Castlefield: Sovereign Nation in the Hundred Kingdoms

[Persell]

Brief information about a new campaign setting I whipped up and got really into developing.  This is a tiny kingdom in the Hundred Kingdoms, heavily inspired by the Arthurian cycles and medieval English caste structure, with some slight undertones of Martin.  Feel free to laugh at my map: I'm noob-like when it comes to using Campaign Cartographer.  Though this is fairly long, it's only a fraction of the information I've been scribbling down about the kingdom.   It doesn't touch on the kingdom's generations of war and current uneasy truce with Lucien Hills, their current bandit problem, their economic worth, their Mandate of Heaven might, their entire political structure or their other internal troubles.


This setting is current up to the eclipse of Calibration, RY 763.


CASTLEFIELD

Centuries upon centuries ago, Castlefield was part of a greater kingdom called Kirleann, which encompassed Castlefield, its western neighbour of Foxwood, its southern rival of Lucien Hills and two other nations that have since fallen into disrepair and internal conflict and can no longer rightly be called sovereign.   Though the uprising that broke asunder the kingdom of Kirleann has long since destroyed the notion of duchies, in Castlefield, the rank-and-title conventions have held true: there is no Prince or King in this kingdom.  The seat of power is held by Duke Anton Aylward, and there is no higher title.


Castlefield is a rather small nation by most standards, unable to boast more than 21,000 citizens spread between four major settlements and dozens of tiny farming communities.  The nation maintains a standing army of only a thousand soldiers, one hundred of which are nobly-titled champions anointed by the city father's clergy and knighted by the Duke himself.


The class divisions between the noble and the common folk are gapingly wide in Castlefield.  Despite the thousands of citizens, less than 10% of that number can claim noble blood or title, as there are only six remaining Houses -- the Aylwards (who are considered royal as they are the ruling family), the Kenways (fallen into disfavor and low numbers in the last two centuries since they were the ruling family), the Frewers (tied closely to the Aylwards through political alliance and marriage), the Cutteridges (who deal mostly with the Guild), the Ellwoods (considered lazy layabouts and generally useless nobles, even amongst the nobles) and the Lambricks (hardworking and slightly underhanded sorts who tend to finagle positions of power where they apply themselves).  


Naming conventions in the lower classes tend to follow the trade or profession of the person who founded the family.  As such jobs tend to be hereditary, it is not uncommon to find a carpenter named Carpenter, a smith named Smith, a candle-maker named Chandler, a silk trader named Mercer, or a merchant named Pennyworth or Silvers.  This is not always the case, as the naming conventions of lands outside the kingdom have crept in over time, but it is a likely bet nonetheless.


Places of Note


Castle Hill - Named for the First Age ruin less than two miles from the town, Castle Hill is the bustling capital of the nation, holding a whopping 13,000 citizens within its walls.  Duke Anton Aylward rules from here, aided by Mayor Anthony Mason and a small army of bureaucrats, as well as the Countess of the North, Maria Frewer, and the Count of the South, Darren Lambrick.  


Farpost - Established two centuries ago by the then-ruling Duke Fraser Kenway, Farpost is an industry town of both foresters and miners.  It is situated three miles from the treeline of the Deeping Wood, nestled in the nothern foothills.  While Farpost produces moderate amounts of lumber, all shipments are earmarked for internal use instead of exportation.  Farpost's chief concern is the copper, tin and especially iron deposits in the hills north of the town.  Weekly shipments of ores are sent down the Northern Road for smelting in the blast furnaces of Castle Hill, and from there, distribution to the smiths or Guild merchants for sale outside the kingdom.  


Cross Inn - Once a tavern at the crossroads, an entire village slowly grew up around it.  Though less than 500 people call this village home, it often has first pick of the wines that come through from Foxwood, and any goods offered by landbound trading caravans on their way to Castle Hill.  It was named after the Cross family, who originally built the inn a century ago, and who are the de facto leaders of the community.


