Yohenstern

Yohenstern is a town of freedom: freedom fighters, free booters, and free men living beyond the bounds of serfdom. This is a sanctuary of Theia the Liberator, goddess of freedom - the greatest such sanctuary in Northern Stildane. 
Yohenstern is both a monument to freedom and to loss: the bustling down is built from and amidst the ruins of a once-grand city. The Cenotaph Road road, as it snakes through town, passes between the new Moonfort citadel and the cursed and abandoned castle of the old ruins. Across the bay from the new port, a ruined ancient temple complex is distantly visible, laced with subtle magical corruption. It is not unusual to see someone shingle their roof with scavenged tile, or for a shop to have an ancient mosiac built into the walls. 
Yohestern is a popular place for traders, particularly foreign ones: all are welcome here and all may trade freely. It is not unusual to see a foreign Selkie or odd distant traveler in the port - though few outsiders dally here for long. Pirates, smugglers, bandits, and peasant rebels also tend to travel here to lodge, sell their loot, and recruit. Robbery and theft are still very much illegal here, but Yohenstern has an adversarial relationship with the surrounding country that makes robbing them a subject of little concern. If you want something typically illegal, someone broken out of imprisonment, or want to track down a shady specialist, this is a good place to go. 
Yohenstern has little appreciation for titles, nobility, or extreme wealth. It would be wise to show the paladin elite and town officials respect, though - to be banished from Yohenstern is to truly have no sanctuary, should the world turn against you.

Demographics

Over 3,000 people live in this large town. The wealth is reasonably equally distributed, though there is certainly a local town elite. While more people would likely be willing to live in Yohenstern, it can't grow too much larger without securing a stable food supply.

Government

Yohenstern is ruled by a local republic, which calls itself the Sacred Communal Republic of Yohenstern. While the rules and guidelines of the Republic allude to a very democratic system, where most of the decisions are made by local consensus and in which all representatives are tied to active and involved democratic communes, these are mostly idealistic references to a romanticized past and glorified future. In reality, Yohenstern's paladins and local town elite monopolize power in the town government, and restrict many of the top positions to nominees from within their ranks.
Unrealised promises aside, Yohenstern is much more democratic than most towns here in Andrig. The town is cut up into communes, which are led by small neighborhood-level councils and which handle many day to day issues. Many communes are led by Ealdormen, elders who are well-established in the community, though ealdormen may in practice serve as leaders for multiple communes. Communes each vote collectively, to vote for a sacred protector from among the paladin leadership. The sacred protector then appoints a number of officers to handle most of the functions of government. 
The current sacred protector is Kovara Ozgheim, a cheerful Starspawn woman known to be unusually law-orieted as Theians go. Kovara is known for her boisterous hunting trips and her dedication to running a consistent and fair law and judicial system- it is her that wrote down the ideal laws, which she hopes to one day implement. Kovara is reasonably competent, though she is in some ways a more accomplished warrior than leader; while she does impressive work in law and philosophy, she struggles with mediating and balancing the many competing factions of Yohenstern. She is simultaneously too much of an idealist to exert true authority, and too much of a war-leader to lead using diplomacy.

Industry & Trade

Yohenstern is a mixed agricultural and manufacturing town, with households often mixing gardening/small farming with crafts. Yohenstern does have local guilds, most of which are led by ealdormen or other established commune leaders. Guild law is less restrictive here than in the rest of Hain and Andrig (it is easier to operate as a freelance artisan in Yohenstern, though the guilds' deep ties into town government make them very powerful indeed when they wish to crack down on a business or merchant. In terms of production, Yohenstern mostly produces textiles, minor Monstercrafting, stonemasonry, and other assorted smallcrafts. 
Trade is a larger part of the Yohenstern economy than production. Yohenstern's autonomy allows it to circumvent royal tarriffs and impositions, as well as the semi-monopolies held by the royal Burghers. Groups like the Hawks Company and the Overont Smugglers bring both licit and illicit business to the town, as do normal merchant ships simply seeking a freer space to make deals. The ealdormen and guilds establish and regulate the local markets, and in turn draw some of that money into the town - major transactions can sometimes be great windfalls to individual communes, whose leaders have managed to insert themselves into a deal. This is not a purely parasitic transaction - the communes often record contracts, store goods, and provide a base level of security against thieves and cons. 
Foreign merchants and ships tend to prefer Yohenstern, despite its smaller size - where local Burghers often force foreigners to go through them (at very unfavorable rates), Yohenstern gives them free reign to make their own sales. This attracts both Khilaian selkie ships and pirates seeking to launder their ill-gotten loot.

