Post by DM Leverage on Jun 8, 2013 5:54:46 GMT -5
Luiren
Capital: Beluir
Population: 838,080 (halflings 92%, humans 4%, elves 2%, half-elves 1%)
Government: Benevolent theocracy
Religions: Brandobaris, Tymora, Yondalla
Imports: Metalwork items, livestock
Exports: Ale, beer, fruit, grain, produce
Alignments: LG, NG, N
Luiren is the only realm of Faerûn ruled by and inhabited nearly exclusively by halflings. It is the homeland of the strongheart halflings in much the same way that the Great Rift is the homeland of the gold dwarves. Small numbers of lightfoot and ghostwise halflings live here as well, but nine-tenths of the halfling population is made up of the stronghearts--in fact, the term “Luiren halfling” is widely taken to refer to the strongheart folk, even though it’s not strictly accurate.
Luiren’s folk are farmers, artisans, and merchants, as are the folk of most lands. Luiren’s rich fields feed the Great Rift, and its orchards produce oranges, limes, and lemons greatly in demand in northern lands. Luiren woodcarving is superb, on par with that of Tethyr, and pieces of woodworking are traded too. While few people think of halflings as possessing any real military tradition, the Luiren folk maintain well-organized militias led by the monks and clerics of the local temples and supported with powerful divine magic. Halfling archers and clerics standing their ground with strength and skill have crushed more than one invasion of humans, orcs, or gnolls from the Shaar.
Luiren boasts no real government other than local authorities, but the temples of the halfling pantheon tie together society and collectively govern the land, generally under the guidance of the Temple of Yondalla. The Devout Voice of Yondalla Faran Ferromar (LG male strongheart halfling Clr13 of Yondalla) is the preeminent leader of the faith and thus the effective leader of Luiren.
Luiren halflings don’t see themselves as half of anything or anyone, and generally refer to themselves as hin.
Life and Society
Most of the Luiren folk live semi nomadic lives, dwelling no more than six months or a year in any one city. Luiren’s cities reflect this wanderlust and mobility. Clans, families, businesses, and temples maintain permanent dwellings and hillside holes--complete with jobs and duties, normally--that are open to newly arriving individuals or families. At any given time, only three-fourths of the living quarters of Luiren’s cities are occupied. Before leaving a home, halflings who want to be welcomed back clean and ready the home they’ve been living in for its next occupants. Unless they’ve been extremely bad tenants, their neighbors and friends help.
Teamwork is important to the Luiren hin. Compared to the halflings native to the north, the hin emphasize group effort and communal work over individualism. Individual halflings don’t often remain in the same groups for long. The groups themselves tend to endure, but the halflings filling the roles one season are not at all guaranteed to be present, or even apart of the same social group in another city, two seasons later.
Humans, elves, dwarves, and even gnomes have a difficult time understanding how Luiren society can appear so orderly and lawful when its individual members change their stripes the way other people buy new clothes. Luiren hin know that outsiders think their ways are strange, but find it disturbing that outsiders maintain the same habits all their lives.
The one habit that Luiren folk enjoy too much to leave behind them is their dedication to the Games. Luiren’s Games are local, regional, and kingdomwide sporting events followed with interest by the nation’s citizens. The type of sport that’s played during the Games constantly changes. At the moment, the two most popular sports are ridge running and kite fighting. Ridge running is a type of competitive obstacle course in which teams from different cities compete in races. Magic cast by the competitors during the races is allowed, but participants who use magic can also be targeted by magic cast by members of the other team. Kite fighting is “Art-free,” meaning it is conducted free of magic of all types.
It’s rare for halflings raised in northern Faerûn to visit Luiren and have any desire to stay--most halflings immigrants find the land and its ways strange. But some northern halflings emigrate to Luiren and stay forever, and some Luiren hin can’t wait to escape their home nation and live like northern folk.
Major Geographical Features
Monsters of the forests and swamps once plagued Luiren, but over many generations the hin have tamed large stretches of the land. The countryside is fertile, rich in game, and pleasant-looking. But it’s also full of wildlands that resist all attempts to pacify them. These days, young hin warriors and mages keep an eye on the wildlands to keep monsters from troubling the roads and cities. Foreign adventurers are welcome to “try their luck” in Luiren’s forests and swamps, and can even keep half the treasure they find--a bargain, given that the monsters obviously took the treasure from Luiren’s folk in the first place.