Bywater - Bywater is the closest community anyone wanted to build to the Headwater Dam, and is by default the closest community to the Golden Shore, where nuggets of gold and infrequently orichalcum wash up. Bywater is smaller than even Cross Inn, with less than 350 people living there, but their trade contributions can sometimes be the most valuable, as gold and especially orichalcum have high market prices.  The frequency of these discoveries is not very high, and this has rarely been incentive for citizens of Castlefield to migrate there.  


Marsh Edge - A community that once called itself sovereign, it was defeated three hundred years ago and annexed by Castlefield.  The people of Marsh Edge are crannog-men, and their town is built on the very edges of the Gilt Marsh.  They are experts at navigating the treacherous wetlands and know how to best harvest its bounty.  A longstanding pact with Silver-Edged Sorrow, the god of the marsh, allows them to produce quantities of rice to contribute towards trade.


Landmarks and Oddities of Nature


Golden Lake - This reservoir lake is two miles long, half a mile wide and is believed to be several hundred feet deep.  It was formed long, long ago by the damming of the cliff-top river by the Headwater Dam.  Oddly, the waters of this lake are not blue, but a soft glowing gold color, and the waters are always warm.  All alchemical and thaumaturgical tests have not revealled any unusual or magical properties to the water, and divers have been able to locate neither the source for the glow nor the bottom of the lake.  The lake features in one popular legend, in which certain days of the year enhance the chance of attracting good fortune if you throw a coin into the waters while wishing for increased luck.  People returning from this pilgrimage often report seeing a strange woman dressed in white walking across the water with a wake of mist behind her.  Also frequent from these pilgrims are stories of a mysterious island with First Age buildings on it that appears and disappears seemingly at random.


Headwater Dam - Whatever name this massive edifice held in the First Age has been lost to time, but it is now known throughout most of this area of the Hundred Kingdoms as the Headwater Dam.  Five hundred meters high, and at least twice that wide, it is constructed out of massive tiles of white and black jade, inlaid with thick veins of orichalcum, moonsilver and starmetal in arcane patterns.  This is not the most breathtaking feature, however: mounted on the sheer wall of the dam are five heads carved in the likeness of animals (lion, eagle, wolf, dragon and swan), out of which water from the Golden Lake pours to form the Sunset river a thousand feet below.


Sunset River - The river that flows from the Headwater Dam to meet the westward Avarice has tested negative for unusual or magical properties, and thaumaturges have been unable to explain the reason the river alights with the colors of sunset and sunrise at the appropriate times of day.  Trackers who have noted the phenomenon have reported that the glow ends at the First Age markers denoting the boundaries of the old kingdom of Kirleann.  If the river god and city father of Castle Hill, Agravaine, knows anything as to why the river changes color at sunset and sunrise, he has yet to reveal this knowledge to anyone.


Deeping Wood - A thick, dark, and generally mistrusted forest of deciduous trees.  Rumors are that strange beings walk amid the trunks as well as all manner of unnatural and horrible beasts.  It is well known that there is a First Age structure known as Deepwatch located somewhere near the center of the forest -- the oldest records in Castle Hill suggest such -- but no explorer has ever returned from expeditions to locate it.


First Age Ruins


(None indicated on the map)


Deepwatch, the Ruined Castle, Hillfort and the Outpost are the only known First Age ruins in Castlefield.  


Deepwatch has never been explored, due to its location inside the cursed forest.  


The Ruined Castle, located less than two miles from Castle Hill, has been picked clean of anything of worth. There are some theories that hidden hallways and chambers yet exist, but no one has been able to find them.  The theories also suggest that perhaps during Calibration, when the castle appears whole once again, these secrets can be revealled, but since the doomed expedition durign Calibration five years prior to the Empress' disappearance that resulted in 14 men vanishing and 15-year-old Mary Porter being rendered catatonic, no one has been inclined to visit the structure during that time of the year.


The Hill Fort, located south of the Wild Cliffs in the gentle hills near a thin grove of trees, is often used as camping grounds for those hunting the wild boar that populate the area.  It is considered safe, having long since been picked clean of anything of worth and all traps having been disarmed or triggered before Castlefield was sovereign.  Whether this is the truth or not remains unknown, though nothing of note has happened there in living memory.


