BERTWOOD, Officially The Oligarchic County of Bertwood, also known as BENTWOOD COUNTY in some areas.
Geographic Overview.
Bertwood county is located at the northern end of the Draguloon Landmass. It’s position jutting into the confluence of the Windy Wavewash and Pearlfoam Abyss mean that it’s bathed both in the hot humid air and currents from Foo-EE, and the cold south flowing currents of the Wavewash orginating ultimately in the Burrfrees Ice Sea, this conflict means that the waters around the nation are dangerous, stormy, fraught with huge seas, and they give the County it’s constantly variable conditions, heavy rains, great thunderstorms, frequent floods, fires, and tornados.
It’s Southwestern neighbors are Etrulia and Buslopbia while the rest of the nation is coastal. The Northern coast is more rocky than the southern .
Bertwood’s population is about 1,O49 souls, mostly rural small farmers. The Capital city is Canocoffeecola Courthouse, featuring the pictureque Old judicial Mansion. And the County Cabildo, which houses all the official state organs. And hosts the meetings of the Burgess Marses (the Burgess is the convocation of the great and powerful planters, each called a Marse as honorary title). Fort Duqthape is the largest city by far with nearly half the national population. The eponymous old fort is a historical landmark and tourist attraction, as is the Paco Deukon, the old place of the Counts whose fusion of Etrulian and Manzian late medieval architecture is a delight. The great fort is the Bertwood Army’s principal cantonment. Tourists flock to watch the daily March of the Cadets, as they change the guard at the Paco Deukon. and at the Patyum le Chuchotement, the National Cemetery. The city is the industrial and financial hub of the County, with some fairly modern factories.
Post Moburbon is the only port with facilities worth the name. A few other places along the coast have rough knockabout docks of rotten wood, but no appropriations have been forthcoming for improvements to anywhere outside Post Moburbon, in over a century, making it foolhardy at best to attempt to bring any vessel larger than a rowboat into them.
Habitation and Settlement.
Most of the population lives in Fort Duqthape, and the three cities;
Fort Duqthape, Post Moburbon, Sahbama, plus the capital
Canocoffeecola, give great contrast to the rural regions. These
cities are not the urban metropoli of the Iind Polyester Freestate
however. Bertwoodian cities are decidedly old fashioned, with few
buildings over two or three stories, and most of brick and tile
harking back to the Etrulians, with lovely ironwork and balustrades
in fine style. Wide brick paved boulevards still lit with gas , and
the landaus and broghams still drawn by fine horses give an antique
charm to these towns where life seems leisurely paced, even languid.
Even now the motor car is regarded with some distaste by townsfolk,
and comparatively few are seen outside the business districts.
Beyond the cities’ fine curated garden like prospects County life is very different. The villages are ramshackle, of raw boarded huts and iron roofed shanties bespeaking the true poverty of the County so well hidden by the veneers of the urban civility. There is little to no public works at all, usually little beyond a muddy street, often flooded and in winter particularly, the pirogue is more common than the cart or coach. These settlements are much in the nature of trading posts, hardly sporting more than a general store, a saloon, a lawyer, peace officer,, perhaps a newspaper, church, or a blacksmith cum gunsmith. The finest of these little places are found along the two Railroads; The Frogswerany and Hawgstump Slough Railroad runs from Fort Duqthape south all the way to the Etrulian border, and it’s purchase of a large plot over the Bentborder for the southern footing of it’s great modern iron Bentborder Bridge, has given the County a toehold beyond the river.
The other line is called the Puglygumbo and Sabama RR, though no
spur or line runs to Puglygumbo, nor likely ever will. The thin
rest of the population lives spread out among the back waters eking a
living out of floating plots of vegetables, a pig, and what can be
hunted or trapped on their land, and those that travel beyond sight
of home at all, rarely go beyond the nearest market village for a few
supplies and to sell the occasional surplus, a few skins, or
occasional swamp oddities.