Lluirwood: This dense forest defines Luiren’s northern borders. Druids, rangers, and some rogues of Luiren feel most comfortable in the Lluirwood’s southernmost parts. Other hin seldom venture into the forest, lacking the skills required to stay one step ahead of the monsters that come down into the forest from the Toadsquat Mountains. When the tall mouthers, trolls, and other beasts make the mistake of venturing out of the Lluirwood, they’re usually quickly dealt with by Luiren militia, Yondalla’s clerics, or hin hunters. But the Lluirwood remains dangerous to travelers.
Mortick Swamp: The Mortick Swamp, the only swamp in the region, is infested by a large number of merrow (aquatic ogres) and scrags (aquatic trolls). These hulking monsters often raid the lands nearby, carrying off livestock and plundering food stores. A powerful ogre shaman or chieftain known as the Bog King leads the merrow, and sometimes succeeds in bending the scrags to its will as well.
Southern Lluirwood: South of the Lluirwood and west of Luiren, the Southern Lluirwood is mostly untamed. The eastern flank of the forest is relatively tame, patrolled by militia units from Luiren and halfling druids and rangers. Beholders and yuan-ti roam the forest’s deeper zones.
Important Sites
Luiren’s cities welcome foreign travelers in peace. A small number of human merchants and craftsfolk have taken up residence in the cities.
Beluir (Metropolis, 27,210): Outsiders think of Beluir as the capital of Luiren because it’s the biggest city and contains a high temple to Yondalla. None of Luiren’s cities are really the center of authority, but foreign diplomats and emissaries come here first in search of the Devout Voice of Yondalla. Great Sea merchants make port in Beluir to buy Luiren’s produce and handiwork.
Chethel (Large City, 14,512): This port town is one of Luiren’s main trading cities. Roughly one-tenth of its inhabitants are elves and half-elves. Of all Luiren’s cities, Chethel seems most like an ordinary human city. A few families who have befriended the elves choose to stay put, placing a veneer of stability over the otherwise nomadic foundation. The other long-term residents are hin who make a fine living at boat-building.
Thruldar: Lying on the easternmost verge of the Lluirwood, Thruldar is a ruined Estagundan town watched over by several nearby tribes of ghostwise halflings. About a hundred years ago, a powerful evil druid allied with dark trees and murderous plant monsters destroyed Thruldar, but the nearby ghostwise tribes slew the druid and raised magical wards to contain the druid’s minions in the ruins. The druid’s ghost and numerous plant monsters still lurk in ruined Thruldar, along with what is left of the town’s wealth.
Regional History
Thousand of years ago, Luiren was an unsettled wilderness roamed b three great halfling tribes: the lightfoots, the stronghearts, and the ghostwise. The three races fiercely defended their woodlands against all intruders for centuries, driving off Dambrathan barbarians, packs of rabid gnolls, and sharing the Lluirwood’s resources. Feuds between tribes were not uncommon, but for the most part the three tribes lived in peace.
Around -100 DR, an evil spirit entered the forest. Under the leadership of a powerful cleric named Desva, the ghostwise halflings fell into darkness, worshiping Malar and glorifying in violence and bloodshed. Feral ghostwise hunters, their faces painted like skulls, prowled the forests in search of halfling prey. They grew ever stronger as Desva led them deeper into Malar’s worship, teaching the greatest hunters to take shapes as werewolves and poisoning the forest’s natural predators with maddening bloodlust. For a generation the Lluirwood was a place of death.
In -68 DR, a strongheart hunter named Chand became war chief of his folk and struck an alliance with the war chief of the lightfoot tribe. The two united to root out the madness of the ghostwise halflings. Over three years each ghostwise stronghold and lair was found out and destroyed, until Chand himself slew Desva of the ghostwise in -65 DR. The fighting was merciless and awful--entire ghostwise villages were burned and their folk killed. Chand held to his purpose and saw to it that no hin warrior stayed his or her hand.
In the aftermath of the Hin Ghostwars, the ghostwise halflings were reduced to a handful of their former number. Most were exiled from the Lluirwood, although a handful who had repudiated Desva and joined with Chand’s warriors were allowed to stay. Those who left sifted in the Chondalwood, taking an oath never to speak until they had atoned for the animal-like savagery of their past. The atonement is long past, but to this day ghostwise halflings think long and hard before they choose to speak.
Many of the lightfoots, horrified by what Chand and the stronghearts had done, chose to leave the Lluirwood. They became a nomadic people spread across all of northern Faerûn, adopting the customs and traditions of the folk they traveled among.
The stronghearts remained in the Lluirwood. Unchecked by the lightfoot or ghostwise ways, they began to clear the forest and settled in semipermanent villages that grew larger and more permanent with each passing generation. They changed from woodland nomads to settled farmers and crafts folk, defending their lands against numerous invasions and raids over the years. In time some lightfoots returned to the new realm of Luiren but this is now a strongheart land.
