Halnæ's Créche
Demographics
- 45% Kælic Bryndffolk
- 25% Gundtral
- 20% Svaaktral
- 10% Crécheffolk of mixed ancestry
Government
Halnæ's Créche has no formal government, it's ruler is the Taisech of Kæl Lyrægh (presently Taisech Shârîl). All local order and community governance is accomplished through informal councils of families and households in the Créche. If the matters require mediation, Druí Ríliah is called upon to function as an impartial judge.
During those times when Halnæ's Créche needs to address the Taisech to address needs they cannot meet for themselves, a speaker is appointed by council to represent the Créche at Lyre Hall. This representative is not a permanent office, nor does it have a term beyond the duration of the issue at hand. Though, for practical reasons, if they are able, the same person is selected both for ease of appointment, and due to familiarity with the politics which inevitably surround the Taisech and Lyre Hall.
Each Midsummer, after the planting season is complete, the council appoints a Sheriff to maintain general peace and order in the Créche. The Sheriff is appointed for a year and is often a well known member of the community with a reputation for sound judgement. The job is almost always secondary to the appointed person's primary responsibilities to their own household. In emergencies, the Sheriff will deputize a posse to help deal with the crisis, (usually in the form of overly rowdy adventurers, or travellers who feel like they can push around the pastoral locals). Justice, when it is called upon is normally forwarded to Lyre Hall. When the need arises to restrain a miscreant (or miscreants), Grumm's Greathouse empties a cellar to keep the offender from causing further mischief.
Oustide of what has been addressed, governing Halnæ's Créche is left up to individual households. Neighbors are expected to work out differences between themselves peacably. During emergencies the community responds more-or-less organically. Contributions to the community winter stores are made voluntarily with the knowledge that bad harvests are understood and that failing to donate will be corrected by the community locally. Crécheffolk look out for one another, and there is little or no need for the Taisech to exert any rulership. It's not needed, and it's not wanted.
Industry & Trade
Halnæ's Créche does not produce any industry. They are mostly agricultural and the few smiths they have are primarily tinkers, repairing tools, forging out nails, horseshoes, and plowshears. They can smelt some ore, like copper or tin, but their forges are unable to burn hot enough to work iron or steel. The local coopers, wheelwrights, and craftsfolk produce enough to support the Créche, but no where near enough to trade as an export.
Indeed for iron or steel items, the Créche must trade with communities along the Kaalva Bluffs. To aquire complex machinery, they'll have to go as far as Lyre Hall, Crâzoa, or the Kieran Slee.
One thing, outside of crops that Halnæ's Créche sends to outside markets that can be considered a legitimate trade rescource are brewed, fermented or distilled drink and spirits. Brewing, winemaking and distilling is a craft which the Crécheffolk have refined into an art over the generations. The long months between the first snows of winter and the end of the storms of First Spring leave ample time for artisans to refine their recipies for all sorts of beverages that warm the soul.
Distilled barley wheat in particular is a valuable trade good from the Créche. Surplus harvests are regularly distilled into white spirits and the new spirit result is often a fast way for a farmer to capitalize on their bounty in good years through sale outside the region once the trade routes open once again. Surplus wines are also distilled into brandies and stored in casks buried in cellars beneath the Midwinter Greathouses. Once aged in barrels made from staves harvested from the Tuar Ymagâr, these aged spirits aquire a taste and aroma distinct to Halnæ's Créche.Infrastructure
The major focus of infrastructure in Halnæ's Créche are the Greathouses. These are the focus for much of the Créche's socal and community gatherings. Each of the Greathouses are permanent structures and have their own flavor and character. Grumm's is the oldest and most well utilized.
As part of Grumm's Greathouse, Trout Bridge which crosses the Tuarcetha River is the only permanent bridge joining the southern minefeilds to the northern farmlands in the Créche.
In addition to the Greathouses, Halnæ's Créche maintains several permanent community storehouses where surplus harvest are preserved and stored for the winters and any years where the crops may fail.
Points of interest
Sínebaugh Font
Where Druí Ríliah resides and maintains the sacred grove on the verge of the Taur Ymagâr Forest. The grove is not far past the treeline, and Ríliah's stewardship allows the grove to exist in harmony with the forest.Loc Kílkén
A lake fed from the runoff from Dyperogg Ridge. Kílkén is a surprisingly deep lake, indeed it's deepest point is the lowest point known in Kæl Lyrægh. Even in the deepest winter, when the creeks which feed it freeze solid, Loc Kílkén's depths remain unfrozen.Grumm's Greathouse
The oldest surviving Greathouse in Halnæ's Créche, Grumm's Greathouse commonly serves as the public house for travellers and guests, and has done so for nearly 20 generations of Grumms.
Tourism
There is little in the way of "tourism" in Halnæ's Créche. Some folk do visit from time to time either to collect some products "direct from the Créche" to sell at market, or uncommonly, adventurers testing their courage and boldness heading into the Taur Ymagâr or searching the ridges and ravines along the slope of Stone Giant's Tusk. Halnæ's Créche observes a tradition of Hospitality, and guests, or travelers in need can be accomodated in one of the Midwinter Greathouses most of the time. But, hospitality is only temporary here, guests are expected to rest, recover and be on their way in a matter of days.
