Province guide to Kvigmar part one

Resources: Fish, Timber, Furs.
Population: 12,500
The province of Kvigmar is the heart of the realm. Roughly 90% of the human population of the land lives here, nestled in the arms of the valley. It is a land of rolling hills, which the small Kvig River and its tributaries have been carving since time immemorial. Most of the province is deforested due to poor soil and overharvesting by earlier Brecht settlers (one of the first cities on the site of Kvigmar, from the time of the Flight from the Shadow, was Brecht); erosion has greatly depleted the soil's fertility meaning that most residents rely upon pasturage and gardens fertilized by rigorous composting. Ruins of the previous settlements - Brecht, Dwarven, Rjurik and Goblin - dot the land, ghostly reminders of the failures of past generations. At the place where the Kvig River meets the Kvigmar Arm, the Rjurik have built the walled city of Kvigmar itself.
People

Except for the capital, there are no settlements larger than a handful of families, with most living in isolated farms. Only half of these settlements acknowledge the rule of the Jarl and most of these are clustered in the easternmost third of the province. The settlers eke out a simple living, raising gardens primarily of muttonroot and keeping sheep and some cattle. Most rely heavily upon hunting for meat and furs to sell for trade goods in Kvigmar. The homes of the people are simple longhouses made of stone or timber with turf roofs; the people pride themselves upon the elaborate carvings they decorate the buildings with.
Beyond the longhouse, the people swear loyalty to the Clan, which is a somewhat amorphous socio-political group based on kinship traced to a single ancestor (usually the first settler to arrive on the land). The largest of these clans is Kvig Clan, believed to be the first settlers of the land and the founders of the city; the Jarl of Kvigmar is the head of the Kvig Clan. Other clans choose from amongst their own elders a Jarl to represent them to each other; a few of the minor clans have sworn loyalty (and pay taxes) to the Kvig Jarl, but not all by any means. At any particular time, many of the larger clans (including Clan Kvig) are feuding with each other; while the power of the Kvigs is currently quite strong outside of the province - roughly half of the Clansmen look to Kvigmar - this is not always the case and the Clans have been known to united against the 'cityfolk' from time to time.
Towns

Compared to the great cities of Brechtur, the City of Kvigmar is a humble place. About 3,000 souls (which makes it one of the bigger Rjurik settlements) cluster close to the the deep-water harbor of the Kvigmar Arm. The city itself is surrounded by a crudely-built stone wall backed up by an earthen dike. The city is bisected by the Kvig River, which is crossed by the Old Bridge (a rebuilt remnant of an earlier Brecht city). On the north side of the River, the land rises steeply to a rocky outcropping called the Jarl's Watch, where the stone longhouses and towers of the Jarl's Keep overlook the harbor; the Keep is ringed by another stone wall. This walled area also contains the longhouses of the Kvigmar Guardians and the huge meetinghouse of the Clan Kvig.
The lower city is divided into two sections: the Brecht Quarter and the Clan Quarter. The Brecht Quarter is the smaller of the two, an area of densely-packed wood and stone structures in a mix of Brecht and Rjurik styles overlooking the water. The Jarl's warehouses are the closest to the water, usually at the end of one of the docks. Behind them is the River Road (which uses the Old Bridge), a cobble-paved road lined with the homes of merchants, pubs, stores (with fixed prices in the Brecht style) and inns. A small shrine to Sera (administered by the Perfekt Symmetry) is tucked between several buildings here.
The Clan Quarter, which dominates the city on the south side of the Kvig River is internally subdivided by clan. Most of the clans that live in Kvigmar (except those openly at war with Clan Kvig at any particular time) have homes here, clustered around a central meetinghouse. There are no shops here, though there is a weekly market that gathers on the grass outside the South Gate, along the banks of the Kvig. There are many gardens and livestock pens within the Clan Quarter. At the southernmost end of the city is a small circular wooden building set in a grove of trees, many of which were planted upon the arrival of the Kvig Clan 200 years ago; this is the temple of Erik, administered by the Emerald Spiral, though most of the druids spend their time wandering the province and have no central place of organization.
Sites and features