• New regent's Letters upon Coronation

Rohrmarch is divided between two cultures: those of the rugged forests in the north and those of the tilled lowlands in the south.

[edit] Life in the north

People in the north gather in tiny villages and small logging camps. Homes are log cabins, made by stacking logs in notches and roofed with bark and animal skin on logs. They eat barley bread supplemented when possible with hare, chicken or mutton. Few can read and write and their entertainment comes predominantly from folk tales and songs and swilling home-brewed barley beer at the local excuse for a tavern. Crude pottery and rough cloth are manufactured in small sheds but more sophisticated goods have to be traded from the lowlands.

[edit] Life in the south

Compared to the north, people in the south live in larger homes and gather in much larger villages. Their homes are usually more ornately decorated. The village square forms their main venue of entertainment, hosting plays, dramas and live music performances from traveling bards and troupes. The church of Haelyn also holds performances such as hymnals and plays reenacting the stories of Haelyn. The people of the south also tend to be more literate than the north, due to the contributions by Haelyn’s Warriors to provide free education.

[edit] Customs

Rohrs hang belladonna outside the door of their house as well as inside their house. This is a holdover from the Lycanthrope Wars, when the possibility of lycanthrope even within one’s own household was a real possibility. More well-off households may even still keep silver weaponry as part of their family heirloom, usually a silver-tipped spear or a quiver of silver-tipped arrows.

[edit] Demographics

Rohrmarch has a population of approximately 100,000 people, many of them living in the provinces of Rohrgaard and Nunkappel. Given the constant warring in recent years, the people have developed some martial training. Perhaps as many as 1 in 10 people in Rohrmarch have a character class, usually fighters. Most are 1st level but a few veterans of the civil war have attained up to 4th level. It is usually not wise in Rohrmarch to assume that the bardiche-wielding farmer is just a farmer.

95% of Rohrs are commoners, either working as farmers or in some other humble trade. Many of these are serfs, working on the lands of their lord. Others are freemen, owning their own farms.

More than 4% of Rohrs are gentry folk, usually living in towns or the two cities of Kiedel or Oden. Such folk are usually craftsmen whose finished products command a high market value, or merchants. While the men work, the wives entertain themselves with tea parties and social visits. The children are often subjected to learning and tuition.

Only 100 Rohrs belong to the nobility, and a smaller portion of that, to the Royal Family. While this is a very small number given the population size, Rohrmarch’s nobility have suffered disproportionately in terms of its population in the civil war. Many noble families died out as their last heirs were killed in battles and a number of titles have been lost and forgotten as a result.

The Royal Family has also suffered heavily in the war. The new regent is now the last surviving heir of the Oden line. Two other noble families can trace their lineage to the Royal Family as well: the Edels, through Pieter Edel’s marriage to Queen Adriana in 54 MR, and the Osternords, through Jensen Osternord’s marriage to Princess Moriana in 158 MR. However, it was this marriage which produced the Mad King Modred I, a fact which has not endeared the Osternords to the people. In any case, the kingship has always descended through the line of the Odens. Only if that line ended would the Edels and the Osternords have a chance to press their claim for the throne.

Rohrmarch is a war-torn land torn between both Brecht and Khinasi traditions, elves brood in the west while the Vampire prowls the north and the Hydra in the south.

See Also: Geography of Rohrmarch

Population numbers are of registered taxpayers.

Law: The regent of Rohrmarch controls the law of the land, having inherited all the law holdings of King Alaric. With the death of Prince Oden, all of Oden’s law holdings in Friedlund, Osternord, Rohrgaard and Werthangen have collapsed. Alaric did not believe in ruling his people with a heavy hand and did not, as a result, establish an overt system of law over his provinces. The law is enforced by a network of the King’s Rangers. The rangers have a knack of turning up at the right place at the right time, thanks to a loose but effective network of informants and a system of trail signs for communication. In the northern provinces, there are no law holdings and only the presence of armed troops keep the peace there. Given that these troops are urgently required to deal with Warkinde’s continued belligerence, the regent will need to quickly establish a system of law before the northern provinces slip into rebellion or anarchy.

Temples: Rohrmarch has two major religions: Kirche, as espoused by the Stormlord Seerbrand, and Haelyn, as advocated by Haelyn’s Warriors. In Osternord and Rohrgaard especially, the Stormlord Seerbrand has a strong presence. Stormlord Seerbrand usually build high-walled abbeys from which groups of well-armed priests would sally forth to proselytize and minister to the people. The main anchor for these abbeys is Kettenblitz. Built as a monastery, it is more like a fort, with an octagonal tower keep surrounded by a stone wall perimeter. Lying on a small hill at the southern tip of the Khurinlach, the fort has a commanding view of the surrounding area. (Stormlord Seerbrand holdings in Rohrgaard are considered to be fortified.)

Haelyn’s Warriors has holdings in Alklund, Boerenbach, Nunkappel, Friedlund and Edel. These holdings are organised in a more diffused fashion compared to the Stormlord Seerbrand. The basic foundation of church organisation for Haelyn’s Warriors is the parish church. These parish churches are administered by a larger church in each province, which serves as the provincial headquarters, although in reality, the parish churches are left to run with minimal interference. The largest church is the Temple of Justice and Mercy in the city of Kiedel, which is the seat of Her Grace Delma Fussen. Many pilgrimages are made to the temple by Haelynites in Rohrmarch to see the tomb of Kennan the Just, a devout paladin of Haelyn who died in Rohrmarch during the Ogre Wars.

Guilds: There are two guilds in Rohrmarch – the Steelbenders’ Guilden and the Frodrik Foresstannen. Each guild has its own separate interests and they rarely clash. The Steelbenders’ Guilden focuses on mining, smelting and ironworking. The Frodrik Foresstannen focuses on logging, carpentry, cattle-raising and leatherworking. Both guilds are looking into at new areas for expansion. Siegfried Lessen is slowly starting a fishing and ship-building industry in Kiedel, while Frederick Buchassen is tempted to mine the veins of precious stones near the Vicissitude Mountains, despite the dangers from the Vampire. Relations between the two guildmasters are good and they meet in regular informal sessions to discuss business.

The Steelbenders’ Guilden’s holdings in Rohrgaard are primarily made up of its mining operations in the hilly regions of that province. Ores from the mines are then transported to its smelting and metalworking factories in Alklund and Nunkappel. The neighboring realm of Sendoure has indicated interest in purchasing weapons and armor from the factories in Alklund and Lessen is exploring the possibility of a trade link with Sendoure. The Frodrik Foresstannen’s holdings in the plains of Friedlund primarily manage the guild’s cattle-raising operations and leatherworking shops. All its other guild holdings serve only one purpose – logging.

Sources: The only true wizard who has source holdings in Rohrmarch is the Sayer of Coullabhie. No one knows what the Sayer’s source holdings look like. Loggers in Boerenbach, Edel and Werthangen say that there are certain parts of the forest that they dare not venture to, so strong is the sense of hostility from the forest, as if the wrath of the Sayer was manifested by the sheer amount of magic. Many suspect that the forest where the mebhaighl is pooled and concentrated becomes so dense it is virtually impassable to humans anyway. The Sayer appears thus far content with her existing holdings in Rohrmarch and has not established new holdings in the past 20 years. She may be content to maintain the status quo, given that there are no competing wizards in the region and that the elven view of Rohrmarch remains indifferent.

Categories: Atlas | World:Aebrynis | Continent:Cerilia | Region:Brechtür | Domain:Rohrmarch