Districts

Moonfort: The center of government and the bastion of the followers of Theia the Liberator - a castle, fortified and protected with the very traps and hazards that ancient invaders used to make this city uninhabitable. This is a military center, though it also houses the judiciary and archives of the town. 
Eldergardens: The oldest part of town next to the Moonfort, a series of walled gardens and shops structured into historical commune blocks. This is where the old, established Yohensterner families live; the people here are craftsmen and farmers, well-established and perhaps a little more conservative than the rest of the town. They are welcoming and egalitarian by mainstream Hainish-Dovenaran standards, but they are a little wary of outsiders and those without a trade. The Earldormen rule here, and there are several major assemblyhouses in this district where the town elites meet and discuss politics.
Bellowsrow: A chaotic, still-developing part of town. The communal maps are still being negotiated in parts of this district, as new arrivals build new housing, while older families push their neighbors away to make room for in-fields and gardens. This is where the rowdy youths meet to plan their raids out into the countryside, where smugglers and merchants negotiate in bars, and where newly escaped serfs work to try and find their footing in a new environment. 
Freeport: The main commercial and fishing district - the main port of Yohenstern. Overwhelmingly commercial, with minimal permanent housing. Extremely diverse, with numerous languages and faiths represented in the market and docks. 

As represented in grey on the map, there are also some ruins that remain dangerous to settle. These are marked off by boundary markers. Thankfully, they don't have threats that can wander into town, and usually aren't particularly dangerous to wander through. As such, they are ideal places for shady dealings. 
Poisonslope: The area just West of town. The wells here are poisoned; even when purified, they simply become poisoned again after a few days or weeks. There are no other threats here, but the well issue is enough to make it off-limits to long-term habitation. Plenty of people fish near here, host minor gatherings in the old ruins, or dump their garbage or waste here.
Oldport: Oldport is the least dangerous off-limits ruin and may soon be open to use again. Once, this was a particularly haunted area and a place prone to monstrous infestation. It was also mined to hell with living land-mines, that reproduced and burrows all across the area. Those living explosives are gone now, as are most of the spirits and monsters - but there is some kind of hidden spot in the ruins that some last problem-beasts are nesting in. The paladins are working on a final push to purify and reclaim the space, and assess it for any long-term problems.
Old North Citadel: This was once the royal castle and palace of the ancient city. It then became the center of ancient experimentation with biological weaponry, a testing ground for horrible creatures and new strains of corrupted magic. The process of undoing all of the nasty little traps, curses, and corruptions is still ongoing, but thankfully the Citadel is both walled off and doesn't spread any nasty things into the surrounding lands.
Shattered Sanctum: Across the bay to the South is the other most-ruined place in Yohenstern: the old sanctuary, where once the paladins and heroes of old gathered in secret halls blessed by the God Haru himself. The corruption of the powerful blessing magic has cursed and profaned the land itself. Bad things happen here; at night, it isn't safe to walk here. Corrupted creatures feed and grow strong here, and are drawn to it. They are culled by the paladins fairly quickly, but they leave behind their own vile shadows that haunt the land. Thankfully, few things leave this place, but it is very firmly off limits. 
Paladins of many kinds often consider the Sanctum a holy site - particularly the extra-dimensional space created by Haru, which only reveals itself if a paladin recites their sacred oath in ernest prayer at the Sanctums's Lunar Shrine. This is the heart of this place's corruption, and yet it is immaculate - Ederstone warped and disfigured the shrine, but the powerful divine magic kept its general shape and visible meaning. The extra-dimensional space is also still there, though the pocket dimension is now eerie. Once, it had a staff of a hundred figures of light (magical constructs all) who tended to the wounds of any who came and recited divine wisdom. Now, those figures are broken and distorted, weeping and babbling, tending to the bones of the ancient dead. They can even become hostile and dangerous. And yet, for all their corruption, they are willing to transfer the memories of the ancient freedom fighters who used this place centuries ago to those who ask for them. Paladins who go on pilgrimmage here come for those memories and for the sense of connection to the past they offer. The potential danger is a nice cherry on top, an ordeal to prove themselves by.

