Hedgpeth
A town to the northwest of Kassædeia in modern-day Sardivelia. During its millennia-long occupation by the Elflands Empire various races were herded into the city if their populations didn’t merit the designation of an entire province. The Characters Revolution had trouble recruiting people in this territory due to factional disputes, but in 896 they managed to ally with hobgoblin forces inside the city and seize it from Elflands control in 896. Unfortunately the resistance movement proved no match for the Sunken God sahuagin horde the following year, and with the Treaty of Iverburg in 898 the city came under the control of Paoli Piedmonte's Sardivelia.
Demographics
- 22% Goblinkin
- 19% Humans
- 16% Dragonborn
- 14% Gnomish
- 10% Dwarven
- 18% Other Races (Tabaxi, Aasimar, etc.)
History
In the reign of Emperor Fortinbras I (629, 3rd Cycle - 1186, 3rd Cycle), the Elflands Empire underwent a massive administrative reform to account for all the races and tribes that were now under elven control. Many races like gnomes and halflings were given their own administrative provinces, but for races that failed to merit a province of their own the Empire decided to crowd them into a single riverside village a few week's west of Kassædeia known as Hedgpeth. Its location near the Empire's capital allowed the imperial government to keep an eye on its population, and the factional infighting over the region's limited resources ensured that the city's inhabitants would be busier fighting each other than the empire.
This strategy worked for centuries, and even after successful revolts in provinces like the Bahamut Mtns the Elflands always maintained control of the city even as its population grew exponentially in the 4th Cycle. What the imperial government didn't anticipate, however, was the political unification of the city's goblinoid races.
The common assumption was that goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins would fail to set aside their differences and would feud between each other over petty concerns. This was the strategy the Elflands applied to the conquest of the goblin tribes, and the thinking held true for years until the rise of Father Goodberry and his cult of personality that transcended the racial divide. He argued for goblin self-rule and government representation, promising rights and treatment that most goblins had never experienced in their lives. Together the goblin races accounted for a quarter of Hedgpeth's population, a large enough faction to disrupt the city's status quo and threaten elven hegemony.
Father Goodberry's movement had its moment in the fall of 896 when it flooded the city's downtown center and seized city hall from its elven leaders. Aided by agents from the Characters Revolution, Hedgpeth declared its independence and began constructing a new constitution to establish a parliamentary democracy. These plans were put on hold however after the New Year's Massacre of 897 and the rise of the Sunken God's reign of terror in Kassadeia. Goodberry and his goblin freedom-fighters tried defending the city from the monstrous deity, but its position at the intersection of two rivers made it vulnerable from amphibious invasions like the kind used by the Sunken God's sahuagin horde. The city fell in the summer of 897, Goodberry dying in combat while he helped hundreds of townspeople flee the city and the oncoming sahuagin masses.
Hedgpeth stood ruined for several months, and it wasn't until after the Battle of Kassadeia and the defeat of the Sunken God in the winter of 897 that people began moving back to the city to rebuild. The following year's Treaty of Iverburg granted control of the city and its waterways to the merchant kingdom of Sardivelia, and with Paoli Piedmonte's private coffers the city rebuilt and expanded into an industrialized metropolis. Fearing a revolt like the kind orchestrated by Father Goodberry, the Sardivelian government used many of the same tactics as the former Elflands Empire and pitted rival factions against each other. Without charismatic leaders like Father Goodberry to unite the city under a common cause of independence, the city would remain firmly under Sardivelian control for years to come.
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