The Outpost is another fortified structure located fairly close to the border of Lucien Hills almost directly south of Castle Hill.  Like the Hill Fort, it is considered safe for camping, and has been used in the past by detachments of the army when patrolling the border or hunting bandits in the area.


Notable Events


Two things still have the folks of Castlefield talking, though these events both happened several years ago.  The first is the expedition to the Ruined Castle during Calibration in RY 758.   No trace of these men have ever been found, and no cure for poor Mary Porter's catatonia has ever been found.


The second is when the Wyld Hunt rode through Castlefield for the first time in living memory.  Ten Dragon-Blooded all dressed in their House colors and elemental jade rode through Castlefield to speak with the nobles.  No one knows what was said in these meetings, though rumors abound aplenty about the demonic forces of the Deeping Wood.  The Wyld Hunt left to ride into the Deeping Wood and were gone for two weeks.  What they encountered in there was not spoken of upon their return, though they were missing three of their number.  With them, they carried the body of an elderly man dressed in a style that struck many of the onlookers as a grandfatherly sort of scholarly bent, with strange silvery tattoos across his skin.  They proclaimed him proof as their victory over the Anathema haunting the Wood, and left with the body.  No Wyld Hunt has ridden through since, though the problems with the Wood have not diminished, leaving many to wonder if the nameless old man was Anathema to begin with.

 

[Decurion]

This is a tiny kingdom in the Hundred Kingdoms, heavily inspired by the Arthurian cycles and medieval English caste structure, with some slight undertones of Martin.
Castlefield is a rather small nation by most standards, unable to boast more than 21,000 citizens spread between four major settlements and dozens of tiny farming communities.  The nation maintains a standing army of only a thousand soldiers, one hundred of which are nobly-titled champions anointed by the city father's clergy and knighted by the Duke himself.


The class divisions between the noble and the common folk are gapingly wide in Castlefield.  Despite the thousands of citizens, less than 10% of that number can claim noble blood or title,

If you're assuming a pseudo-medieval economic model, you can't support that big a parasitic class.  "Nobles" are likely to be less than 1-3% of the population.  The only pre-modern society with this level of "noble" was Poland, where about 10% of the population was szlachta, which is sort of a warrior-caste gentry.  And at that, many if not most of them were poor enough to be farmers or even grooms (any occupation involving horses being considered fit for that social class).  Plus nearly 5% of the population as a standing army?  You've got too many physically fit young males doing nothing (economically speaking) to maintain a muscle-powered agricultural economy.  With this small an economy, you're likely to have perhaps 50 'knights', a few dozen more 'nobles', and less than 300 feudal retainers whose duties including following their lord to war.


I'm also uncertain of the ability to support over 60% of the population as city-dwellers.  That isn't possible unless they import LOTS of food.


Economics is the first thing to consider, and at the base of it (especially in simple economies), economics is the question of "how do these people eat?  Where is food produced and how is it distributed?"  Even if you do some handwaving involving field spirits, thaumaturgy, etc, you have a hard time.

 

[DugCoffin]

I like it alot.  It's obvious you've put a great deal of thought and care into it.  I'd like to know more about it's religions and how (if at all) it deals with Creation.  What kind of game are you planning to run in the setting?

 

[Thenlar]

Well, when applying real-world agricultural limits to Exalted (roughly), you have to remember that Exalted has a massively extended growing season (roughly 12 months!). Peasants get three harvests a year! So a smaller number of farmers can support a disproportionately larger non-working class.


As for the setting itself, I like it. It seems well-developed, and could form an excellent basis for the beginnings of an Exalted campaign!

 

[Arthur]

I like it very much. Do you have any more info on the magical population of the kingdom, specially exalts and god-blooded in the population? Is there any known DB, for example?


And do you have any intentions of STing it over net?

 

[Persell]

I like it alot.  It's obvious you've put a great deal of thought and care into it.  I'd like to know more about it's religions and how (if at all) it deals with Creation.  What kind of game are you planning to run in the setting?

