High March of Umarwald
A vast northern march holding the winter that other kingdoms chose not to endure.
The country that remained cold
Umarwald stretches across the northern drainage, from the firth at Norrun to the ice fisheries of Lake Aranea. Its dispersed settlements share smokehouses, winter roads and rescue obligations. No household may close its door against a traveler during whiteout, even an enemy wearing a foreign crest.
The first Concord of Eight Hearths promised the march an equal share of the reclaimed growing season. The promise was never fulfilled. Marchwarden Anja Rusk keeps the broken bronze measuring rod on the council table, not in a shrine.
A practical rebellion
The march can stop timber moving down Hornbeambeck River, but doing so would starve its own boatmen before the southern courts. Anja therefore proposes a grain tithe paid before spring thaw. Her brother would rather dismantle the buried engines. Beneath Foxgloveton, the ice has started to sound like running water.
The Rusks earned the marchwardenship by maintaining winter shelters, not by possessing the largest estate.
Anja governs through rescue obligations rather than parade orders.
A firth capital built around the boats that bring northern settlements through winter.
Northern ice fishers guarding a freshwater lake and a poisonous medicinal garden.
Southern farmers who won a republic and inherited a failing source of warmth.
An eastern river confederacy held together by pilots, signal towers and a disputed promise of rescue.