Bertwood prizes it’s Independence, and has not been signatory to any defensive pacts or treaties. The Chiffarobe Doctrine, a legacy of past century prohibits Judges from engaging in any binding military agreements without the specific and unanimous consent of the Burgess Marses. There is no taste for military adventurism in the land, and beyond a long standing trade agreement with Dundoon, the County stands aloof from machinations of the other Ornrian states. Aside from the brief Battle of Birdyfinger Rock, The only saber rattling in 30 years has been against Oppressorbad, over an international incident 10 years ago involving a circus act, fishing crew, and one renound painter of landscapes who was strip-searched in the Opressorbadian fortress prison at Polkop Point.
Languages
The principal, and only offical tongue of Bertwood County is Zowthron. The language is a conglomerate blending of the old Native Merigoo, with Polyestrine, Etrulian, and Guerish, and a Dundoonic overlay. In the cities the Polyestrine and Etrulian elements prevail and visitors should have an easy time communicating, but in the bayous and backwaters the older forms of Merigoo are thick with ancient Etrulian vocabulary and in some areas is nearly incomprehensible, even to townsfolk and villagers from other parts of the country.
ETYMOLOGY
The land now called Bertwood County was until the last century universally called Bentwood County. The nation has undergone a shift in identity over the past century as semi industrialization has concentrated the population into the cities, as a result the language and even forms of government have altered somewhat, with the old dominance of Burgess Marse planters along the great rivers, is being contested by the new Urban Capitalists reliant on railroads and overseas trade . With the growth of an urbanized money economy, the recent concentration of townsfolk has generated a fast growing City dialect that has changed the pronunciation from Bentwood, to Bertwood.
The original name Bentwood, is thought to come from Polyestrine visitors 4 or 5 centuries ago when they discovered in the cypress swamps the perfect bentwood for ship making. The fact that the nation refers to itself as a county is a hold over from the time when the area of Post Moburbon was the northernmost province of of the Kingdom of Etrulia, called Bentwood from it’s chiefmost export. The 70 Years War, that saw the Etrulians forever locked behind the Bentborder River, did not erase the name, which in time expanded to the whole nation.
History
Pre-history.
The Ancestors of the Merigoo Tribes inhabited the forest-swamps of
Bertwood in prehistoric times, constructing town-mounds and shell
middens. Professor Scwintpeek of Magnolia Conserversity has
outlined the prehistory of Bertwood through archaeological
excavations and has this to say;
“The early Pre-Merigoo people were a dark skinned race, noble of build, and wise beyond measure. They built communities in the humid bayous on islands of mud and shell, where food plentiful and easy to gather including mussels and oysters, deer, and giant gators, and the many unique plants of the wood and swamp. Artifacts indicate they had some awareness and trade with peoples of far lands, but in the main preserved and developed their unique culture quite independently, and their technological development shown through successions of pottery innovations shows them resourceful and clever with no reliance on foreign innovations.”
The Merigoo seem to have fallen into internecine conflict near the beginning of the era of metals, but the Vus arrival was contained to the area around Deahhallah and seems never to have been culturally invasive as in nearby Buslopbia. The Uskamin tribes of early Etrulia seem to have invaded and colonized as far as Fort Moburbon, bringing the first major cultural changes to Merigoo
Historical Antiquity.
The Uskik Philosopher Ithotalotodees provides our first glimpse of the tribes in his “Trans Flumen Terminum”, a description of the expedition of the General Flufeetius over the Bentborder River. The expedition encountered a shell midden village possibly near modern Deahhallah, the villagers were; “Men colored like the Calcedon of Jobba (a black red rock) clad in feathers and shells, and marvelously big. The women very lovely and our men overcome with their great beauty.” A further fragment records: “they have no bronze, but kill the biggest dragons with long arrows so powerful they sometimes pierce great trees all through” Dragons in this case believed to refer to the giant Sarcodiles still occasionally encountered in Bertwood’s swamps. Yet another bit records; “they eat many divers animals, dragons, slimes of the sea, fishes, oysters, divers fruites and vegetables, and a sort of grain that grows on large ears, but believe the great venomous eurypterids of the river a holy food and consume it greedily in times of festival washed down with the black drink that is like wine to them but makes all other men vomit.” echoes of these festivals are still to be seen in the Shindigs of the modern population, and the Black Drink of ancient times has been replaced with coffeecola. It was in this antique period that the Etrulians established the first County, bringing metalworking and Etrulian writing to the already rich culture of the swamp.
