Dimmern

Located to the north of Hirschberg along the trade route to Tomierau, Dimmern is the first main stop on the journery north and the last sizeable town. Formally a vassal to family Aldous-Donner, after the previous Baron passed away it was awarded by the Imperatrix to Torvobar Hirsh-Dammung

Demographics

Total population ~20,000.

• 15,000 humans
• 3,000 elfmarked
• 1,000 halflings
• 500 dwarves

Government

• Dimmern is a large and reasonably prosperous barony.
• Torvobar is a Peer, directly subordinate to the Imperatrix, so his taxes go direct to her, not his Prince / Duke.
• His baronial fee is twenty knights - the Dimmern Company

Grant to Baron Torvobar

The demesne of Dimmern was granted to Torvobar by the queen as his reward for the Greencloaks services in rousing her from her magical slumber.
He is Tenant-in-Chief, directly sworn (Geased) to the Imperiatrix, and the grant was of a full heriditary fiefdom, not just a life-interest. She could, of course, change her mind if and when the Fuedal Relief is due as part of the inheritance process, so this is largely a matter of "noble status"; Torvobar is a fairly senior baron, most likely an actual Peer (if a minor one):

• The barony is large and prominent
• Torvobar is the founder of a heriditary barony
• He's directly in service to the Imperiatrix herself, not a subsiduary fuedal lord, IE: a "Peer of the Realm"

House Hirsh-Dumming has made it clear they still consider him as being part of their house despite being a Peer, and the Prince ensured the family crest was include in Torvobar's heraldry. He's also expected to maintain excellent relations with House Aldus-Donner, as the immediate-prior Baron was a member of their house.
To Torvobar's pleasant surprise, his fief has no enclaves or exclaves - it is a single contiguous fiefdom of over 300 square miles.

Castellan

• Sir Thurso Fitzdonner is the castellan of Castle Dimmern, and is a heriditary Knight (Ritter).
• He's the Baron's delegate when the Lord is absent.
• He's also the captain of Dimmern Company, though this joint-role is unusual, and he has a rather competent secretary to assist with judicial and governance matters.

Knights

• There are 20 Knight Fees within Dimmern, each fee is a sub-fief sworn to the baron, each must provide a fully-armed and equipped knight.
• Dimmern's knights are heavy cavalry mounted on Keythong (wingless griffons). They generally wear full plate, wielding lance, shield and a secondary weapon.
• Keythong are a little bulkier and stronger than flying griffons, and can wear heavy barding.

Vogt

• The leader of the Dwarves of the Canton of Vlghaj
• Techically ranks below a Knight in social standing, but in practical terms is more important than almost all of them
• Accountable for taxation, maintenance of law and order, recruitment of Silver Company in his Canton

Edler (Esquire)

• Below the knights are landed gentry, manor-holders or other petty nobility.
• They're generally the head of a village.
• They will have served in the military as an armsman, as will one of their sons

Defences

Dimmern Company

Dimmern is known for breeding Keythong - wingless Griffons that are also known as Alkes or Alces, and sometimes misidentified as "male griffons" - Keythongs can be either sex, they're a mutation of normal Griffons.
Baron Torvobar is reviewing his local knights with a view to re-forming them as a company of heavy cavalry optimised for combating undead.

Schutterij (Militia and Guard)

• The barony's overall militia / town guard / civic officers are a form of feudal taxation.
• The law is: Any settlement larger than a hamlet shall contribute three-hundredths of it's population to the baronial militia.
• As almost everyone lives in a village, the effective result is that ~3% of the population is a member of the militia.
• Implies total militia of ~ 600 for the entire barony.
• 450 humans, 90 elf-marks (mostly officers), 30 halflings (scouts), 15 dwarves (Silver Company).
• Each village generally has three or four people assigned to the Schutterij. One will be the local constable, who reports to the Knight or his delegate, the rest will be armsmen in the military.
• Armsmen are generally wealthier and trying to raise their social status, and are often elf-marked.

Industry & Trade

• Fishing, farming, road-tolls and shipping taxes.
• Breeding Keythong, and occasionally Griffons.
• Wheat and flour, particularly for sale to Hirschberg, which is two easy days south by oxcart.
• Silver and other metals from Vlghaj

Infrastructure

Grossbrucke Bridge

The Grossbrucke bridge over the Rhogarn River has been built on the road from Hirschberg to Toierau where it flows through a ravine. More often referred to as "Dimmern Bridge" than its formal title, the norther side terminates in a fortified tollhouse attached to Dimmern Castle, and forming the "fourth gatehouse".

