Armageddon The Northlands

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Geography

At the southeastern edge of a broken and dried wood known as the Grey Forest lie the settlements of the Northlands: the scattered tent-cities built by the refugees who fled the devastation that overtook the city of Tuluk in the year 64 of the Nineteenth Age and the few places where bolder souls dwell among the wreckage itself. A few larger settlements, centered around the Kadian trade village and the Reynolte estate and vineyards, thrive. To the south of the city's lands are barren wastelands which no known traveler has yet crossed, and to the west and southwest lie scrub forests and, further on, plains of short brown scrub. The Grey Forest itself remains largely unexplored, and rumors abound of savage halfling tribes that live deep within. Tales of water in such abundant quantities that it actually flows over the land persist, but none have ever been authenticated. The trees of the forest are short and often thorny, bearing spearlike purple leaves and having a thick red-to-grey bark, and woods such as agafari, baobab and cynipri find their way across the surface of the world from the wood gatherers who work the outermost outskirts of the forest.

Economy

The primary economy of the northlands centers around the hardwoods hewn from the Grey Forest. Agafari and baobab woods are the most common, but maar and cynipri also make up a large portion of the take. The majority of the northerners subsist on the fruits and nuts gathered from the surrounding scrub forests, and the game hunted from the deeper growth of the Grey Forest itself or else the plains that lie to the east. Excesses of these fruits, along a variety of leathers, complement the income from hardwoods. Duskhorn, taken from a beast with the same name, is also a substantially profitable material in the north.

Two of the three major Merchant Houses which operate elsewhere in the world also have large emporiums in the Northlands. House Kadius, indeed, has founded an entire village, although it rests now under the guardianship of High Precentor Kul. House Salarr, the weapon-and-armor traders, has developed a strong foothold in the northlands, basing their shops in the Kadian village, enabling them to sell weapons to both sides of the warfare between the Northlands and Allanak. Only House Kurac remains under represented, although perhaps the proximity of the outpost it owns, Luirs, to both north and south compensates. Spices have only rarely been labelled contraband, and most citizens have partaken at one time or another.

Government

The government of Tuluk has had to fight to adapt its old structure to the circumstances following the fall of Tuluk. In the past, the government of Tuluk operated in a tricameral fashion: the noble structure, the Templar structure, and the Sun King's structure. The latter was and presumably still is composed of only a single individual, Muk Utep himself, and the two former are each divided into strict divisions. The noble structure has traditionally been composed of both Hlum and Surif nobles who achieved their titles by very different means; the Templar structure was split into a variety of Orders, each of which served various functions of state and many of which have disappeared altogether. Among the many (the exact number is not known) Orders are the Jihaens, the Lirathans, the Equivocals, and the Royal Guard. While supposedly equal in power, the Jihaen Order in fact possesses almost total control at the present (as it has for decades). While this type of government may seem odd at first, it is cleverly designed to place all political power upon the King's shoulders. The two divided structures cannot vote unless they have a majority opinion within them. And while the divided factions in the noble and Templar structures (which are greatly opposed to each other) vie for control of each of their structures, the King argues with no one and thus tends to win the vote by default.

There are two types of Law within Tuluk: the King's Word (or the King's Law), and the State Law. The first variety has never been voted upon by the full government, yet is still practiced out of fear of Utep's power. The second variety has been passed by a two-thirds (or more) vote of all three structures and is, literally, written in stone.

Nobles and Templars

There are various types of nobles and Templars. Of those that possess titles of nobility, approximately half are Hlum and half are Surif. The Surif gain their titles by heredity, so that the title (and estate, usually) are passed from generation to generation within a certain family, or dynasty. The Hlum cannot pass their titles, since they gain them only through their ability as hunters. Hlum titles tend to pass within the same family only because possessors of hlum titles can afford to train their children in the arts of hunting and thus give members of their own family an advantage over other competitors. For all intents and purposes any citizen of Tuluk may obtain a hlum title during the Grey Hunt, which occurs throughout the fringes of the Grey Forest. Only slaves are ineligible. Most of the noble houses of the northlands, never large to begin with, have vanished with the fall of the city they once helped rule, including a number in which the slaves rose up and, it is rumored, literally torn their former owners limb from limb.

The two largest orders of Templar are, by a large margin, the Jihaen Order and the Lirathan Order. There are uncounted lesser orders, and all are certainly vital to the function of the northlands and the Ivory Pyramid, which serves as the center of government for the northlands. However, the fact that the current High Precentor, Kul, is a Jihaen, as was his predecessor, secures the greatest number of powerful positions for the remnant of this order.

Old Tuluk

There were once six main subsections of the City of Tuluk, famed for its architecture and its culture: the Merchant's District, the Tradesman's District, the High Quarter, the Low Quarter, the King's City, and the Warrens. The Merchant's District lay near Caravan Gate, on the west side of the city, the shattered remnants of which mark the spot which was once the greatest center of commerce.

South of the Merchant's District lay the Warrens, where the poor and the slaves resided, and which were not as badly hit as some of the other neighborhoods in the devastation, perhaps because there was less there to destroy in the first place. In the northern portion of the Merchant's District lay Silver Road, where a good many Hlum nobles made their residence. Most of these were destroyed in the chaos as panicked mobs tried to break down Caravan Gate to flee the city.

To the east, northeast, and southeast of the Merchant's District lay the Tradesman's District, in which most of the low-caste free citizenry resided. East of the Tradesman's District was the High Quarter, primary residence of Surif nobles and wealthy free citizens. Southeast of the High Quarter, in the depths of the Crater, lay the Low Quarter, a shady culture all to itself, where Templars went only infrequently and a totally different social order presented itself. All of these were destroyed in the riots, the earthquakes, the fires and the general chaos. Only a single section of the city lay relatively unscathed: the Ivory Pyramid within King's City, which made up most of the southern part of Tuluk.

Freil's Rest

After the destruction of Tuluk in the Nineteenth Age, the estate of one of the Kadian merchants, Medici, served as the focal point for Kadian trading activity. Many of the craftsfolk from Tuluk itself settled in this small village.

The Reynolte Vineyard

Founded beside the water-rich estate belonging to the surif noble family, Reynolte, a small village has grown up surrounding this vineyard, which produces a variety of fruit wines.