The native forms of writing withered in the
face of the easily taught and mastered Etrulian variety. It is
thought that before the Etrulian invasion a tiny caste of scribe
priests carefully guarded the learning and dissemination of
information. This native writing was not merely hieroglyphic, but
was limited to medicine (ie. magical) “schools”, whose
participants learned a form of writing that was not shared with other
tribal medicine schools. Thus the
postulated half dozen Merigoo spoken
language dialects
sprouted not a single branch of writing,
but a bush of written forms,
incomprehensible one to another. Much of this writing remains on
stone and pottery artifacts, but only the
smallest amount has been deciphered. In
the turmoil brought by metal weapons and armor, desireable goods, and
the escalation of tribal wars the powers of the old priestly class
declined, and the Etrulian writing swiftly
replaced the antique priestly
scripts, whose artistic merits seem to falter and dwindle to
nothing in under
a century. Only two works remain regarding translations and gloss of
the hieroglyphic to Etrulian, and one of those is mere
fragments, carefully preserved at
Magnolia Conserversity’s Department of Antiquities.
Over a period of nearly a thousand years the Etrulian Legions fortified and guarded the county behind the line of the Frogsewerany, reaching it’s farthest northern extent during the Reign of Hegemon Orace III , when the Zar-General Marcus Marchus pushed three legions into the interior and founded Fort Duqthape. The fort was occupied by Etrulians barely 30 years, before the great rebellion of Friscus Frogtooth. Frogtooths usurpation of the title Count occured in Fort Duqthape in the last year of Marcus Marchus’ rule in Pizzalatzio, the Zar-General having exterminated the Orace line and took the Hegemonian diadem for himself. The year that wilted the greatest extent of Etrulian Power, was the year that Bentwood County first blossomed.
Under Friscus’ Countship the tribes between Sabama and Gawnfishin soldified into a Merigooish County whose future would conflict with the Royal Etrulian one. The old tribal caiques made themselves over into landowners seated along the rivers in Etrulian styled plantations on the feudal pattern, opening the period that saw as much fueding with one another in the swamps as fighting the Etrulians, much of it over the small herds of horses originally introduced by Mantissippian Manza mercenaries in the service of the Etrulian counts. These horses were small, lithe, suited to the swampy, sandy jungle like regions of Bentwood as a horse can be. Those Marses in the piny uplands found they did very well, however, and the Creyfuss, Molassagrits and Lawdlees families in the region of Jamimawhamminy and Grubsteak still raise some of the best horseflesh on Ornria.
Modern History.
The Modern era for Bentwood begins with the 70 year’s War, a
conflict that started with the Sucession of Lispister Ulys to the
title Count at Fort Duqthape. This Count Ulys was the grandson or
possibly great nephew, of the Royal Bentwood Count Cumurcus through
his mother, and he claimed that title loudly and immediately, setting
his army afoot in a long and eventually successful campaign to push
the Etrulians beyond the Bentborder. This campaign was helped by the
recent adoption of firearms, Ulys having imported a dozen Mantzian
gunsmiths from Lushlousen, and arranged trades of horses to Guerat
and Mantissippii for cannon founding materials. This last was not so
successful as it might have been, as on the seas Etrulian warships
intercepted many of the Bertwood vessels and the supply of
gunworkings was never so great as was needed. Nevertheless Uly’s
guns forced by the swampy and sandy conditions to be small and easily
moved, were enough. The Etrulians were distracted anyway, involved
in a full civil war, plus a military adventure in Buslopbia and the
never-ending fight with Guerat, the loss of a swampy ruinous rump
county in Bentwood was hardly noticed in Pizzaltzio or Piastre.
