Onderberg
This is the capitol of the semi-autonomous Onderberg region in The Merchant League. It is the only settlement in the region. The famous Onderberg Naval Academie is located here and most high ranking and prestigious Frisian Naval Officers have graduated from school here.
Demographics
Onderberg has a wide variety of individuals behind its walls. Its location on a major sea trade route across Frisia and abroad, has many people passing through at any given time and many decide to settle and stay here. Young males in the town have a mandatory three year tour they must serve in the Onderberg navy, so every Onderbergan man has some level of naval training.
Government
Governed by the Kleinseiland Merchant Council.
Defences
The town itself has two docks full of Frisian naval vessels: one to the north on the Gedderzee Inlet and the other on the southwest. In addition, Fort Donsig protects the south end of the island and is very close to the town.
Industry & Trade
Onderberg fuels the Merchant Leagues trade and interests not through goods, but through service. The Onderberg Naval Academie trains and graduates the best naval officers in the Merchant League. Onderberg knows that good ships are critical to the efforts of the League, but without savvy, charismatic, and knowledgeable officers to command them, they are just heaps of wood and iron.
Infrastructure
The themes and trappings of naval life are everywhere in the city. The long tradition of naval service in Onderberg has houses adorning their occupants ranks and medals inscribed upon the door jambs as it is customary to know and acknowledge the inhabitants standing when addressing them.
History
The people of Kleinseiland and thus the town, have had a fair degree of autonomy from the merchant league due to old charters and decrees which have lasted centuries.
When the pirate and Voidshaper Samastha Fording began a crusade to eradicate the Frisians from the waters of the Gedder Zee, the Merchant League was still in its infancy. A navy had not been chartered and the waters along the coasts were undefended and unorganized save for small individual settlements with combat ready ships.
Onderberg early in its creation understood the need for a strong navy given its location on the Gedder Zee. Samastha swayed a significant portion of Kingsland's fourth fleet to defect. Using his Void magic, he masked the ships leaving for a period of time so that there whereabouts were unknown. The remaining fleets from Kingsland searched everywhere for the traitor ships.
During this time, the newly assembled pirate fleet sailed towards Margraten. Onderberg, who had little stake in where the fleet was going, decided to send its navy out to sortie with Samastha's ships as they passed through the Gedder Zee. A massive naval action occured. Onderberg's fleet was sorely outmatched by the sheer number of ships and cannons Samastha brought to bear. The pirate ships, with crews under the unholy influence of Samastha's magic, fought with reckless abandon, with little regard for their safety.
The Admiral of the Onderberg navy, Hans Holberg, held out as best he could until a motley group of Frisian naval ships from all over the rest of the Merchant League arrived. It was at this point, the tides turned and Samastha's fleet was sunk to the ship. Samastha himself was slain in a boarding action on the Onderberg Flagship OS Aemelia by Holberg, an action commemorated today in Margraten and Onderberg in two sister statues of Holberg located in the two cities.
Those in the budding Merchant League were painfully aware at how close their newly created united government and people came to collapse. The individuals within the league were already held together only loosely at the time and a crisis such as this that could not be dealt with would have surely caused its dissolution.
For their actions in saving the Merchant League, Onderberg was granted Freistatt privileges in perpetuity. This allows them to benefit from being in the Merchant League, but have a greater level of autonomy in regards to many of the rules and regulations the League imposes on its members.
Governance
Three merchant families run all of Kleinseiland and they fund a private navy to protect Merchant League interests along the coast.