Guilds and Factions

Paladins: The sacred warriors of Theia the Liberator run this town - this is perhaps the most important Theian site in all of middle Stildane. The paladins are run by the Sacred Companions, a loose council of warriors with a history of running the government here. Plenty of other paladins are here, though, and are hosted with honors as peers: Anti-paladins (who hunt those who oathbreak or abuse their powers), Liberators (who seek to preach and arm peasant rebellion), and adventurers simply seeking a home base. These other paladins are expected to pitch in and act as warriors for the Companions while they govern and protect Yohenstern - all newcomers must swear an oath to do so to be granted a place among their ranks. These oaths don't tie down those who swear them, though. Any paladin outside of the Companions is free to leave at their leisure and pursue whatever alternative goals they may have, as long as they answer the call during emergencies. 
Earldormen and Commune Councillors: The local peasant elites who hail from the local residences: community leaders, masters of crafts, matriarchs of large families, successful shopkeeps and merchants. They tend to be well-established, often descended from the older families of Yohenstern; they also tend to be older, passing their enterprises or jobs onto their children while they become councillors. This faction has its internal rivalries and disagreements, but tends to rally around certain positions: they tend to favor the status-quo, stability, and commercial prosperity. They are conservative on the whole by the local standards, and oppose anyone promoting peasant rebellion. They also tend to be wary about outsiders who lack coin or trade; they are convinced that bandits and radicals are conspiring to plunge the town into a war it can't possibly win. That said, their politics are only comparatively conservative - they still see the feudal order as abominable and don't seek to bind people into exploitative feudal or guild-stratified social positions. 
Uvaran Clergy: The priests and acolytes of the Uvaran faith, the majority religion among the townsfolk. Allies of the councillors, yet also very much their own faction. There are four Uvaran temples in Yohenstern, divided between the Eldergarden and Bellowsdown, with the most respected of these priests being the priest of Eldergarden's Temple of Ancients. The current priest in this position is a conservative religious traditionalist (and rather knowledgable theologian and ritualist) who is on bad terms with the local paladins and is often said to have picked this position as an elaborate form of suicide. While the clergy are not all quite so conservative, they are perhaps the most openly critical of the paladins. 
Hawks Company: A mercenary company that has ties to Theia, that has invested in having one of their main bases in Yohenstern. The Hawks offer loot and social mobility to anyone who joins them; they pride themselves on their common roots and meritocratic promotions. Not one noble stands in their ranks, and they do not discriminate against serfs, bandits, witches, or wastelanders joining their ranks. They are only really a force for their own freedom nowadays - they don't do much freeing of anyone else - but they offer some security and investment for Yohenstern. The Hawks are extremely pro-commerce; they agitate regularly for whatever might further grow Yohenstern's wealth and commercial traffic. 
Overont Smugglers: A smuggling ring with one foot in Overont to the South of town, and one foot in Yohenstern. They are a loose company devoted to moving goods from Hain into Yohenstern without engaging with either port tariffs or road tariffs. It is a difficult task for most people, given the rough terrain of the Halvzarmoor, but this smuggling ring has the process down. They typically don't handle bulk goods, but rather valuable and smaller goods; even for them, transporting wagons of cargo is terribly risky.