The Unification of Bentwood was the highpoint of the Early Modern era in the Northern Dragoloon and was reflected in the construction of the Cabidilo and the Paco Deukon in an architectual flourish combining features of old Etrulian building with fancywork imported out of Mantz (those Mantzian gunsmiths started drawing other Mantzian technicians who, for a time, had rich pay days laying out the new government districts in Canocoffeecola, modernizing the arsenal at Fort Duqthape, and building “modern” sailing ships in Post Morburbon). This was the era of Marse Lapittes who developed the Bentish law code and set the pattern of the County Courtes as organs of state. Also of Marse Leboutred the first Reefve of Bentwood, Ulyss’ great enforcer who brought the Marse’s into line, and set the stage for a long rivalry between the powers of the Count, and the powers of the Burgess Marses. The conflict between the ruling autocrat and his supposed subservient lords is a common one in history, and in Bentwood it was no exception, for nearly 300 years the pendulum of power swung back and forth between the two fueled by the wealth in horse of the equestrian Burgess, and the infantry of the Count based in his Fort. The state in effect had two capitals, the Count’s in Fort Duqthape, and the Burgess Marse-ish one meeting in the Cabidilo of Canocoffeecola, and much was decided by rapiers, and pistols at 20 paces. Indeed dueling became an obsession among the upper class, and no person would seriously expect to hold a position of state responsibility without a visible wound.
Around 200 years ago a rogue Dundoonian pirate, or adventurer sailed a small fleet of barques into the bay of Fuglygumbo. This landing was intended to be a horse raid, but the swamps quickly overcame much of his party, and Captain Joc Bravobreek was captured with some 30 of his men. No doubt those fellows expected an unpleasant end, but the soldiery that captured the Captain hadn’t been payed by the Count in some little while.
These disgruntled poor soldiers led their captives along the sandy marshy tracks to Canocoffeecola, hoping for reward from the Burgess. In the place of reward they were enlisted into the Burgess Marse’s new model army organized and captained by, now Colonal Bravobreek, under his new moniker, Brefbrac (short pants). Brefbrac organized a new mode of support for the war against the autocrat; fishing.
The Burgess organized fishing fleet expeditions to the Whelks
(Ouchland, Lowrinse Whelkland, and Hogwild Island) three lonely
largely barren rock islands in the middle of the Pearlfoam, where the
great Bulldog Fish (Portheus
Pearlus) were plentiful. This is a dangerous ground for
fishing, with massive marine reptiles, enormous seas, awful storms,
and more than a match for modern fishing ships and men. In the
primitive conditions of sailing ships with the added danger of
Dundoon and Earish pirates, the wonder is that there was money to be
made at all after losses of gear, ships, and men. Nontheless,
“Bentwood’s Barrels of Board’d Bulldog”, to quote the song,
were being exported, chiefly to Stewslops and Morepighaven, and
whole smoked fishes were gracing the tables of the Grandees of Guerat
for incredible prices, a single smoked fish of 19 feet length
bringing 3 millions of Picayunes to a Captain Bubbles Glugbrew in the
first year of the Ist Polyestrine Silver Wars.
With Finances on a good footing, and a new infantry being drilled by the Geurat corporal turned General Fus Verp, the dwindling and underpaid soldiery of the Counts either turned coat, or fled for home. After the disastrous Battle of Sungoober Tavern the last Count, Burlap Bootlebuff met the headsman’s axe, and the Burgess Marses were supreme. The Burgess, that old convocation of wealthy aristocrat Marses now faced it’s greatest test; ruling the nation.
The Burgess made a fine legislature, but legislation without execution is pointless; the Courtes were headless without the Count, and the solution to an executive was found in raising the senior Judge of the Courtes to a Prime Minster like status and giving this Senior Judge control of the Army and the state police (the Reefves) through the creation of the offices of Colonal General, and Reefvissimo respectively, though these persons were in theory beholden to the Burgess house for their selection they were housed in Fort Duqthape and tended to work closely with the Judge in day to day matters of the Oligarcy.
