As of 5/24/99






Traveler's Report On Torresan

"Though most of the land of Torresan is forested, the country has many farming villages, and the main industry is agriculture. Major food crops include several kinds of grain, cabbages, turnips, beets, squash, broad beans, peas, apples, grapes, and nuts. Industrial crops include hemp for rope and fabric. Most farms grow a variety of crops at the same time, and keep cattle, hogs, and chickens. Plowing is done with horses and oxen. In the eastern mountains, where cattle fare poorly, sheep and goats are raised.

"Every village has a sugar house, where large troughs of juice are heated over fires to produce sugar each winter. In late autumn and early winter, after the grain harvest, the juice is pressed from a certain breed of large and white beet. The tops of these beets can be cooked, but most are fed to the cattle. In late winter a different kind of juice is extracted from the maple tree, and collected in buckets. This does not hurt the tree, and many have been so bled for several hundred years. Sugar houses are built with two or three floors, so that all the villagers may sleep inside where it is always warm. Depending on the number of people per bed, they may sleep in two or three shifts, which requires some people to work at night, and the children to keep quiet. Two or three times daily, when all are awake, there is much singing and dancing, and hot meals are served. While dwelling at the sugar house, the villagers do not heat or cook at their own homes, which means that they consume far less wood than peasants in other lands.

"The wealthiest landowners have vineyards, and take great pride in the quality of their wine. They also raise swift horses for racing, and many kinds of decorative fowl. The peasants drink wine only to celebrate births, weddings, and deaths, and normally drink beer or liquor made from grain. A unique liquor called jinne is made from fermented sugar syrup and flavored with the berries of an evergreen tree, giving it a foul taste that only the natives can stomach.

"In Torresan there are also tribes who have no villages. The Chinook dwell in houses built on poles over the rivers and the Crystal Lake, from which they catch fish. Each day they bring fresh fish to the markets in the towns, in the canoes by which they travel. They plant no seeds, and keep no animals, save dogs and cats. Even the youngest of children are able to swim.

"The Shweitzers of the eastern mountains live on widely separated homesteads in the valleys, where they keep their livestock in barns in the winter, and drive them to pastures in the mountains in the spring. They tend small kitchen gardens for herbs and a few vegetables, but do not otherwise till the soil. These hardy mountaineers take pride in producing everything they need, except for grain, which they import in exchange for hides and cheese. The Shweitzers are famous for their work ethic, thrift, disdain of frivolity, and suspicion of outsiders. They do not practice magic nor gambling, viewing it as dishonorable to get something without working for it.

"The Rovers are truly nomadic, and bands of 20 to 50 make the same circles through the forests that their people have for centuries. A band will have 100 to 500 cattle, or 500 to 1000 adult hogs and their litters, but never both. Some travel the roads and dwell in wagons, while others ride horses through the deep forests and dwell in tents. The number of Rovers has always been between 15 and 20 thousand, as the forests can not support more. In hard times many of the young people marry villagers, and parents sell their infants.

"The Chelakay dwell in the east of Torresan, in the forests and mountains where they hunt with bows, catch fish, and gather wild plants. Their towns are ceremonial centers only, not permanent settlements, though the buildings are of stone. They trade with the Shweitzers and the rovers, and collect payment in meat for the right to pasture on their lands. The Chelakay travel in bands of 15 to 25, each named for an animal and a color, such as Blue Raven or Yellow Turtle. The total population is probably 6 to 8 thousand."


Translated to the King's Tongue by Dr. Robert P. Barrett






&


Two new cultures created by Bob Barrett.



Major Towns & Cities of Torresan

Name
Population
Major Industries
Dominant Group
Batavia 33,000 port, wholesale, fish
Texels
Aalsmoor (capital) 16,000 port, fish
Fpathen
Port Dug 10,000 port, fish
Human
Grand Haven 9,000 port, lumber, fish
Havanathe
Grayling 7,000 lumber, leather
Human
Borculo 6,000 paper, farm tools, leather
Texels
Long Rapids 6,000 textiles, lumber, port
Fpathen
Oxfur 5,000 charcoal, leather
Dervish
Dendropolis 5,000 lumber, leather
Human
Dogbone 4,000 farm tools
---
Alpena 4,000 lumber, port
---
Grand Marais 3,000 lumber, port
---
Ypsilanti 2,000 farm tools, leather
Pseithen
Greenfield 2,000
---
Human
Sakura 2,000 silk, laquer ware
Zambarian
Sandy Point 1,000 glass, fish, port
Havanathe
Leech Lake 1,000
---
---
Alma 1,000
---
---
Saar 1,000 metal working, wine
Dervatear
Klagenfurt 1,000 metal working, stone
Dervatear
Oshtemo 1-2,000
(seasonal)		 entertainment
Chelakay


A Word On Taxes

In order to maintain the roads and bridges, Niessen of the Snow levies taxes upon all the towns and villages that the roads pass through, according to the number of inhabitants. Oshtemo is not a permanent settlement, so the road linking it to Ypsilanti and Grayling is maintained with the proceeds of a lottery. Some towns have local taxes to support public workers (healers, entertainers, firemen, ditch diggers, the mage, etc.), while others collect license fees from merchants.

The Texels, having no roads in their lands, chafe under Niessen's taxes, but have to admit they benefit from the roads linking Borculo and Batavia to other towns. To finance the construction and maintenance of canals, the schools and libraries, and the salaries of harbormasters, they collect an annual tax on all water vessels, from a few coins for a rowboat to the value of many cattle for a seaworthy cargo vessel. The Havanathe completely evade taxes by refusing Niessen's assistance to keep their trails passable, and thus most of them are not. The only decent road in all of the Havanathe lands in western Torresan connects Aalsmoor with Grand Haven, at the mouth of the Grand River on the border of Miaford.



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