THE NEW TERRITORIES OF BALT

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The Free States of Balt are informally divided into two groups: the Old Homes and the New Territories. The Territories are newly settled lands given representation after the formation of the Free States. Much like the south was for the Suzerainty, they are an outlet for Baltine dynamism and expansion. While no new states have been recognized since before the Gate War, there are several regions that may soon agitate for representation themselves, or feel the hand of Baltine governance more firmly. Ludzia, the Ytik Marches, Yarnahame, and Far Soneka are still finding their place in Baltine politics, and the southern steppe and Coldfens regions are waiting in the wings.

Despite its generous coastline and relative proximity to earlier iaret colonies, Ludzia was the backwater of early Baltine settlement. Dark forests, badlands, and mountains dominated its landscape, each full of dangerous ozrut and monsters. Other states tried their hand at governing the region without success. Over time, however, the markotny living in the Nagrobki forest opened to trade and are now a vital part of Baltine industry, providing minerals, ore, high-quality steel, and large-scale artisanal machinery. Rumiany contributions to the state are wool, meat, unrefined ore, and aggressive border defense.

With most of its inhabitants being ozrut, Ludzia lacks the burgeoning population of other Old Lands. Scattered settlements of humans have begun to crop up around the edges of the deep forests, but it is an uneasy tenancy with such prickly neighbors. In demeanor, the glum fatalism of the markotny pervades the state, tempered with well-deserved pride in their arts and self-determination. After the war, tylwyth were allowed to settle out of sight in the Lesser Mada mountains. This is an invitation some have come to regret, for the tylwyth have driven out the local clans of rumiany.

The river town of Hetona serves as Ludzia’s gateway to the rest of the Free States, and where a council of village elders known as the Zybran meets to arbitrate disputes. Representatives selected from the Zybran are sent to the Diet and forestall the intrusion of powerful industrial concerns. For now, Baltine policy is that Ludzia is best left alone. Unfortunately, this hands-off approach allowed the separatist tylwyth Chime to take root there. Nestled between the Grand and Lesser Mada ranges on the coastal side of the watershed is the shallow port of Otwyr. Ships small enough to navigate the fjord can take on water and supplies there, avoiding the fees and scrutiny they’d face in Sado Bay.

Some areas have traditions of industry or martial prowess. The Ytik has a tradition of being invaded and ravaged. The plains east of the Keizai mountains absorbed successive waves of migrating humans throughout early recorded history, only ending with the Conflagration. What followed afterwards were invasions, first by starving survivors, then by increasingly well-armed and motivated armies of Khalqists. The open fields provide no obstacles to an army on the march, and such wars usually end where they began: in the treacherous passes of the Keizai. While the lands are fertile, they were depopulated until modern times when the Ytik Marches were set aside by Baltheim as a separate state. After the 2nd Mercantile War demobilized soldiers were offered plots of farmland there.

The people of the Ytik are a motley lot of mixed human descent, dour, quiet and suspicious of outsiders. Most live in fortified homesteads, with a weapon close at hand over the door frame and a plan to alert their nearest neighbors at the first sign of trouble. What towns do exist are usually defensible settlements centered around mines in the Keizai foothills. The state government is known as the Staff and much resembles the military hierarchy its members are familiar with. They maintain close contact with the regular Baltine forces stationed at several large forts in the state.

Caravan rails are important to the Ytik Marches, both in supplying the garrisons there, but also sending ore from the mines to the rest of the nation. A fragile net of lines threads the more defensible borders of the state, avoiding the vulnerable farmlands. The Baltine military has also embarked on a long program to construct canals throughout the state to improve irrigation and transportation and hamper the next Khalqist invasion.

South of the Halmine River lie the Lakelands, forested country full of sloughs and waterways. It enjoys the relative peacefulness of the Flaxlands to the north, and is peopled with nomadic tribes of beastkin who shelter there when winter closes in on the Utter Ice. As iaret and then humans dominated the region, the noble and wealthy treated the Lakelands as a hunting preserve, taking advantage of the rich game and fishing. Yarnahame’s achievement of representation in the Baltine Diet can be traced to a single man, coal magnate Gestin Yarna. Yarna owned several hunting lodges in the Lakelands and fought endlessly to protect the wilderness from his fellow industrialists.

The region finally met the population threshold for statehood only by concluding treaties with several beastkin tribes and counting them as citizens. This makes the state notable in that the average inhabitant is beastkin but has only a vague awareness that they are part of the Free States. An oligarchy of Yarna’s grandchildren run the state as their personal fiefdom but are famously fractious and the nascent administration is paralyzed by their infighting.

While the beastkin and abundant game are treasured features of Yarnahame, both are under threat. Zwotepe’s depletion of its forests have forced the timber and fur industries to turn their hungry eyes upon the neighboring state’s untouched wilderness. If their traditional winter homes are threatened, there is a very real possibility that the beastkin will not return to the state each year to be counted at Peace Lodge, the site of the original treaty and declaration of statehood.

Exploration and settlement of new lands is a dangerous business. Even lands that seem fertile and welcoming may be infested with monsters, under an ancient curse or some suffer some other threat inimical to peaceful settlement. The open prairie between the Soneka Spur and Derrus Wall was avoided due to packs of wild gillermoi, dinosaurs, magical beasts, and until recently a blue dragon of advanced age. The dragon has not been seen for decades now, however, and the land has experienced rapid growth thanks to hardy Baltine settlers.

Without the developed irrigation systems of the Old Homes, ranching is the main occupation of Far Soneka’s inhabitants. Wildcat miners prospect on the south side of the Soneka Spur, but face hostility and even claim-jumping from established Svantran companies. The settlers are diverse: displaced ozrut glad of the distance from neighbors, restless iaret still looking for more distant horizons, humans seeking new fortunes on the frontier, and even ptak enamored of the adventure under open skies.

Just prior to the Gate War, the Homestead Select petitioned for and received representation in the Diet. The state is far from peaceful, however. The settlers fight to keep the monster populations in check, vie with territorial claims and raids from Keizai princes, and attempt to fight off the younger spawn of the missing dragon patriarch. To make matters worse, the only established road to the rest of the Free States runs through the Soneka Spur and trade is held hostage by the Svantra Republic. As an alternative, some ranchers have been driving their herds to the Grawben markets across the southern steppes, an arduous journey that begins at the frontier town of Chirrup’s Canteen.

The Aligned Princes of Keizai form the western border of the Free States of Balt, and in the east, there is the Mor Dyfn. The southern border is a less defined demarcation known as the Winter Line, where colder weather holds sway most of the year. Within these borders are several regions claimed by the Free States, but as yet unsettled.

Before iaret colonization, much of the south resembled the southern steppes. These wind-buffeted plains are home only to roaming dinosaurs, bison, and gillermoi breeds adapted to the dry conditions. Watering holes are scarce and their locations are closely-held secrets among the few beastkin tribes that migrate through the area.

The Coldfens are miserable country, chill swamps haunted by malicious creatures like will o’ wisps, trolls, and hydra. Nevertheless, they might be the site of the next settlement rush for the Free States. Valuable mineral deposits have been discovered in the Snow Hills, right on the Winter Line, and new alchemical uses for the oil that bubbles up from under the coastal swamps are being discovered every year.