Today the Bentwood Oligarchy is quiet and stable. The Burgesses are still called to make laws a few weeks a year. The office of Colonal General has disappeared, it’s functions more directly controlled by the Judge, and the Reeveissimo is now the Hefereef. A role normally given to the Judge’s favorite though the medium of a somewhat farcical national election (the only office that is subject to a national vote (if National can apply to a vote by an electorate composed only of those people who own a home of 10 windows, a wheeled cart, and at least 4 quadraped livestock).
Things are nonetheless placid, the newspapers are delivered with the milk in town, and are read by the local bigshots in the taverns and general stores of the countryfolk. The railroads run a few trains a day bringing the raw materials to Fort Duqthape, and taking finished goods to the port at Post Morburbon, or to the markets of Sahbama and Canocofeecola. The Small factories puff their smoke and steam and produce their goods that serve to stock the meager stores of the land.
The country folk are content, they seem over all to have little, need little, and want little. Their farms are in effect subsistence enterprises, and most farmers effectively have title to their own land through kinship arrangements (family land titles are non transferable in Bertwood outside the kin group) bringing a little cash in mostly through hunting, trapping, making Karo and Muskytine (a home made sugar syrup, and it’s distilled alcohol derivitive ) and raising hogs.
The City folk in the main are divided into a genteel class of industrialists who largely align with and mostly ARE the Burgess in city dress, and wish nothing more than to enjoy their social rounds, balls, and duels, living beyond the slender incomes of their factories, shops, and industrial concerns. In fact, the only discontent common to them is that they are not seated in the Burgess unless they hold a County Marse (Plantation of at least an Ornrian yard in extent). Ranged against them is the slightly more factious but limited group of day laborers, urban factory workers, and students ,who want such unreasonable things as regular meals, living wages, safe working conditions, and decent housing. Maybe even universal education and suffrage. These malcontents are the foundations of the small Social Republicrat party that agitates for “Fair Pay and Fair Play” and whose more extreme members are determined to remake Bertwood into a real democracy on a liberal Republican model. Few of these extremists, called Agitarchists, escape being rounded up by the Depatees (the state police) of the Hefereef, and most wind up in Coldcork Farm (the County Prison), or fleeing to more liberal cities outside the County.
the Wetdog River mouth near Jamimawhamminy is saltmarsh, and the whole country to the south of the Wetdog River is cane break and swamp whose bayous are dominated by white oak, weeping willow, and spanish moss in great masses.
The Grubsteak region historically was covered in White Pine forests, but much has been cut down over the past century and replaced with cow pastures, and small hog farms. Post Moburbon is the great port at the mouth of the Frogsewerany River, which drains the slightly hilly sandy soils between Feversewer and Deahhallah., a region of poor farmsteads mostly growing beans, corn, squash, and hogs.
The point at Gawnfishin is protected by the Point Gawn Light, and sports a little flotilla of fishermen who row out from the beach in small boats. West of the light is the Canoeel Naval Air base which does search and rescue for fishermen over the Pearlfoam Abyss, as the weather allows.
Froggigins Point has a small lighthouse, and the famous Froggigins Sarcodile Farm. West of the point is Cannonball Bay, a poor anchorage, but the beach at Shotgun is popular for picnicking and bathing. Coldcork Point is defended by an old Coastal Fort, still sporting a disappearing gun that is fired by it’s garrison on special occasions. Around the point is the rocky shore leading to the Bentborder River dividing Bertwood from Buslopbia. A dangerous river, once filled with massive man eating Sarcodiles, who are not wholly extinct even today.
Climate.
The climate of Bertwood is determined by three factors; It’s location in the Frusuu Climactic Quarter, the warm ocean currents of the Pearlfoam Abyss, flowing out of the Amatublassu Quarter; the cool currents of the Windy Wavewash Gyre, and the cycle of winds flowing down off two quarters of the Rimwall Range. This gives four seasons to the County, of which three three are quite distinct.