History

Oldest Yohensterm

The old city of Yohenstern was once the largest city between Onaribek and Artoril. They called it the 'City of Hospitality' and 'the City of Neutrality', for its tolerance and its position as a safe haven between the Kingdom of Hain and the Empire of Kizen; religious schismatics, political exiles, and merchants eager to trade across political-religious divides all congregated in Yohenstern, creating a cultural atmosphere of creativity, innovation, and free thought. While that city is dead and gone, it would not hurt to give a brief overview of its history.
Old Yohenstern was founded in 1110, from a meeting between Hainish merchant-druids from the South and Verzaven paladins from the North. The town they built was well-insulated and protected, and it flourished as migrants flooded in seeking a safe harbor with good opportunities for social mobility. The Lunar Pantheon always favored old Yohenstern; when the Third Scouring War cloaked the region in fire and radiation in the late 1300s, Yohenstern was spared thanks to Lunar negotiations. This began Yohenstern's true ascent as the City of Neutrality, and the city remarkably held during the Fourth Scouring a century later. Yohenstern's remarkable tolerance for extreme heresies gave it sentimental value to the most extreme Kivish sects, whose earliest prophets often stayed in the city at times. While different armies conquered the city, it was generally spared pillaging or razing, and the city was able to retake its independence after the war ended.

Old Yohenstern

The 1500s, after the Third and Fourth Scourings had passed, was the golden century of Yohenstern. The city grew and thrived as a port of art, political philosophy, natural science, and magical experimentation. But, at the end of the 1600s, the city was finally destroyed in the Fifth Scouring War - the new religious radicals proved less wantonly destructive but also less merciful than the prior ones.
Yohenstern had, over the last two centuries, been quietly forged into the perfect thorn in the Kivish's side. The walls of Yohenstern were not exceptional, but small hidden shelters and bunkers had been built into the city and surrounding area - perfect sanctuaries for paladins and their allies to wage guerilla war from. Indeed, the God Haru had even visited and created a hidden Hallowed sanctuary that was extremely difficult to find and destroy and served as an ideal supply depot. The Gods had planned for a long-running war of urban resistance against any potential occupier, and it likely would have been impossible to hold if the Kivish had any intention of actually keeping the city intact. The conquerors enslaved the populace and razed the city, and used overwhelming firepower to blast apart the remnants when they realized that dozens of tiny fighting forces were hiding in the city's ruins. Yohenstern's defenders still managed to bleed the Kivish of valuable money and supplies, and hindered the invasion of Hain by years - Haru's sanctuary in particular was puzzling for the conquerors.
Unfortunately, the persistence of resistance in Yohenstern led to the invading army testing experimental flesh-warped weaponry here: some sort of horrific perpetual poison for a number of the local wells, self-replicating organic land mines, and fast-growing organic sealant. In short, Yohenstern was unusually thoroughly destroyed and dangerous to inhabit by the time that the city was finally liberated in 1730.

