at a bit of a tipping point.

The locals are a friendly sort, however, and any port in a storm can keep you safe.

Valeorac

Nestled in the foothills of the Eight Kings mountains, Valeorac stands slightly above the Deoric forest to the South and the Ravnwood to the North. Named for the carved king whose stone-faced gaze watches over the village, the town is the least "Walden" of all the towns of Wolde, and it's traders and caravaneers travel along the outer edge of the Deoric Forest as they take wagonloads of ores and stone to the city on the lake. Only turning South into the forest when they must.

Dangers of the Deoric Forest

From Sea to Mountain, from Lake to Swamp, the Deoric Forest has never been truly safe for anyone. Between it's natural predators, interlopers from fey realms, and various curses inflicted on a wide variety of strange souls over the centuries, the woods surrounding Lake Walden are filled with dangers.

Some of fur and fang, while others are far more subtle in their threat. Below, you can read about some of the more immediate dangers you might face traveling those maze-like paths through the forest.

Fey Interests

When one thinks of they fey, they typically imagine tiny beings nearly glowing with joy flitting about on dazzling wings. Of pixie dust and tales of comfort shared in the wan hours of the evening. In reality, however, Fey are far more complex, and the Deoric Forest, as the Oldest Growth in Iobaria, represents a natural conflux between our realm and those realms of the Fey.

Walking the paths of the Forest, therefore, is quite dangerous. But straying from them could see you lost forever in a realm not quite your own.

The Old Court

The Old Court of the Fey holds the majority of power over fey interests within the Deoric Forest, a name they are all too happy to apply to the wilderness, here. The court itself is made up of a variety of unique fey individuals under the purported rule of "The Ash", but none seem to know precisely who or what the Ash is.

The Green Servants

While the majority of the Court itself is Fey, and thus largely beyond mortal ken in the complexity and strangeness of their society, a large portion of their servants and serfs live in our world in the form of awakened animals. Though most of their society is found only in hidden meadows in the deepest portions of the forest it isn't unheard of for someone walking along a path to be asked for aid by a wounded animal, or in clearing a falling branch that has crushed the tiny homes of a family of mice.

Beware the rewards of the fey, however. For even the most simple of gestures may carry impressive weight.

The New Court

Should it surprise anyone that among the Fey there is as much discord as in any people of Iobaria? The New Court are upstarts and vagabonds looking to create new centers of power within the fey realms. And while the Green Servants are swift to kowtow to their demands for their own safety, the New Court itself travels the old growths of the Deoric Forest.

Beware their beauty, their horror. Beware the urge to fight, to flee, to love. For the New Court as much as the Old is strange to our world, but they seek to expand their influence while the Old remains as it is. Guard your Name.

The Accursed

Vampires

More rare than their hirsute "cousins" among the accursed, Vampires are often more feared. For while a werewolf might kill a hunter, or children roaming the forest on a full moon, Vampires actively hunt the living to slake their desperate hunger, and oft do so by infiltrating society.

The vampires of the Deoric Forest can largely be broken down into three distinct categories. The Ancient, the Feral, and the Sophisticated.

Ancient Vampires are often holdovers from the Deoric Culture which once dominated the region. With strange runes, scarification, or tribalistic tattoos marking their dessicated forms, they are the least aggressive of their kind. Preferring to haunt old ruins and consume what comes their way.

Feral Vampires represent a simplistic and animalistic core beneath any trappings of civilized nature. During the day they bury themselves in soil and snow, and wander the forest at night much like wolves.

The Sophisticated are the vampires most imagine when they hear the term. Often feigning the appearance of being mortal, themselves, they cloak themselves in finery and take part in civil society. But they remain monstrous at heart.

Werewolves

Within the Deoric forest, Werewolves and other werebeasts represent the majority of the accursed. Twisted by Fey magic, cursed by the Gods, or bound to wild forms by terrible sorceries of ancient times, werewolves are largely solitary hunters. With forms of normal mortal ken for much of the month, by the light of the Full Moon they are twisted into violent and rampaging beasts.

Yet this legend is not entirely truthful. For a werewolf can alter their form under any moon, or under a bright blue sky, given cause and yearning. The Full Moon's light only forces the issue for those without the willpower, or the desire, to remain mortal.

In hidden enclaves, amid foothills or the barrows of ancient kings, there are communities of those who lose themself under the moon gather in their human forms and try to maintain some semblance of a normal life between their rampages. Such villages are dangerous places for outsiders and are threatening to those who reside within.

For even if one only -need- change under the full moon, a taproom argument or a familial rivalry can result in the unleashing of bestial violence.