The months of Frostember, Thawinary, Rainuary, and into Mudember are winter. Winter is a stormy affair, torrential rains, massive peals of ground shaking thunder, lightning that obliterates trees and terrifies animals and people, and windstorms that collapse unsheltered homes and brings down great trees. Temperatures in this time run in the 60s, with short dips rarely as low as the 30s, and almost never into the 20s. There is rarely any snow in winter, occasionally in Frostember and Thawinary one gets frost in the mornings, and sometimes an icestorm that leaves the trees armored in a glasslike sheath that typically melts in a day or two. The damp makes the cool seem colder however, and older folks often suffer terribly the pangs of arthritis.
Mudember, Smellgoodie, Swimuary, Sweatember, Griddle, and Antember are Summer in Bertwood. Temperatures begin to soar into 90s as early as the first week of Smellgoodie, and by mid Swimuary will top 100 degrees, with an ennervating jungle like humidity that makes newcomers and visitors wilt. These powerful waves of unbearable muggy heat will be broken by sudden storms brought on icy winds out of the Rimwall; hurricanes which will flood the landscape in monsoon conditions that last perhaps a few hours, and rarely more than two days, before giving way to the merciless sun again.
The final “season” of the year occurs in the months of Piefestober, Chillins, and Freezuary. Temperatures drop quickly to hover in the 60s and 70s, days tend to be windy but bright, and many visitors consider this the best season to visit in. The coast from Hawhgwump to Gwanfishin is routinely socked in fog during this period, and it’s one of grave danger for the small fishing boats that dare to venture out, only the most desperate and poverty stricken dare the sea in Fall and early Winter.
Fauna
Some distinctive animals of Bertwood include the famous Sarcodiles, the Oppossum, the Swamp Racoon, The Swamp Deer, the Catamount, the Razorback Canehog, Cottonmouth, Rattlesnake, and Copperhead snakes. The sky is home to the great Crane, the Pelican, Owl, Red Hawk, Hoggin’s Sea Eagle, the Blue Jay and Crow, and numerous song birds. The waters are home to Eurypterids (Clawfish), Duke’s Dugong, Fat Bass, Catfish, giant Snakesharks, mussels, and the seas produce oyster, saltsea mussel, Etrulian Mackerel, Drum, Sheepshead, Croaker, Frogmouth trout, and other good fish in addition to being the haunt of poisonous jellyfish, terrible sharks, sting rays, and marine reptiles.
Government and politics
Bertwood
County Is
an Oligarchy. The
legislature is called the Burgess, it’s members are the Burgess
Marses. Marse is an old title of respect, and the prerogative of the
member of the landowning planter aristocracy. Meeting the land
requirement automatically grants a seat in the Burgess.
The head of state holds the title Judge, and has the responsibility to act as executive, but also has some influence over the Courtes, (the local magistrates whose collective opinion acts as a third branch of government.) and usually selects the nominally “elected” Hefereef, who is head of the State Police. In addition the Judge is the defacto Commander in Chief, though that position is supposed to belong to a Colonelissmo Generale, but the post has gone unfilled for decades, and it’s duties have been filled by an informal and extralegal junta composed of Senior army commanders.
LEADERS.
The
current Judge is Judge Boss Polbean. A flamboyant demogogue, a
brilliant manipulator, and unscrupulous character of low moral fiber.
He is the Chief
of a sophisticated political machine
called the Cornliquer Mob, and
owner of several
of the Oligarchies most important newspapers. Chiefly
the Duqthape
Expositor.
His
main aims are to keep Bertwood aloof from the rest of Ornria’s
problems without completely isolating it from trade opportunities.
In short, uphold the status quo, make money for his cronies, avoid
foreign entanglements. In
this his allies are the Urban middle class, and the old money Marses.
Wooston
Hebblebutt represents the opposition party, the Velvet Bourbon Gang.