D'oh! Forgot the gods!


Immaculate monks rarely come through the kingdom, leaving them free to indulge themselves in the Hundred Gods Heresy.  Currently, four major gods are worshipped in Castlefield, along with a host of minor field and hill spirits.  


Agravaine, the City Father of Castle Hill and by default the main god of Castlefield, is also the god of the Sunset River. As far as anyone's been able to discern, he well remembers the events of the First Age, though he doesn't speak of them to anyone.  Though true sorcerers are very few and far between, several of his senior priests are trained in the early levels of the Arts of Warding, Husbandry and Spirit Beckoning.  His clergy have a monopoly as per the agreement between god and mortals on talisman and charm making.  This brings a great deal of revenue to the church.  Agravaine's temple is a church surrounded by a small water garden near the river.  He has at least half a dozen servitors, which most consider to be the little gods of the streams and brooks that branch off the main river, but the only time anyone really comes into contact with them is during the Calibration feast Agravaine offers his people in thanks for their devotion during the other 15 months of the year.  


The Nameless Deeping Heart is a god no one has ever proven exists, but the foresters of Farpost are careful to offer her deepest respect nonetheless. The Deeping Wood is a dark and treacherous place, and many lumberjacks have reported seeing a leaf-garmented green-haired woman with an ashwood bow moving through trees that seem to bend around her.  Biweekly sacrifices are made at a large shrine set at the edge of the forest, and personal prayers for safety in the haunted forests are offered nightly.  Though no one is completely sure if the prayers are being received, the sacrifices always disappear, and no harm has come to any forester while the schedule is kept.


Silver-Edged Sorrow is a strange god most of Castlefield doesn't understand.  He is the god of the Gilt Marsh, worshipped by the crannog-men of Marsh Edge.  In return for their sacrifices and prayers, Silver-Edged Sorrow permits the crannog-men safe passage through his swamp, occasionally shows them where treasures and medicinal herbs and mosses can be found, and keeps clean several stretches of water where rice can be safely farmed.


The White Lady of the Lake is another god people aren't convinced exist either, but enough stories have come back to Castle Hill to indicate that -something- lives in that lake, perhaps guards the secrets of it.  When asked about the mysterious spirit that walks across the Golden Lake, Agravaine remains silent.  When a shrine to the White Lady was placed adjoining his temple (as the lake ultimately feeds the river, and no one wants the river to dry up through a lake god's displeasure), the clergy feared Agravaine's reaction.  It was a surprise to them when the city father offered no objection and in fact seemed pleased by the entire affair.


Various field and hearth gods and animal spirits are given prayer and homage in every single one of the dozens of farming communities.


Castlefield has interactions with the rest of Creation as much as Creation has interactions with them.  Their chief exports, like many of the Hundred Kingdoms, are food and minerals.  They work off the silver standard, though jade is uncommonly used.  Trading caravans come and go throughout the entire year.  People from other nations in the Hundred Kingdoms have moved here, and people from here have left for other nations.  It's small, but not isolated.  


There don't tend to be a whole lot of Exalted here by any means.  There are a handful of Dragon-Blooded outcaste scattered throughout the nation, but they are a very, very low percentage of the overall population and play little to no role in the overall scheme of things.  Apothecaries tend to know the basics of the Art of Alchemy, there are a very few thaumaturges outside of the clergy of Agravaine who can work the Arts.  There has been Lunar influence in the area, as is evidenced by the Wyld Hunt coming back with the tattooed old man, but whatever influence he had was subtle.  This is a kingdom headed, run and populated by mortals.


