The Humans of the Fellreev

There are several distinct groups of humans who have an important niche in forest life. Perhaps the least important are the 2,000 woodsmen who have lived here for generations. These are mostly Flan men, with some Oeridian blood, who are foragers pure and simple. Their handful of tiny woodland hamlets are crude and rough, and virtually none of the woodsmen can even read or write. They get by where they can, avoiding any clashes with other forest folk.

Second, there are perhaps a thousand men from the old Rovers of the Barrens who have fled into the northern margins of the Fellreev to escape the marauding horrors of Gibbering Gate and the fiends stalking their homeland. These men are not well-adapted to forest survival and a hundred or so have already been lost to starvation and diseases such as scurvy and tuberculosis, the "rotting cough" as they refer to it. There is little strength to be found in these desperate men and their morale is appalling. Again, they are foragers, but far less successful than the indigenous woodsmen who have little pity for their Flan brothers. The Fellreev is not prosperous enough to permit such pity and the woodsmen have to survive too.

Third, there are actually two groups of "free bandits." Some totaling 2,000 or less are men from the Bandit Lands who are unallied with the dominant Reyhu group. They live in small bands wherever they can find a niche, scattered throughout the southern forest, with but few in the eastern wood elf lands. They live as raiders, because they lack foraging and forest survival skills. They'll raid anyone from forest orcs, elves, and other bandits to Iuz's supply trains headed for the three camps on the southern Fellreev margins. These bandits are poorly equipped, though, with no ready supply of weapons to replace ones long grown blunt or broken, and their lot is increasingly desperate.

The other "free bandit" group of note are men escaped from the Horned Society lands into the western Fellreev. The western forest margins are difficult for Iuz's troops to penetrate effectively because of the natural and undead barrier of Dahlvier's County, the difficulties they encounter in Jhanser's lands, and the mad chaos of the Estates of the Fiends. All these distractions to Iuz's armies help these men to survive, and with around 2,000 of them in the southwestern forest spur and the western margins as far as Dahlvier's County, they are not an insignificant force. They blend into the populations of Kindell, Ixworth and Jhanser's Lands and can obtain sup plies from there. These bandits are loyal to Nezmajen the Hierarch, in Darkpool.

Finally, the most important group by far are the 3,000 bandits who have allied with the wood elves.