Barony of Blue Peaks
Tentative Geographic Assignment: Spot 18
Until recently, the realm was a puppet state of the Kingdom of Swynfaredia called Uwcharedia under the thumb of House Gorisonad.
It was recently liberated in late 1837 by a coalition of Borderland powers and Fumayans concerned with Swynfaredian hedgemony, now dubbed the Barony of Blue Peaks named after the iconic mountains which look a majestic blue from a distance. The name was the original name for the province almost three hundred years ago.
The realm has all the problems associated with a new transitional government plus it lies under the shadow of a likely Swynfaredian counterattack.
Demographics
Originally the realm had over 76,000 mortal souls living in its borders. About 13,000 people left after the recent coup and about 1000 new people have moved in.
The population reduction is a blessing in disguise because the realm was overcrowded and overtaxed before, so now the farmers have some breathing room (though there is a lot of feuding over who controls the now empty land).
About 90% of the population is humans with a majority of the non-humans being gnomes, about half of whom are newly immigrated Fumayan gnomes.
About 70% of the local humans are Borderlander humans, about 15% Swynfaredian humans, and about 10% Fumayan humans, about 5% other. This is not counting mixed race humans of whom there are lots, especially Swynfaredian/Borderlander hybrids.
About 10% of the farmland is in the hand of yeoman who have gotten their family land as a reward for services during the coup and transition and the remaining 90% is technically owned by the new Baron Tacitus Wiern though he has announced plans to formalize the distribution of land to people and families who serve him well.
Government
Blue Peaks Heraldry by Me using Worldspinner's heraldry tool
Every one of Baron Tacitus Wiern's is handpicked by him and can be dismissed at any time. The Baron has announced plans to eventually established hereditary non-revocable titles when the realm stabilizes and he is dangling this possibility as a carrot to entice his lieutenants and subjects to work hard and fight bravely as Baron Wiern expects harsh times on the horizon.
Defences
Baron Wiern inherited the defensive structures built by his predecessors Old Uwcharedia.
He inherited Duchess Nia's small but highly defensible castle intact.
West Fort facing the road to Prophet's Pass and East Fort facing Wooly Slopes suffered some minor damage during the coup, and they won't be able to be repaired until spring but they are still formidable structures.
The realm also has three incomplete and ruined castles that nevertheless have strong foundations. Baron Wiern hopes to eventually complete these castles and set up four administrative divisions in Blue Peaks based on these castles once he has the time and funds necessary to finish these castles.
Assets
The realm had a sizeable treasury of gold and other valuables as spoils of war from the recent coup, but the Baron has liquidated most of his treasury to deal with various shortages that have cropped up as the old regime grabbed a lot of food and supplies on their exodus out of the Barony.
The Barony was able to capture a fair portion of the weapons and armor of the old regime, but a large portion of the arms were looted by third party thieves, now believed to be loyal to the sorcerer Mostyn and the sorceress Talaith and currently residing in the Petty Kingdom of Altudaredia.
History
Uwcharedia was usurped by an army of squib soldiers backed by House Goirsonad battle sorcerers roughly 200 years prior.
At the time it was controlled by a rapacious warlord believed to be affiliated with the Testers. The previous warlord had usurped the realm from a kindly but relatively feckless and weak Border Baron (the last previous Baron to call the province "Blue Peaks" roughly 20 years prior, claiming his daughter as his war bride.
Given that the previous warlord was so hated, at the time the common people greated the Swynfaredian transplants as liberators.
While the Swynfaredians made a big deal of taking out an evil tyrant, they really wanted this land as a convenient place to ship off Squibs to, in order to give them their own proverbial sand box to play in. Over the years, more and more squibs get shipped off to Uwcharedia and the first Uwcharedian squibs paired off and had children meaning the realm quickly grew top heavy with more nobility than they truly needed, and this led to relatively high taxes on the commoners in order to support this bloated upper crust.
Over the succeeding generations, the common people had grown to resent their Squib overlords. The nobles did not beat, rape, or murder their peasants, but they do charge a higher rate of taxes than most other Border Baronies and a lot of peasant families struggle with finding enough food to make ends meet. Thus when Baron Wiern and his allies set up a coup, most of the locals greeted the newcomers as liberators.
That said, Baron Wiern has not yet earned the undying loyalty of his new subjects. The land redistributions has certainly created winners and losers and many are grumbling about the various supply shortages.
Natural Resources
Within the rugged highlands there are pockets of isolated flat valleys, which are relatively small but have an excellent crop yield acre per acre well suited to cereal crops.
Blue Peaks has a modest amount of lush grazing land which is good for sheep and goats. Their herders periodically trade breeding stock with their allies in Wooly Slopes.
There are some modest mineral resources but they are all hard to get to. It's not cost effective to hire non-dwarf miners to get at and the the dwarf nations were not exactly eager to work with the Uwcharedians. Baron Wiern is hoping to change this and is seeking to build bridges with Meckelorn.
A few more marginal lands with somewhat unfavorable slopes and/or rockier soil provide decent if not extraordinary crop moderately well suited to root crops.
Fast flowing mountain streams provide lots of clean water, but there is enough consistent rainfall that irrigation is not really needed though in a few places rice is cultivated. The mountain streams are considered to be the reason why the local ale is consodered to be top quality. Originally, it was drank by the local nobility but Baron Wiern is considering exporting this ale to the dwarves of Meckelorn next harvest season.
The main export, what enticed Swynfaredia here in the first place, is reagent plants. Reagent ready wild plants are not phenomenally common here, but they do grow more often than most places. Unfortunately, the Uwcharedians took a lot of reagents on their way out and Blue Peaks needs to curtail reagent harvesting in the near future to let nature recover.
Timber is available but not abundant, barely adequate for the realm's fuel and building needs. The Uwchardians had gotten some criticism from the region's Stewards for over harvesting trees. Baron Wiern is trying to negotiate some form of formal compromise with the Stewards and in the mean time and used some of his rapidly depleting treasury to buy firewood from neighboring Border Barons.
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Alternative Name(s)
Old Uwcharedia
Type
National Territory
Population
64,000
Related Ethnicities
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Related Reports (Secondary)
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