Fortified Town of Dimmern

The town of Dimmern is on the upper reaches of the Rhogarn River, which has been dredged to ensure that it is still naviagable to the port that is part of the town. The town is fortified, with a fairly substantial triangular wall almost a mile in total length, with 21 towers and three gatehouses, encompassing 10 hectares (25 acres) or land.

Dimmern Castle

The castle overlooks and controls the Grossbrucke Bridge, and forms the south-eastern corner of the fortified town. The castle is rectangular in form, with eight major towers, plus some smaller fortifications making at attached barbican that acts as the tollhouse for the bridge on its northern face.
A crane in the Tollhouse can be used to transfer cargo from ships on the river below, bypassing the port and the requirement to transit the town itself, which is occasionally useful for high-value or urgent shipments, but mostly used for the convenience of the castle itself, though in theory it would be useful if the town fell in a siege, but the castle held.[/br] The castle is split into Outer and Inner wards by a full wall, gatehouse and drawbridge. The outer ward is larger, brodered by six towers (two shared with the inner ward) and contains the administrative and working sections of the castle, while the Inner Ward is bordered by four towers, and is the Baron's private residence and a final defensive structure. The Inner keep has a small dock for surrepticious deliveries, or resupply if the outer ward fell to a siege.
One of the two tower on the boundary of the Inner and Outer Wards is the Chapel Tower, its basement secures a Shadow Gate to a road that quickly leads to The Processional via a path that follows the Rhogarn River / Ley-line; or, at least, its analogue in the Fey realm.
Both the bridge and castle were constructed with large amounts of high-quality bronze from Vlghaj, and the castle and tollhouse both have full lead roofs.

Rhogarn Ley Line

A moderate-strength Ley-line more-or-less follows the Rhogarn river, while a weak line tracks the Millstream, these form a small nexus which (depending on the magical aptitude of the Baron or their staff) is either in its natural location just to the south-east of the Baron's Tower or has been moved to a set of runes and circles in the basement of the tower itself.
As both ley-lines are "attached" to natural watercourses, they tend to be fairly stable in their locations and pathing.
As one of his first acts as Baron, Torvobar will have moved the nexus to the basement of the Baron's tower if it wasn't there already, or ensure that the bindings are secure and refreshed if it was attached.
NB: The Ley-line Nexus and the Shadow Gate are not in the same tower. While that might be more convenient, neither mystical construct can be moved far enough to meet the other - they are on diagonally opposite towers of the Inner Ward of the castle.

Districts

Settlement Hierarchy

The Fortified Town of Dimmern - Baronial Seat

• Large town of approx. three thousand people.
• Walled area of about 25 acres (10 hectare / 100k square metres)
• Primary breeding location of Keythong is the baron's personal estate just outside town.
• Key Figures
1. A civilian mayor who represents the guilds, who represent the population.
2. The castellan, which is a semi-hereditary position currently occupied by Sir Thurso Fitzdonner, who ranks as a hereditary knight.
3. The Bishop of Dimmern, who oversees the Perun diocese of Dimmern from the Cathedral..
• Districts of Dimmern
• Port and quay: The north-eastern boundary of Dimmern runs alongside the Rhogarn, and a substantial port has been constructed outside the walls. The port is not fortified, but a stub-wall at the north and the castle to the south do control access to the beach and quay. Local fishing vessels use the beach, cargo vessels tiw up at the quay.
• Cathedral of Perun A large church to Perun has been built close to the centre of town, with crypts and graveyard surrounding it on three sideds, and the vicarage just to the southwest. As the seat of the Bishop, it is technically a cathedral, if a rather small one. It does have a copper roof and rather nice bells, thanks to the dwarves of Vlghaj.
• Coachhouse A substantial inn and coachhouse complex are located to the west of the castle and tollhouse, extending as far as the millhouse gate.
• Millhouse: Just outside town on the southern side is a substantial millhouse, powered by a waterwheel fed by a tributary (Mill creek) of the Rhogarn that joins the river at the castle.

