FIRST: I borrowed heavily for this from the Ratik Living Greyhawk Campaign site and want to acknowledge their work as the basis for much of this. I've taken allot of it my own way as well, but their work WAS the basis for what follows. Ratik and the Timberway Forest are cold lands, locked in snow and ice for much of the year. Outside of the settled lands it can be more than a man’s life to be caught away from some sort of shelter, even in the early Fall, or later Spring months, with only Summer safe from cold so bitter as to kill a man swiftly.
The foresters and trappers and woodsmen of the Timberway are seldom seen without heavy skins and fur cloaks, thick furred clothing or if they are wealthy enough, worsted woolens trimmed in fur, except during the short wet summers. The primary weapons are the axe and the spear and the short bow, as it can be stowed easily in padded and weather proofed cases, so as to survive the cold. Javelineers are also common and the goblins who dwell there usually carry several, the first to throw, in volleys when in force, and then the last to use as short spears. Despite their small size these creatures use javelins nearly fully the size of the ones men use, and with nearly the same distance and accuracy of use.
The Timberway Forest teams with animal life. The fur trade is the primary industry, even more important to the economy of the region and the Ulthek, and Keth noble houses than logging is. Only in the Barony of Abon Hoth is lumbering more profitable. Also, while there is little enough truck gardening, the plethora of game animals is necessary to keeping the folk fed. Yet, even in the dead of the icy winters, there are always more than enough game animals active to ensure any competent hunter of a full belly. Unfortunately, the Timberway also teams with predators, many who have lost their innate fear of men, or have been “altered” to be more aggressive. The foremost of these are the mighty Timberway lions, cougar/mountain lion type animals almost as big as the great lions of the southlands and far more aggressive, faster and more cunning. Besides the natural threats too there are supposedly Owlbears deep within the forest, near the uncertain borders between the lands of the noble house of Ulthek and the lands of the Fruztii. Too, and besides the few tribes of goblins, there are said to be some few ogres and even a few of the rare Hov Ninz, the Hobgoblins, in the verges of the forested slopes of the eastern Rakers. There may be other creatures too who wish no disturbance. One persistent rumor claims that a great vampire prince has fled, just in the last few decades, into the deep forest. If true, he is a quiet tenant who must lay somewhere between Keth and Coldspur.
Bandits also sometimes operate in these verges, almost always restricting their depredations to the folk of the forest baronies. Since the communities of the Timberway are small and the forest itself is far from safe, this is not often a problem, but sometimes a charismatic Fruztii will get the hankering to go “viking” and won’t have a ship at his disposal and such are these bandit/raider bands usually born. When they are then in existence they can be dangerous as compared to a similar number of such in the south lands. The Fruztii see “viking” as a national pass time and those who answer the call themselves are often hard, capable men not simply desperate ones. Officially there is peace between Ratik and the Frost Barbarians, but the “viking” still occurs.
Deep winter though is not the time for it. In deep winter even the goblin folk will sometimes aid stranded or misplaced travelers and even the most xenophobic logging camp might well aid a misplaced goblin. The struggle for survival then is against nature itself and even natural enemies often become very temporary allies to survive it.
Within the Timberway Forest’s southern half there are three noble families, not truly Baronial, as the populations wouldn’t support full baronial houses, but rather these are Baronetcies, or, more commonly, Lordships.
The southern most family, the Abon Hoth, are descended of two Knightly families of long service in the first days of the Aerdy Imperium who had feuded for long decades before reconciling by marriage. They are an old line now, going back more than four hundred years as a combined house and have a fair amount of influence even in Rauxes, even after the Greyhawk Wars, even though they are not at all in line with the former Imperial values. Logging forms the basis of their wealth and they are as such, while they are not rich, they do have more elaborate wooden fortifications than the other families with the forest can manage. Even the moderately wealthy house of Ulthek can’t really afford the number of wooden towers that dot the Abonhoth lands. The forces of his Lordship, Thellon Abon Hoth, are small when only standing forces are considered. He has a dozen men at arms manning the walls of his timber and stone keep, and there are a few more scattered here and there in the service villages, acting as Bailiffs, but his folk respect the “Just Lord” Thellon and he would field a force some hundreds strong in full defense of his lands and they would not be simple peasant levy forces, if they would also not be tremendously organized or disciplined. Outside of the directly held forces these would be woodsmen, mostly armed with axes and spears and the occasional shortbow, and cavalry would be basically unknown, but at the same time almost all of these folk would have a good acquaintance with long distance hiking and with survival in the wilderness, a distinct advantage in these heavily forested lands.