There are few demands for commercial transaction out here. Coin is appreciated when offered, but seldom asked for. Travelers who are familiar with Kaelic Highland culture know that it is customary to repay the hospitality and generosity of their hosts with a small or modest expression of service, or gift. Adventurers, in particular, can maintian good relationships with all the Crécheffolk by doing small tasks which the pastoral farmers and miners are ill-equipped to handle. Finding lost livestock, tracking and driving off a dangerous predator, even less adventerous services like using magic or muscle to chop wood, repair equipment, etc. Adventurers who earn a good relationship with the Crécheffolk and regularly return to the Créche find that the region is very welcoming and more than a little eager to informally adopt their adventurers into their community. Those who make for themselves a poor reputation with the Crécheffolk will discover that the hospitality of Halnæ's Créche much colder and a distinct, constant pressure to make their stay a brief as they can.
Architecture
The farmhouses and minehouses of Halnæ's creche follow the architecture of traditional Bryndffolk construction. Low, round structures, seldom more than one story high, primarily built from wood and timber with a siding of mud and lime providing some insulation from the temperature and the weather. Inside, the buildings are dominated by a single, large common room surrounded by a handfull of smaller rooms along the outside, used for storage, privacy, and quiet. Most activity in these homes are focused towards a stone hearth dug into the ground and lined in stone. Smoke and heat escape through a stone-lined chimney built at the highest point of the domed roof.
Some houses, like the large Midwinter Greathouses, are intended for multiple families to shelter in for a week or so. They also serve as community gathering places and venues for festivals and celebrations. These roundhoses are built with stone, and while broad, still are one or at most two stories tall. The Midwinter Greathouse has four, sometimes five hearths built around the main hall. Rooms ring the outer wall of the roundhouse, but huddle close to the different hearths. On opposite ends of the building are great, heavy double doors that can accomodate a family's cart of belongings to be pulled in. Or, in warmer months, they can be opened to permit a steady, cooling breeze to pass through the hall.
The roofs of the roundhouse, small, or great are supported by timbered pillars. One in the smaller farmhouses and minehouses, and nearly half a dozen for the largest halls of the Midwinter Greathouses. The roofs are domed and framed so as to shed snow and rain before it collects too much to cause damage.
Each small roundhouse is built to accomodate a single family of a half-dozen to ten individuals (not counting babes and young children). The Midwinter Greathouses can accomodate fifty people for a short time, providing a more secure shelter during the worst storms.
This pattern of building is extended to the storehouses, grain silos, barns, sheds and minefronts. While regions do vary on details and decorations, these roundhouses are the primary plan for Kaelic Highlands folk.
Geography
Climate
Halnæ's Creche is temperate and cold, in the shadow of the Stone Giant's Tusk, the warm currents from the south are diverted into the Taur Ymagâr and towards the pass at Kieran Slee. Storms come from the East, over the Taur Ymagâr and North, over the Kaalva Bluffs. The Stone Giant's Tusk acts as a wall from these air currents, causing them to violently clash. From the first day of Spring through the Spring Equinox, Halnæ's creche endures harsh thunderstorms, flooding from the creeks and tornadoes with regularity.
While destructive and dangerous, these early year storms also bring water onto the slopes of the Dyperogg ridge, which annually refresh the soil on the kæl floor, accounting for Halnæ's Créche's relative bounty when compared to the rest of Kæl Lyrægh.
From the Equinox through Midsummer, the fields of Halnæ's Créche are ripe for sewing crops. After the last big storm passes through, the Crécheffolk waste no time industriously, planting, repairing and running their herds of livestock into the blossoming fields. Storms are replaced by showers, the streams and creeks return to their banks, and for this time, the Créche flowers with life.
After Midsummer until the first day of Autumn, life in the Créche settles into a routine of farming, mining, and herding. The month of Last Summer here in Halnæ's Créche is pastoral and peaceful. The highland climate here keeps the Summer heat from growing oppressive, and the Stone Giant's Tusk shields the wet Summer winds out of the Kharian Basin in the south from reaching the lands.
With Autumn, Halnæ's Créche begins to produce what was sewn in the spring. During the month of First Autumn, the Crécheffolk busy themselves preparing for harvest. At the Autumnal Equinox, those preparations become actions, and for the entirety of the month of Last Autumn, the Créche is a buzz of activity, either harvesting the fields planted, or as the first day of Winter approaches, readying the small community for the snows, dark and cold.
Although the calendars written declare Winter to begin on a designated day, the Crécheffolk know that Winter arrives with the first snow of the season. This storm will happen as early as the last week of Last Autumn, or it may come as late as the third week of First Winter. Whenever the snows come, the temperature in the Créche rapidly drops as the days grow shorter and the sun spends less time warming the skies. Ones the first snow arrives, others follow, all the way through First and Last Winter until the days grow long enough again to thaw the frozen ground with the First Spring. Halnæ's Créche sleeps through the winter months, it is dark and dangerous with the nights stretching longer and longer. During Midwinter, the temperatures fall to their coldest depths, and the Crécheffolk gather in stout stone roundhouses to ride out the long night of the dark together.
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