Fringe
Fringe has the distinction (if half-elves are counted as human, as per wild-elven reckoning) of being the sole human-majority community in regular trade with the Green Warden Nations. Though Fringe is a founding state of the Tycho Free States, and a Fringe leader was first to sign the Free States Accords, Fringe is considered by some (especially within the Green Warden Nations) to be very nearly an elven vassal state.
Other than friendship with notoriously unfriendly elves, Fringe is known primarily for a type of marble unique to the Green Warden region. Shot with veins and patches of an improbably gemlike dark green, forest marble is prized the world over, perhaps all the more so because of Fringe’s careful quarrying practices, which incidentally also ensure that the global supply of forest marble remains rare and precious.
History and People
Fringe began as a Castorhagi penal colony, beside an outcropping of a stone discovered to be a beautiful green-variegated marble, dubbed forest marble. Originally named “Stonecut,” the town’s popular nickname became “Fringe” within a few years of its construction, because it was the farthest inland of all the labor towns and because it was built just under the fringes of what the early residents cheerfully called the “Malice Forest” after Queen Malice of Castorhage, who commissioned the colonies.
The quarry at Fringe was known up and down the Forest Coast as the worst of the labor camps, with dangerous practices and conditions, as well as the most back-breaking labor. Due to the rare beauty and practical utility of forest marble, however, Fringe was also the largest money-producer for Castorhage of all the original penal colonies. When the first wild elf raid on the town occurred, Queen Malice was quick to make peace with these wary neighbors by offering generous trade agreements and other concessions to keep them happy.
For this reason, mining and agricultural practices in Fringe have always been careful and clean, with no major incursions into the forest and very little damage to any of the surrounding wilderness, other than the rock of the quarry itself. These concessions made friendship between Fringe and the wild elves easier than it could otherwise have been. With the understanding that the forced laborers at the quarry were criminals serving their sentences, the elves simply remarked that humans must produce a great many terrible criminals for so many to deserve such treatment.
All could have continued like this indefinitely, if not for King Lertis Tevoy’s mad insistence on building a road deep into the forest, not only destroying large swaths of the wilderness but flagrantly disrespecting wild elven territory. The Forest Coast War followed, sometimes referred to as the Mortgage War, because King Lertis was forced to mortgage the Castorhagi crown jewels in order to pay his debts after the extremely costly venture was finally abandoned.
During the war, a fortress was built at Fringe in order to defend the quarry. Several battles were fought there, but the governor of Fringe at that time, one Lady Governor Avarice, was a skilled leader and excellent tactician. She held the defenses at Fringe with minimal casualties on either side and brutally punished any of her soldiers who behaved with dishonor or unnecessary cruelty toward the elven enemy. Due to her longstanding familiarity with the local elven leaders and their appreciation for Fringe’s respect of the forest, Fringe was granted similarly honorable treatment in return.
It was not long before Governor Avarice lost all respect for her sovereign. Nicknamed for her devotion to the acquisition of wealth, she found King Lertis’ poor financial decision-making an embarrassment. Citing strictly financial reasons, she began to engage in fewer hostilities with the enemy. Careful never to overtly disobey her monarch, Avarice’s subtle subversion was secretly looked upon with sympathy and approval by several of the king’s financial advisors, as well as some of the nobility.
Governor Avarice disappeared from Fringe in 2371 I.R. Upon investigation, it was discovered that all of the quarry’s pre-cut supply of marble, as well as all the governor’s own riches from her mansion, were also missing — a process that would have taken months to accomplish without alerting anyone to the activity. Mere weeks after her disappearance, the vice-governor assumed the post of governor and declared Fringe independent of Castorhage and sued for peace with the elves. Upon observing that Fringe was turning away all Castorhagi soldiers and work parties, the elves accepted the proposed treaty and ceased all hostilities with Fringe.
Six years later, three years after the war had ended, Lady Avarice reappeared in Castorhage without explanation for her absence. She was welcomed back into the town, and eventually died a rich woman. Sixty years after Governor Avarice’s death, secret communications came to light between herself and Terrance Aquiri, later known as King Acquire. It turned out that in exchange for a full pardon for desertion and a guarantee of no scandal, Governor Avarice agreed to arrange and broker the deal to sell King Lertis into slavery, revealing for the first time that King Acquire knew far ahead of time that his half-brother would mortgage the crown jewels to pay his debts.
In the meantime, Governor Petram, a philosopher and populist at heart, began to improve conditions in Fringe, starting by forgiving the financial debts of all Fringe's debt-based indentured workers and halving the remaining sentences of the rest. He also decreased daily required work hours and improved quarry safety. Finally, he revealed a project he had been working on in his spare time for the past 15 years: a proposed legal system for an experimental republic.
The Fringe republic model allows the vote only to resident, tax-paying landowners, but since most of the city was at that time a penal colony, Governor Petram allowed a one-time election in which all residents were allowed to participate, and the proposed republic was overwhelmingly adopted, affirming Petram as governor.
Religion
Though worship of Arialee, alongside a forest-centric animism, dominates Fringe’s spiritual life, Fringe’s religious practices are unique, including an annual spring flower-sculpture of Arialee that is allowed to dry over subsequent months and is burned in a giant bonfire every harvest season, as well as a late winter three-day chanting vigil (taken in shifts) to wake the plants and call them up from the earth.
The most incomprehensible religious practice in Fringe, from the perspective of most outsiders, is the dawn gratitude service. Every day at dawn (or just before, if farm duties require it), anyone who intends to work that day is expected to rise and engage in ritualized poses and chanting for two turns of the glass, at least. Residents say that in addition to the spiritual benefits of spending the morning in gratitude for nature itself, this daily practice gets the blood flowing, offers healthy stretching, and opens up the lungs, which results in better energy during the day, less soreness, and fewer labor-related injuries.