- Source: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Capital: Beluir
Population: 838,080 (halflings 92%, humans 4%, elves 2%, half-elves 1%)
Government: Benevolent theocracy
Religions: Brandobaris, Tymora, Yondalla
Imports: Metalwork items, livestock
Exports: Ale, beer, fruit, grain, produce
Alignments: LG, NG, N
Luiren is the only realm of Faerûn ruled by and inhabited nearly exclusively by halflings. It is the homeland of the strongheart halflings in much the same way that the Great Rift is the homeland of the gold dwarves. Small numbers of lightfoot and ghostwise halflings live here as well, but nine-tenths of the halfling population is made up of the stronghearts--in fact, the term “Luiren halfling” is widely taken to refer to the strongheart folk, even though it’s not strictly accurate.
Luiren’s folk are farmers, artisans, and merchants, as are the folk of most lands. Luiren’s rich fields feed the Great Rift, and its orchards produce oranges, limes, and lemons greatly in demand in northern lands. Luiren woodcarving is superb, on par with that of Tethyr, and pieces of woodworking are traded too. While few people think of halflings as possessing any real military tradition, the Luiren folk maintain well-organized militias led by the monks and clerics of the local temples and supported with powerful divine magic. Halfling archers and clerics standing their ground with strength and skill have crushed more than one invasion of humans, orcs, or gnolls from the Shaar.
Luiren boasts no real government other than local authorities, but the temples of the halfling pantheon tie together society and collectively govern the land, generally under the guidance of the Temple of Yondalla. The Devout Voice of Yondalla Faran Ferromar (LG male strongheart halfling Clr13 of Yondalla) is the preeminent leader of the faith and thus the effective leader of Luiren.
Luiren halflings don’t see themselves as half of anything or anyone, and generally refer to themselves as hin.
Life and Society
Most of the Luiren folk live semi nomadic lives, dwelling no more than six months or a year in any one city. Luiren’s cities reflect this wanderlust and mobility. Clans, families, businesses, and temples maintain permanent dwellings and hillside holes--complete with jobs and duties, normally--that are open to newly arriving individuals or families. At any given time, only three-fourths of the living quarters of Luiren’s cities are occupied. Before leaving a home, halflings who want to be welcomed back clean and ready the home they’ve been living in for its next occupants. Unless they’ve been extremely bad tenants, their neighbors and friends help.
Teamwork is important to the Luiren hin. Compared to the halflings native to the north, the hin emphasize group effort and communal work over individualism. Individual halflings don’t often remain in the same groups for long. The groups themselves tend to endure, but the halflings filling the roles one season are not at all guaranteed to be present, or even apart of the same social group in another city, two seasons later.
Humans, elves, dwarves, and even gnomes have a difficult time understanding how Luiren society can appear so orderly and lawful when its individual members change their stripes the way other people buy new clothes. Luiren hin know that outsiders think their ways are strange, but find it disturbing that outsiders maintain the same habits all their lives.
The one habit that Luiren folk enjoy too much to leave behind them is their dedication to the Games. Luiren’s Games are local, regional, and kingdomwide sporting events followed with interest by the nation’s citizens. The type of sport that’s played during the Games constantly changes. At the moment, the two most popular sports are ridge running and kite fighting. Ridge running is a type of competitive obstacle course in which teams from different cities compete in races. Magic cast by the competitors during the races is allowed, but participants who use magic can also be targeted by magic cast by members of the other team. Kite fighting is “Art-free,” meaning it is conducted free of magic of all types.
It’s rare for halflings raised in northern Faerûn to visit Luiren and have any desire to stay--most halflings immigrants find the land and its ways strange. But some northern halflings emigrate to Luiren and stay forever, and some Luiren hin can’t wait to escape their home nation and live like northern folk.
Major Geographical Features
Monsters of the forests and swamps once plagued Luiren, but over many generations the hin have tamed large stretches of the land. The countryside is fertile, rich in game, and pleasant-looking. But it’s also full of wildlands that resist all attempts to pacify them. These days, young hin warriors and mages keep an eye on the wildlands to keep monsters from troubling the roads and cities. Foreign adventurers are welcome to “try their luck” in Luiren’s forests and swamps, and can even keep half the treasure they find--a bargain, given that the monsters obviously took the treasure from Luiren’s folk in the first place.
Lluirwood: This dense forest defines Luiren’s northern borders. Druids, rangers, and some rogues of Luiren feel most comfortable in the Lluirwood’s southernmost parts. Other hin seldom venture into the forest, lacking the skills required to stay one step ahead of the monsters that come down into the forest from the Toadsquat Mountains. When the tall mouthers, trolls, and other beasts make the mistake of venturing out of the Lluirwood, they’re usually quickly dealt with by Luiren militia, Yondalla’s clerics, or hin hunters. But the Lluirwood remains dangerous to travelers.