The Slow 1700s

Yohenstern may have been abandoned as a ruin if it hadn't been for the return of its pre-Scouring Queen, Queen Halga Yohenzel. The old queen had been kept in petrified stasis in the Kokech Reliquary for the entire war, and her family had scattered across Hain - mostly dead now. The Hainish monarch made the returned queen the semi-independent lord of freed Dovenar, and she would reign for another seventy years until the ancient elven queen was finally deposed by a coup of Hainish nobles in 1800. But while the old queen reigned, she worked to try and restore her old capital, or to at least make it safe enough to house a new royal palace.
Paladins of Theia the Liberator played a major role in clearing the land, as they also had a sentimental attachment to it. The Hallowed pocket-dimension-sanctuary that Haru had hidden in the old city had helped Theian paladins smuggle weapons into the nearby slave camps and smuggle refugees out of them. And while all of the Lunar Pantheon had worked against the invaders, the Theians had been most successful in fighting them in occupied territory. While the other Lunar gods had more paladins in the knights riding North, Theians had the most local warriors who stayed behind to help rebuild and care for the survivors. And so it fell to the Theians to purify their old sanctuary, ruined block by ruined block.
For twenty years, the realm was more or less without a government; communities governed themselves locally, and the Hainish lords periodically travelled by collecting taxes and levies for another military push. Even as a government slowly articulated itself, villages and communities kept their old leaders and ways. But, starting in the 1750s, the nobility and Queen began to assert more power over the local people - and the Theian paladins were driven out of many areas. They fell back to Yohenstern, where the Queen offered them freedom and security as long as they continued their work of disabling the traps and dangers left behind there. And, after the paladins fled Keilbar in the 1770s, they formally declared Yohenstern to be their central base in Southern Andrig. They brought their allies with them, local idealists and settlers of all stripes who began to make Yohenstern more than a paladin monastery, but a real settlement - the land had been purified enough to farm and live proper lives on. For thirty years, the settlement slowly grew - the newest iteration of Yohenstern had been born!

The Riotous 1800s

When the new noble regime deposed the Queen and took the Kingdom of Dovenar in 1800, the paladins of Yohenstern lost their greatest protector. The new regime wasn't eager to start persecuting paladins of any kind, but were wary of such an ideologically overt and rebellious pocket of Theians. The new monarchs drafted a series of rigid rules and edicts intended to bind the Theians into the feudal order, just as they set about dismantling the local protections that the communities and Theians had won decades ago. The Theians flouted these rules and refused to disperse and accomodate the new order. In 1802, after a great deal of grandstanding and failed negotiations, it broke into war - Yohenstern entered open revolt, and rallied the local peasantry to overthrow the monarchy. In the spring of 1803, the Battle of Yohenstern was fought, where the knightly retinue was driven back out of the town and the paladins held their ground - though enough peasant rebels died to dissuade larger-scale rebellion. The rebellion lasted three years after that, but mostly in the form of minor skirmishes and peripheral village conflicts. Yohenstern, still surrounded by magically-dangerous ruins, had ironically become more defensible for its devastation. Finally, in 1806, after a brutal stalemate that was mostly suffered by the surrounding farmers, Yohenstern entered a formal peace with the new monarchy.
The period of 1806 to 1823 was defined by instability and tension; the ambient hostility of the crown essentially allowed local nobles, bandits, and adventurers to consider the settlement to be one of outlaws. After years of struggle, new leadership united the factions of Yohenstern and negotiated a lasting peace with the crown in 1823: Yohenstern would follow certain rules, but would exist as a "free town" with special privileges. That same year, the martial leadership established a formalized democratic process - Yohenstern became a vassal republic, with strong local democratic organs tied together into a republican superstructure with paladin oversight. This Communal Republic of Yohenstern lasted from 1823 to 1898 - though its golden years were likely 1840 to 1864, when the town flourished and attracted artists and merchants from other parts of Andrig. An extremely divisive legal case in 1860 led to a minor culture war of sorts, and the elections of 1864 ushered in a series of local officials who began harshly excluding or subordinating incoming peasant refugees and non-townsfolk. These powerful local leaders consolidated control over local communes during the 1860s, and by the 1880s the Republic was locked into perpetual infighting. The town stagnated, and conflict slowly escalated. In 1898, the political gridlock exploded into open conflict, and a group of young paladins led a vigilante mob in overthrowing the local communes and exiling or killing their political opposition. 