Unfortunately, it also alienates anyone with a less dawn-oriented internal clock, including many mostly-nocturnal humanoids. Individuals who regularly fail to participate in “dawn gratitudes” are often viewed with vague suspicion by the locals and possible enemies of the forest (even if they are Green Warden wild elves).
On the more popular side of things, Fringe religion is quite sexually permissive and tolerant of intoxicants and celebration of all varieties. For some outsiders, this permissiveness presents a confusing dichotomy, given the Fringe predilection for strict discipline, hard work, and rising early to pray.
Trade and Commerce
Fringe has always supported itself primarily through the quarrying and sale of forest marble, but it must be noted that Fringe’s ability to trade with the Green Warden is also a major source of its economic stability. Fringe sells marble, spends the money it gains on goods and luxuries it knows will appeal to even the anti-materialistic Green Warden elves, trades those to the elves for elf-made magical items, rare herbs and woods, elf-brewed spirits, and other items Fringe merchants can turn around and sell for a high price to other humans. Since Fringe has exhausted its original forest marble quarry and may not find another in its territory when the second runs out, trade with the elves is an important economic backup strategy for Fringe residents.
Loyalties and Diplomacy
Fringe participates actively in Tycho Free States’ lawmaking and governance and maintains healthy relationships (and plenty of disagreements) with its fellow Free States. Despite the Green Warden perception of Fringe as a near vassal state, Fringe relies more heavily on its fellow Free States for its economic stability and political security. Few Free States’ citizens see Fringe as disloyal, and many are cognizant of the important influx of rare and magical goods that Fringe’s trade with the wild elves provides.
The good relationship between Fringe and its wild elf neighbors is carefully maintained, in part through a continuing commitment to preserving the wilderness around them. Due to this longstanding tradition of cultural exchange, the population of Fringe includes a much higher than average percentage of half-elves, and even a few resident elves.
As Fringe becomes known as a place that accepts half-elves with little prejudice, half-elf immigrants from other parts of the world sometimes come here seeking acceptance. Not all of them find it, as Fringe has very specific, traditional ideas of how people ought to live, and the residents tend to dislike change intensely. Fringe-born half-elves, however, usually speak well of their home.
Government
Fringe has, surprisingly, remained a republic for the last 1,200 years. Hardly any of Petram’s original proposal remains in the legal code (save where it is profoundly modified by amendments, clarifications, and exceptions), but all land-owning and tax-paying residents may vote on nearly every decision the government makes, including all government appointments of any authority, and Fringe is one of the few of Tycho’s tiny city-states to have legally classified indenture as a form of slavery and forbidden it. Governors are now elected to five-year terms, with no term limits, and Governor Kimmerlyn Sirris, in her fourth term, is largely beloved.
Military
Ever since Fringe’s first defection from Castorhage during the Mortgage War, Fringe has not maintained a professional military. Instead, all able-bodied adults take one shift per week in the town watch, which is organized and directed by a handful of full-time watch constables and sergeants, most of whom are rangers by training. These watch professionals are an entirely peacekeeping force and resort to violence only in self-defense or defense of Fringe citizens. The citizen watch is trained to avoid violence at all costs, unless specifically directed otherwise by a constable or sergeant.
Some believe that this lack of military, especially for a community so close to a famously hostile border, is not only foolish but an invitation to be attacked. In practice, Fringians have found that a wholly peaceful, harmless appearance is perhaps the only consistent way to disarm the wary Green Warden wild elves and maintain their precious trade relationship. Of course, if Fringe were bordered by the Family of Thorns Nation of the Green Warden confederacy instead of Sentinels of the Trees, this attitude of deliberate defenselessness might indeed provoke wanton hostility from radical elements. Fringe’s military strategies are catered to the culture of the elves it encounters most consistently.
Major Threats
Even aside from the potential threat of radical anti-human elements within the Green Warden Nations, not all is wonderful in Fringe. Foreigners can face standoffishness or outright prejudice from native Fringians, and Fringe also faces an ever more concerning gap between the wealth of the shrinking number of landowners and that of the growing number of citizens denied the vote for not owning property. Unrest is on the rise, and none can yet predict what will become of the difficulties. Strangely, a growing number of Fringe citizens seem to believe that doing away with their republic and returning to a feudalistic dictatorship would somehow solve their problems of power inequality.
More troublingly still, some Fringe citizens have begun to complain of headaches, dizziness, inexplicable loss of time or memory, and extreme mood swings. Some blame a supposed curse on the new marble quarry, opened only a few years ago, after the centuries-old original quarry was finally exhausted. Others believe they have seen one or more mysterious figures lurking in the dark around the town and suspect more direct magical interference. Governor Syrris has sent for experts on stone, on magic, and on medicine to come consult on the ailments, but thus far no clear conclusions have been drawn.
Wilderness and Adventure
Fringe is close enough to the Green Warden Forest that its quarry, outlying farms, and even — on rare occasions — its westernmost streets can be visited by various interesting “wildlife,” including dangerous dire animals and plant creatures. Since these creatures are accepted as neighbors by the wild elves (many of whom can speak with them, after all), it would be considered in poor taste to harm them in defense of the city. When Fringe’s watch encounters a creature it cannot safely handle alone, the beast may do considerable damage before help sufficiently powerful to subdue and relocate the creature without harming it can arrive.
In addition, it would be greatly useful to Fringe residents if anyone were to discover the source of the strange illness sweeping the city and how to cure it. Is this a plot by elven radicals? Human radicals attempting to provoke a war? Is it really a curse on the new quarry? Or the accidental side effect of someone’s magical research? Whatever the cause, the citizens of Fringe would like to know the truth.
Settlement
Fringe, City of
Type
City
Owning Organization
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