The Ratnest
"The beauty behind having nothing more to lose, is that it also means you have everything to gain. Live not out the rest of your days in despair, but find the courage to carry on and rebuild your kingdom." -Tiberius the Decieved
Demographics
Like it's less than charming name would suggest, the nest is a home to outcasts of society. People who ended up in the slums and had little elsewhere to go but crime and piracy. The village however proved to serve as another choice where the poor, disfigured and sickly come to try and build up a proper life in the shadows of Nightbridge.
Government
The village is run by a council of three, consisting of the Grimblades that deal in security, Bloodmonks who ensure the right resources go into the hands of the right people and the village elder, whom is the eldest of the normal people who care for the needs and projects of the inhabitants, such as do the villagers require a temple or a school to be built next.
Defences
The nest has a proper wood and stone wall around the village, suited with towers, ballistae and a couple of catapults.
Industry & Trade
While stores is a product of the future within the Ratnest, the village does have a thriving trade economy, where villagers with different skills, livestocks or equipment would happily trade items they have little need for, for things they do require to progress.
With their abundance for wood, they also trade planks via the Adventurers Guild to other villagers, towns and cities and import tools, metals and stone.
Infrastructure
While the nest may not have much in the terms of infrastructure, the many wounded and sick who come into the Bloodmonks hands demand a strict cleanliness unless they are to be dealt a finishing blow by infection, or spreading anything to those who yet are healthy.
Due to this, a proper sewer system were built from the old catacombs underneath the village, followed with a proper water cleansing station and well within the courtyard of the manor.
Living near the Forest of Silence also gave them a vast abundance of wood, which has prompted a large woodworking industry to pop up just outside their wooden palisade walls. It is also the only proper economy for the village, and the industry which allows them to keep building and repairing the old mansion.
Districts
The village has a mere duo of districts which have been built around the old manor.
The smaller is called the Gray Hamlet and consists of the Rathouse overlooking the small ruins of an old aristocrats hamlet. The buildings themselves have been refurnished and rebuilt to host the most important buildings of the village, such as barracks, a warehouse, craftsmanshalls and a large alchemy lab.
The much larger district surrounding the Gray Hamlet is named Hopelight after the many windling wooden shacks and simple houses which have been built around small farmfields or animalpens that hide within the walls. The only two communal buildings that exist within the district is a large temple to the gods founded and built by Dawnshire priesthoods and a small inn run by the Peregon Adventurers Guild and the Diestruax Reclaimation Foundation.
Guilds and Factions
The Bloodmonks serve mayhap the greatest role within the village society. As bloodmagi and healers of the sick, these vampires are seen as the highest authority and symbolice not only a hope for the village, but for the Kingdom of Nightbridge. Their connections, focus on rebuilding and magical knowledge is what ensures the village grows steadily and slowly do better, year by year.
The Grimblades live up to their name by serving justice with an unbending and indominable hand of law. Their dark knight reputation of not knowing neither fear nor mercy ensures that bandits stay far away from the village, and whenever beasts arrive to cause trouble, their blades are never far away to neutralize the threat.
The Peregon Adventurers Guild is the smallest faction within the Ratnest, and is no larger than one of their comissioned officers and the tavern crew within Hopelight Inn. While they may at first seem irrelevant, it is adventurers and mercenaries contacted by their hand that protect all the trade caravans which ensures the village can keep growing. Their faction is also the one which pays people to ensure medicinal reagents are always ready to treat the sick.
Last but not least is the Diestruax Reclaimation Foundation, who have their office within the woodworks. Through their great coffers, a baron said to be a distant relative to the long since perished aristocracy who owned the Rathouse oversee the funding of the village. Through sponsoring both the Adventurers Guild and foreign experts to help with building expansions. Through developing the village into a blossoming town, they hope to challenge Nightbridge's influence on the kingdom and help reform Diestraux.
History
The history of the village go far back, before crime and poverty rose in Nightbridge and it's Kingdom had fully conquered all of Northern Peregon since twenty years back. The old manor which came to be known as the Rathouse was built for one of the many families that would rise within the new order of Diestraux, which the kingdom came to be named.
Whom they or there significance were has since long been forgotten to time, wiped out by the fourth of the great catastrophies to ravage Peregon, which brought the comming of the Blightmoon and the veil of darkness. Though were the people of the hamlet did not stay, the buildings which came to be known as the Gray Hamlet stood the test of time for long enough to be home to many criminal gangs, adventurers, explorers and even wild beast.
Only when the pratice of self-sacrifical bloodmagic became legalized outside of civilized borders, such as cities and wealthier towns, did the manor get a private recidency again. This time, a large portion of the vampire clan known as the Ratcatchers moved out of the cities to practice their cultural art. With the old manor up for grabs, it didn't take long before they moved in.
Though the land was still owned by Nightbridge, the Ratcatchers managed to strike a deal with the now imprisoned king Tiberius of Nightbridge who sold out the land for as little as the Ratcatchers loyality to him, and him alone.
Through the less than fifteen years that the village has existed, it has rapidly grown as the sick, dying and injured gave up the life they had for a chanse of a cure which only bloodmagic could grant. It had became clear to the Ratcatchers that every person they'd manage to save through their art was only given a few extra weeks at best, thanks to the deformities or reputation they'd suffer if they ever were to travel back to their homes. So in the abscence of a better choice, their village slowly came to form.
Type
Village
Population
2200
Related Ethnicities
Inhabitant Demonym
'Rat'
Related Professions
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