I'm running a solo Solar game set from two days before Calibration 763, patterned loosely off the Arthurian mythos with a shot of George R.R. Martin.   The kingdom itself may not really be any more than ~200 square miles, but it's a hotbed of mystery (and history) and should give me at least one, maybe two story arcs based in here before I have to really develop Foxwood and Lucien Hills.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I will only accept this if there are Kingsguard, dragons, and direwolves! ;P

 

[Persell]

This is a tiny kingdom in the Hundred Kingdoms, heavily inspired by the Arthurian cycles and medieval English caste structure, with some slight undertones of Martin.
Castlefield is a rather small nation by most standards, unable to boast more than 21,000 citizens spread between four major settlements and dozens of tiny farming communities.  The nation maintains a standing army of only a thousand soldiers, one hundred of which are nobly-titled champions anointed by the city father's clergy and knighted by the Duke himself.


The class divisions between the noble and the common folk are gapingly wide in Castlefield.  Despite the thousands of citizens, less than 10% of that number can claim noble blood or title,

*bullshit snipped*

When I read it I thought "cool setting" and not "damn, he got the economics wrong".


I am inclined to say that "cool setting" beats "realism".

 

[Persell]

I will only accept this if there are Kingsguard' date=' dragons, and direwolves! ;P[/quote']
Ten knights guard the Duke, dragons are everywhere in Creation, and the forest is filled with large, horrible and strange beasties.  Some of which might even be wolves the size of ponies.  


Meet your standards?

 

[Smeggedoff]

I will only accept this if there are Kingsguard' date=' dragons, and direwolves! ;P[/quote']
but all the kingsguard are arses..queensguard on the other hand

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I'm talking old school Kingsguard. Hightower and Sword of Morning that shite.

 

[Persell]

I'm talking old school Kingsguard. Hightower and Sword of Morning that shite.

If it makes you feel better, my Solar is the reincarnation of a Dawn Caste who was called the Sword of the Morning.

 

[Smeggedoff]

ha, awesome


okay, yes


old skool Kingsguard FTW

 

[cyl]

I really like what you've done, very complete and usable  !


Perfect for a deep old fashioned medieval rpg.

 

[Decurion]

When I read it I thought "cool setting" and not "damn, he got the economics wrong".


I am inclined to say that "cool setting" beats "realism".

Different strokes for different folks and all that.


YMMV.  I like this sort of detail.  Economics is the true explanation for how practically everything in history and politics works, and to understand that is a better source of enlightenment than all the martial arts or sorcery in this or any other world.


For instance, according to Scavenger Sons, Gem has over a million inhabitants.


Baghdad in the Middle Ages had possibly half a million inhabitants, and was fed by agriculture in a river valley with an extensive set of canals.  That's as big as you get historically.


To sustain a million people in the caldera of a burnt out volcano (0 local food production) takes roughly 1.5 million pounds of grain A DAY, every day, regardless of weather or bandit interruptions.  For the wheat alone, you require 8 sandships of the largest size daily.  That's a bit more than a private Soldier's ration, not a noble's.  I'm presuming that bread is the staple of the ration rather than including a significant portion of meat (traditionally another half-pound or so, but then you get to cut the grain ration to one pound per man per day), which is difficult to ship unless dried or salted--hence expensive due to the processing.  Once you include wine, oil, a modicum of vegetables, and some dried or salted meat, you have a dozen or more ships of the largest size arriving daily, and if that's a 60 day round trip (let's be generous and count loading/unloading times in that 60 days) from the nearest trans-shipment point, then you require a fleet of at least 720 sandships of the largest size.  With no margin for error, no stockpile or cushion against unpleasant events, and strict food rationing such that everyone eats at the level of a private Soldier on campaign.


Major population centers in any version of Creation I'd run a game in WILL be located in places where you can grow food.  It's easier to explain how there is a river running through the desert (Tigris?  Euphrates?  Nile?) than it is to explain how Gem continues to exist as canonically written.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I'm talking old school Kingsguard. Hightower and Sword of Morning that shite.

If it makes you feel better, my Solar is the reincarnation of a Dawn Caste who was called the Sword of the Morning.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

When I read it I thought "cool setting" and not "damn, he got the economics wrong".


I am inclined to say that "cool setting" beats "realism".

*le snip*

Indeed. But this is what has been a big argument against Exalted for a while. I'll agree with Safim on cool setting may trump realism...but I'm also in the same car with you, Decurion. It gets to be a bit of WTF when it comes to a majority of Creation's cities and economies.