The Keth noble house is a nearly impoverished one. The Lord of the house, Lord Vartuel Keth, who was once a respected and just statesman, is little more than the figurehead now and barely acknowledged even as that. His wife, Lady Katharna, is the real ruler and everyone in the Baronetcy knows this. Lady Katharna is a greedy, avaricious woman, who sees the familial lands as nothing more than a resource mine…and while former generations of Kethian Lords may have allowed and sometimes even encouraged a certain degree of over trapping, presently and for the past twelve years, the situation has been disastrously over done. Now there are barely enough of the once plentiful fur bearing bounty animals, especially the winter fox and the ermine, to provide for any real fur trapping industry at all. It is only because of the close ties that Lady Katharna forged with the Merchant Houses of Marner that, via credit, the house of Keth is still able to maintain itself in any style at all, and the villages are beginning to complain vociferously of the taxes upon taxes the Kethians are levying. Also, since the trappers now must range further a field, there have been border disputes with Abonhoth, and the “Baroness” (a title she demands be used in her presence) has taken to hiring mercenaries to “police these southern rabble rousers in her lands”. This could easily turn ugly and many folk on both sides are beginning to brace for it.
In the Barony of Ulthek there are nearly as many Suel as there are Aerdy folk. Most families, including the noble one, are of mixed blood, with strong Suel antecedents obvious to the eye. Indeed in the noble house, both the ruler himself, Lord Phelgar Ulthek, and his sister Anthea, are almost prototypically Suel in appearance, being tall, blonde haired with pale skin and violet eyes. The Lords brother, Sir Thek Ulthek, who is also the head of the Order of the Hart in Ratik, is a half orc, an obvious one too, but has won a great deal of respect and loyalty from the folk of Ulthek because of his strong loyalty, to the Order, the Timberway itself and his family, in that order. The economy of Ulthek centers on the fur trade but a good bit of lumbering is done as well. Trapping is more prevalent here than anywhere else in Ratik, yet the trapping is done with great care to not over trap any certain species and to keep a good balance of predator and prey, so it is that the Ulthek family has become fairly wealthy and powerful itself. Unfortunately for them the Merchants Houses of Marner and many factors of house Cormik itself, see the manner in which the family coddles the “fur bearing animals” and “sides with the northern barbarians to which they hold close kinship” as disloyal to the Arch-barony and indeed, they have began to become more and more correct. The Ulthek forces are similar to the type of troops used by the Fruztii in many ways. Except for a small cadre of troops, more like a chieftain’s personal war band, there are no standing troops in Ulthek, but nearly every man in Ulthek is a capable combatant and as the Lord owns great loyalty from the people, his ability to raise a force is far greater than would be expected. Most of these troops are also armed in the Fruztii manner. Bows are all but unknown, but javelins and throwing axes abound, and spears sometimes thrown as well if the owner is capable with swords and owns one of those. They’re a mixed bag, irregular troops, but with high moral and a great deal more skill than is usual with irregulars.
To the north, along an uncertain border, lie the lands of the Fruztii, the Frost Barbarians. Within the Timberway they are a more settled folk, less prone to raiding than their northern kin, yet no less warlike and capable. There is some lumbering going on, but Jarl Ardheim’s folk live more by trapping and hunting than by lumbering by far. As is usual in the Timberway, there are small truck gardens, usually, if they are organized at all, than done at the Thorp or Dorf level. The Jarl himself actually lives in a longhouse on the shores of the Grendep Bay and not in one of the forest enclaves, so there are no actual armed camps or village steadings within the Fruztii portions of the Forest itself. Even large Thorps are unusual, with almost all of the folk dwelling as single extended families with a great deal of interaction between the Thorps. This does indeed make the Jarl’s people more clannish than is usual for the Fruztii, more along the line of the folk of Ratik, and less apt to direct commands of the “king”, but as the present monarch is friendly with Ratik, which pleases these folk greatly (after all, there is a good deal of Aerdi blood in the Jarl’s own family and it is far from unusual in that of his folk as well.), they are some of his most loyal supporters.