The Rough Times, 1900 - 1955

Following the 1898 political upheaval, the young paladins created a new regime: the Sacred Theian March of Yohenstern, which expanded the Theian tribunal of the old republic into a whole new government. This dysfunctional government, which never could decide if it wanted local representation or top-down Theian control, ended up losing much of the prosperity the old Republic had gained in its golden years; the inconsistency and volatility of the new town government burned many bridges to peasants and merchants alike. For all its numerous faults, the Sacred March wasn't a total failure - it continued to clear out old Scouring-era dangers and built new military infrastructure. It did, despite its many ideological claims, ultimately benefit the paladins and town warriors more than it did anyone else, though. The March, while inconsistent, was reasonably stable, and there was no drastic regime changes or open violence. 
In the 1940s, the Sacred March was slowly crumbling due to internal factionalism; their forty years of broken promises and incompetence had wasted most of their connections, local public support, and goodwill, and their numbers were thinning. In came a new group: the Hawks Company, a mercenary company from the Onaribek frontier with Theian tendencies. The Hawks Company's then-leader, Altarf Grulk, was winning the group money, recruits, and prestige - and saw Yohenstern as a natural base for his warriors after he was driven out of his prior stronghold in the North. In 1949, Altarf and the Hawks inserted themselves in local politics and managed to seize control of the town. While Altarf didn't rule Yohenstern personally, he installed his bastard son as his puppet ruler, to govern while Altarf was out campaigning. For six years, from 1949 to 1955, the Hawks ruled Yohenstern. They brought money, people, and trade to the town, yet they also deeply disrespected its people and communities. The local people began to grow agitated in a way they hadn't under the more ideological town governments. A popular revolt moved against Altarf in 1955, and a Theian blackguard-hunter slew the mercenary leader. The Hawks were driven out of Yohenstern, and paladins returned to power in town. 

Recent History

From 1955 to 1975, paladins were back in control of Yohenstern in a rigid military structure. The paladins tried to prioritize stability: local privileges and rights were restored, relations with the Hawks were normalized, and things returned to a baseline normal. Local communes began insisting on more rights and roles in leadership in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in 1975 the 'Yohenstern Restoration' began: a drastic restructuring of the local government to try and restore the glory of the Communal Republic of old. This Restoration had high hopes but the paladins were reluctant to relinquish material power. It took until 1998 for any real political changes to occur, and even then they were extremely limited. In many ways, the current factionalism is a result of frustration and opportunism around the half-opening of power during the Restoration. 
The current leader of Yohenstern, Ainesha Crescentblade, has ruled since 2004.

Tourism

There are a few taverns in town that may be useful for adventurers:

• The Everyman's Openhall is the biggest and most notable tavern in town: a large hall down in the Freeport that caters to people of all sorts. The Openhall has a second floor that also has rooms for business dealings, as well as gambling and food in the open courtyards. The innkeep is a whimsical fellow.
• The Old Saberhall is an old and prestigious tavern decorated with old weaponry from an semi-successful rebellion - and a tavern known to attract pirates and scoundrels. Thieving is a quick way to die here, but planning a heist might get you a round. The innkeep is a grizzled and quite old former pirate and rebel that is known to be a bit bossy about behavior in their tavern.
• The Freebird's Roost is a tavern that caters to Theians (and is particularly popular with lower members of the paladin elite). The barkeep is cheery and polite, and the inn serves rare beverages to its favored patrons: coffee, tea, hot cocoa, wine. The aim is to provide a space of both intellectual discussion and revelry; the inn is divided into two wings with very different vibes. 
• The Evergreen Chalice is a tavern that most appeals to the local craftsmen and clergy. A nice, relaxing tavern mostly catering to locals. The innkeep is known to be very chill and laid back. 

As for festivals, the big one in town is Almsgiving, the festival of Theia, celebrated the 29th of January. Ertfenfelm, in April, and Hadashten, in December, are also big.

Founding Date

1770

Type

Large town

Population

3,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Yohensterners

Location under

Andrig

Ruling/Owning Rank

Junker

Owning Organization

Kingdom of Dovenar