Mortick Swamp: The Mortick Swamp, the only swamp in the region, is infested by a large number of merrow (aquatic ogres) and scrags (aquatic trolls). These hulking monsters often raid the lands nearby, carrying off livestock and plundering food stores. A powerful ogre shaman or chieftain known as the Bog King leads the merrow, and sometimes succeeds in bending the scrags to its will as well.
Southern Lluirwood: South of the Lluirwood and west of Luiren, the Southern Lluirwood is mostly untamed. The eastern flank of the forest is relatively tame, patrolled by militia units from Luiren and halfling druids and rangers. Beholders and yuan-ti roam the forest’s deeper zones.
Important Sites
Luiren’s cities welcome foreign travelers in peace. A small number of human merchants and craftsfolk have taken up residence in the cities.
Beluir (Metropolis, 27,210): Outsiders think of Beluir as the capital of Luiren because it’s the biggest city and contains a high temple to Yondalla. None of Luiren’s cities are really the center of authority, but foreign diplomats and emissaries come here first in search of the Devout Voice of Yondalla. Great Sea merchants make port in Beluir to buy Luiren’s produce and handiwork.
Chethel (Large City, 14,512): This port town is one of Luiren’s main trading cities. Roughly one-tenth of its inhabitants are elves and half-elves. Of all Luiren’s cities, Chethel seems most like an ordinary human city. A few families who have befriended the elves choose to stay put, placing a veneer of stability over the otherwise nomadic foundation. The other long-term residents are hin who make a fine living at boat-building.
Thruldar: Lying on the easternmost verge of the Lluirwood, Thruldar is a ruined Estagundan town watched over by several nearby tribes of ghostwise halflings. About a hundred years ago, a powerful evil druid allied with dark trees and murderous plant monsters destroyed Thruldar, but the nearby ghostwise tribes slew the druid and raised magical wards to contain the druid’s minions in the ruins. The druid’s ghost and numerous plant monsters still lurk in ruined Thruldar, along with what is left of the town’s wealth.
Regional History
Thousand of years ago, Luiren was an unsettled wilderness roamed b three great halfling tribes: the lightfoots, the stronghearts, and the ghostwise. The three races fiercely defended their woodlands against all intruders for centuries, driving off Dambrathan barbarians, packs of rabid gnolls, and sharing the Lluirwood’s resources. Feuds between tribes were not uncommon, but for the most part the three tribes lived in peace.
Around -100 DR, an evil spirit entered the forest. Under the leadership of a powerful cleric named Desva, the ghostwise halflings fell into darkness, worshiping Malar and glorifying in violence and bloodshed. Feral ghostwise hunters, their faces painted like skulls, prowled the forests in search of halfling prey. They grew ever stronger as Desva led them deeper into Malar’s worship, teaching the greatest hunters to take shapes as werewolves and poisoning the forest’s natural predators with maddening bloodlust. For a generation the Lluirwood was a place of death.
In -68 DR, a strongheart hunter named Chand became war chief of his folk and struck an alliance with the war chief of the lightfoot tribe. The two united to root out the madness of the ghostwise halflings. Over three years each ghostwise stronghold and lair was found out and destroyed, until Chand himself slew Desva of the ghostwise in -65 DR. The fighting was merciless and awful--entire ghostwise villages were burned and their folk killed. Chand held to his purpose and saw to it that no hin warrior stayed his or her hand.
In the aftermath of the Hin Ghostwars, the ghostwise halflings were reduced to a handful of their former number. Most were exiled from the Lluirwood, although a handful who had repudiated Desva and joined with Chand’s warriors were allowed to stay. Those who left sifted in the Chondalwood, taking an oath never to speak until they had atoned for the animal-like savagery of their past. The atonement is long past, but to this day ghostwise halflings think long and hard before they choose to speak.
Many of the lightfoots, horrified by what Chand and the stronghearts had done, chose to leave the Lluirwood. They became a nomadic people spread across all of northern Faerûn, adopting the customs and traditions of the folk they traveled among.
The stronghearts remained in the Lluirwood. Unchecked by the lightfoot or ghostwise ways, they began to clear the forest and settled in semipermanent villages that grew larger and more permanent with each passing generation. They changed from woodland nomads to settled farmers and crafts folk, defending their lands against numerous invasions and raids over the years. In time some lightfoots returned to the new realm of Luiren but this is now a strongheart land.
- Source: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
