High Rock
As you know dear reader, I, your author, hail from this most fortuitous province. High Rock is the Northwestern most of the 9 traditional 'provinces' of The Empire , and the homeland of our people, the Bretons (sometimes disparaged as the Man-mer, the Manmeri, or the Half-Elves*).
While claims have been entertained by overzealous Imperial bureaucrats that Orcish culture can also be traced back to High Rock, this nonsense is easily dismiss-able by the merest modicum or research. Worry not, our homeland is not the progenitor to that devilish race of beast-men.
Geography
High-Rock is a beautiful land of temperate climates, rolling green hills, windswept rocky crags, and isolated valleys and moors as if designed by its very nature to craft a people most perfect. Soft enough to fill us with eloquence and charm, and allow for the rich artistic nature of our people to shine, yet hard enough to foster an unnerving fighting spirit! It's quaint hamlets and the austere grandeur of its cities is something that must be appreciated, for this peace was hard won, and long fought. Indeed the stability that High Rock now enjoys today was but a dream for most of it's violent and troubled past.
High Rock is marked by two distinct facts of geography, its coastline and its mountains.
To the North and West the great Peninsula of Bretonny stretches out into the untamed Eltheric, and the frigid Sea of Ghosts. The wild storms of those oceans batter the land, leaving a rough and rugged landscape whose highland strongholds and isolated valleys have long cultivated the independence of numerous Breton clans.
The Highlands contain many small towns tucked into the folds and valleys that wind their way along the north-eastern coast. But this bucolic landscape is marred by grim fortifications that perch atop every hill and crag, a reminder of the constant warfare that was for many centuries, the scourge of the province. In the past, each petty lord, secure in his castle, enriched himself with tribute from all who traversed his domain. It was Tiber himself who ordered their demolishing - wisely understanding that such a plethora of fees and duties was incompatible with the free flow of commerce.
But to the South, the sheltered waters of the Iliac Bay hold sway, fostering trade and commerce, and connecting the great urban centres of High Rock to those across the bay in the province of Hammerfell.
As can be expected given this geography, the bulk of High Rock’s population lies along this Southern Coast in the so called ‘Lowlands’, this includes the rival cities of Daggerfall and Wayrest who each compete for the title of High Rock’s ‘Capital’. As one travels away from the Iliac, as a rule, the land rises, and while the highlands are much more sparsely populated, they have always played an important cultural and romantic role in the Breton imagination.
The mountains too, play an important role in understanding High Rock. The province's geography is split in half by the towering Wrothgarian and Kuralian ranges, the first standing like a pole in the centre of High Rock, the latter running much of the length of the Bretonny peninsula. South and West of the Mountains, is the 'Heart' of High Rock and the core of the Breton people. But the mountains pose a stern barrier, and past Wrothgaria, the people become queerer.
High Rock may be divided into the following geographic regions:
- Greater Bretonny
- Rivenspire
- The Bjoulsae Basin
- Wrothgaria
- The Dellese Isles
- The Reach
History
It must be noted that the 'Province' of High Rock is not an actual legal reality - nor has it ever been. Unlike the other so called 'provinces', High Rock has never been an independent unified Kingdom. High-Rock has always been divided into multiple different polities, city-states, and petty Kingdoms, all vying for greater prestige and control.
It is true that in the early days of the Third Empire - Provisional Governors directly ruled over a significant chunk of the province but even by the middle of the first century of the Third Era - High Rock was being ruled as a set of independent client states. Today it is ever fractured - with a number of local elites governing directly in the name of the Emperor and bowing only to him. Thus there is no such thing as High Rock outside of a general term used colloquially to describe the common homeland of our kindred.
Understanding the history of High Rock is crucial for would-be treasure hunters on the search for the myriad lost artifacts of the province's past. Any of which would fetch a pretty penny with the right collector.
Political Administration
High Rock has always been incredibly fractious and divided, a legacy of the Breton refusal to conform and our penchant for disagreement. But recent events have overturned this historic reality at least along the Iliac Bay, where the countless petty kingdoms have been amalgamated into two.
- Kingdom of Daggerfall
- Grand Duchy of Bourigand
- Kingdom of Boulland
- Mountain Landgraviates
- (etc.)
Religions of High Rock
- The Divine Court
- The Wyrd
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