The Canton of Vlghaj

• The second-largest settlement in Dimmern is a community of over 400 dwarves 50 miles to the west of the baronial seat.
• The Canton is built on and under a dormant volcano that is still geothermally active.
• Vlghaj is dwarvish for "silver mine", as that's the reason for the foundation of the canton and still it's most valuable export.
• While the most valuable product is silver, the hydrothermal ores of acanthite, stannite and galena are all present, so the smelters of what is now referred to as "Mount Vlghaj" produce around 200 time the mass of other non-precious metals: Over half is lead, but substantial amounts of copper, tin, and iron are produced as side-products from the smelting of silver.
• Much smaller amounts of sulfur, bismuth, zinc and arsenic, are also refined, and largely used for alchemical purposes. Lastly, small amounts of gold are parted from the silver, but the amount is not economically significant, mostly being retained to pay baronial taxes or for magical purposes.
• In addition to the production of raw metals, the canton has substantial smithing and runesmithing (weapon and armor enchantments) industries.
• The leader of the dwarves is selected by the settlement, with the "consent" of the baron. This is mostly a formality, there's no recorded case of the baron rejecting the selection.
• As a dwarf, the chief of the canton is styled "Vogt / Advocatus" instead of "Knight / Ritter" and his precedence would usually be below a Knight, but Dimmern uses "creation date" ahead of noble rank, raising his precendence to fifth within the barony after the baron and three chief knights. Even this somewhat underplays his importance to the barony.
• The Canton would be assessed as 3-5 "knight fees", but instead they provide a squad of 15 super-heavy infantry equipped with fortress-plate, tower shields, dwarven war-axes and heavy crossbows, all incribed with runes. "Silver Company" is typically assigned to the defence of Dimmern Castle, housed in the Tollhouse barracks and are paid a nominal stipend to supply and maintain the castle's siege engines.
• The canton pays a tithe on all of the smelted metals produced in the canton, though this is usually provided as gold rather than large quantities of non-precious metals. Historical exceptions include the lead roof of Dimmern Castle, large quantities of bronze used in the construction of Grossbrucke Bridge and castle, the copper roof of Dimmern Cathedral, and the bell-metal for its bell tower.

Towns

• There are two dozen towns in Dimmern.[/il]
• Formal definition: A fortified village - IE: any village that is either:
1. Fortified itself (at least a ditch & palisade, usually an actual stone wall)
2. Has an adjacent castle that could temporarily house the population of the village within its war; IE: larger than a fortified manor.
• Practically: The primary village of each Knight's Fee. Population is around 150-200+ for the majority of towns - they're just a village with a manor or small castle attached. They often have a Deacon as the parish priest, responsible for overseeing the other parishes within the Fee.
• There are three larger towns in Dimmern, each with a population of ~350.
• One each an easy day's travel north or south of Dimmern itself, on the trade-road, more or less at the borders of the barony. Both have an archdeacon who report to the Bishop of Dimmern, and they oversee the deacons of about a third of Dimmern, with the central third governed by the assistant Bishop in Dimmern.
• The third is the abovementioned dwarvish Canton of Vlghaj - with a population of around 400.

Villages

• Formally: A settlement with a recognised Church (not just a shrine) or a licenced inn.
• Practically: In Dimmern, all have both a church and Inn, and the other requirements for an independent settlement - a smithy (often present even in a hamlet), a general store, and often some sort of minor industry such as a mill, sawpit, fishery, or mine.
• The basic unit of medieval life, a significant majority of the barony's population live in villages, and there are over a hundred villages in the barony.
• Population reasonably consistent at roughly 100. Villages are only a few miles apart at most.

Hamlet

• Formally: A settlement that contains no Church or licenced Inn..
• Practically: Typically a cluster of farmhouses and related buildings or a particularly small village that's "off the beaten track". Population under 50, usually 30 or less.
• These are less common than villages, depending on definition (is this manor complex with a lot of outbuildings or a hamlet?), thus there are a few dozen hamlets in Dimmern.
• The "manor" example would be more likely to provide an armsman to the Schutterij in an attempt to raise their status to gentry or Ritter.

Type

Town

Population

20,000

Location under

Grand Duchy of Dornig

Owner/Ruler

Lord Torvobar, Baron Dimmern

Additional Rulers/Owners

• Sir Thurso Fitzdonner, Champion of Perun

Ruling/Owning Rank

Baron of the Grand Duchy

Owning Organization

House Hirsh-Dammung

Characters in Location

• Lord Torvobar, Baron Dimmern
• Sir Thurso Fitzdonner, Champion of Perun