 

[Decurion]

Indeed. But this is what has been a big argument against Exalted for a while. I'll agree with Safim on cool setting may trump realism...but I'm also in the same car with you, Decurion. It gets to be a bit of WTF when it comes to a majority of Creation's cities and economies.

I also didn't really think my comment was THAT huge an issue, since the only thing necessary to adjust it would to triple the total population figures, and say that they are scattered around numerous minor hamlets and villages too small to be worth writing up, controlled by the petit nobility.  It's changing precisely two figures (total population, and percentage of "nobles") and nothing more.  The rest of the setting looks like a lot of fun and interesting, if likely to be a little small-seeming for your average Exalt.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Throw mortals into it, make it seem big, add Exaltations after a bit. Profit.

 

[Arthur]

Baghdad in the Middle Ages had possibly half a million inhabitants.

I'm currently using a history book* that estimates two times that number (and Samarkand and Baghdad with half a million each). That data refers to the centuries VIII to X, so it is Low Middle Ages, no fancy agriculture techniques to help them.


Overall, we could just golden rule that and do as each one of us prefers, shouldn't we?


* "Feltri, Francesco, Ulisse, 2005. Torino: Società Editrice Internazionale" would be the complete ref, I believe.

 

[Persell]

Overall, we could just golden rule that and do as each one of us prefers, shouldn't we?

Uh... isn't it that way with everything on this forum?

 

[Arthur]

It's that way with everything in Storytelling, in fact. Having the rules discussed to reach a conclusion that you can then apply in your games usually helps, though.

 

[Persell]

It's that way with everything in Storytelling, in fact. Having the rules discussed to reach a conclusion that you can then apply in your games usually helps, though.

I more and more lean towards games that make the rather tiresome process unnecessary.


Exalted actually is one of the biggest offenders in that particular area. I once formed a group out of people who had played exalted for a long time and came out of four different groups (including me). Needless to say, there were some rather colourful rules interpretations.

 

[Decurion]

Baghdad in the Middle Ages had possibly half a million inhabitants.

I'm currently using a history book* that estimates two times that number (and Samarkand and Baghdad with half a million each). That data refers to the centuries VIII to X, so it is Low Middle Ages, no fancy agriculture techniques to help them.


Overall, we could just golden rule that and do as each one of us prefers, shouldn't we?


* "Feltri, Francesco, Ulisse, 2005. Torino: Società Editrice Internazionale" would be the complete ref, I believe.

Actually, there were "fancy" agricultural techniques, if by that term you refer to an extensive system of irrigation that was destroyed by the Mongols and never rebuilt, so that Baghdad did not recover its population to that level until relatively recently.  This part of the world had invented both agriculture and irrigation by canal, and had a LOT of time to perfect them as far as is possible using only muscle power and natural fertilizers.


I'd also point out the Baghdad, for those of you who have never been there, has a big frickin' river running down the middle of the city, providing for both irrigation and transport for food imports.  It is NOT located in the caldera of an extinct volcano.


As for precise population figures, as we have no reliable source, it's all estimates.  I go with the low-ball ones for logistical reasons.  YMMV.  The "million" comes from taking period chroniclers seriously.  I can't imagine why anyone would do that given the proven unreliability when dealing with large figures (armies, populations, etc) of these sources.  YMMV.

 

[cyl]

I more and more lean towards games that make the rather tiresome process unnecessary.

Damn I've missed you  
Exalted is mainly about adventure and fun, not politics and economics (you could do both in a game and make it very deep and complex and interesting).


I mean you could try to understand the complex dynamics in Creation and make some connections with our good old planet... but hey, we don't have spirits, gods, exalts, or sorcery...

Major population centers in any version of Creation I'd run a game in WILL be located in places where you can grow food.  It's easier to explain how there is a river running through the desert (Tigris?  Euphrates?  Nile?) than it is to explain how Gem continues to exist as canonically written.

What's the point ? if living in the caldera of an extinct volcano is your coolest idea for a background...