Where
the Cornliquer Mob controls Fort Duqthape, and holds civic control of
Canocoffeecola Courthouse, the VBG is undisputed in Post Morburbon,
and powerful in Sahbama. Wooston runs the Post
Morburbon Spectograph,
the most widely read paper next to the Duqthape Expositor, and
represents Post Morburbons shipping elite, has allies in the army and
in the industrialists of Fort Duqthape. His
aims are to increase the investment in industrial capacity, improve
the port facilities, build more ships, and export modern machinery
and goods to the world. In hushed tones there is also a desire to
prepare the military for a day when the events on Ornria require
intervention via a putative Bentwood Expeditionary Army.
Military
The
Armed Forces of the County of Bertwood are intended to defend the
integrity of the country, provide security in case of domestic
unrest, and undertake humanitarian tasks. The military of Bertwood
is divided into the Navy, the Army, the Airforce, and the Depatees.
The navy is quite small, less than a dozen members and a single
destroyer, and two torpedo boats of an old design. There are plans
for a coastal battleship, these plans are at least 70 years old, and
have progressed as far as a keel and half dozen ribs.
The airforce is equally limited; three airframes are believed to fly for the County. One is a flying boat that does safety and rescue patrols, the other two are quite outdated fighters, there is also a cargo plane but rumor says that it’s in the hanger waiting for appropriations to buy a new engine.
The
Army at this time is represented by the 1st Battalion of
the National Rangers, in cantonment at Fort Duqthape; the Bertwood
Mechanized Company (1 platoon), also at Fort Duqthape; The 2nd
County Levee Dragoons are divided among several bivouacs and forts
providing garrison and security to various points around the County.
The balance of personel are alloted to the State Police, the
Depatees, who have little equipment beyond shotguns, pistols, a few
motorcycles, some horses, and a couple of radios.
The head of the Army is, legally, the Colonalissimo Generale, but there hasn’t been one for decades, filling in is a junta composed of the Army General for Inspections, the Commissary General, the Generals Commanding of the Cavalry, Army, and Airforce, the Navy Admiral, and the Army Librarian, and Arsenal Colonel Commanding, additionally a nonvoting member the Hefereef. The Generals of Cavalry, Army, , and Commissary must answer to the Judge to get the position, but only a vote of the Burgess puts the Army General for Inspections, the Navy Admiral, the Airforce General and the Army Librarian in office.
The most independent is Colonal Loretta Oilyloches, the Army Librarian. She is thought by some to be a member of the Velvet Bourbon faction, but most likely is simply an independent with no patience for the sycophantic behavior displayed by several senior officers. Admiral Cocles Bloop is a close friend of Wooston Hebbelbutt, and this causes a fair amount of politcal gaming. General Oregus Squint commands the tiny Air forces, though he seems less interested in it’s affairs, or any affairs, than in the Poker game at Madame Buquats on the Rue de Gravy in Fort Duqthape, and leaves it in the hands of his deputy Major “Buzz “ Bussard. Marse Grenplatt Noggins “Fussy Noggin” Fustian is the Army General for Inspections. He is perhaps the single most competent Bertwood soldier. Erudite, well educated abroad, with degrees in engineering and logistical operations, it’s clear any future war involving the county is going to lean heavily upon his abilities. Nevertheless, he is a political outsider untrusted by anyone. It seems he has no political or personal aspirations beyond his duties and his relations with the Judge are thought to be tepid.
Economics
The currency of Bertwood County is the Picayune. Sadly it is a parochial currency not well regarded or accepted, it’s value fluctuates around betweein 1/10 to 1/6 of a Zloty. The total economy of the County is valued at roughly 7,083 Picayunes a year, that’s between 708 to 1,180 Zloty per annum. Making the nation poor indeed. The average yearly in come is about 7 Picayunes a year, which hovers around one Zloty yearly, which means that the majority of the population buy nothing imported at all in an average year!
Working class townfolk are usually scrimping to get by on meager fare, cornmeal mush, corncakes, a few home grown vegetables, maybe bacon, or fish, a few times a week. Country people have more variety, but tend to eat simply and sell the excess, forgoing much game and forage to sell for pitiful prices in local villages, mostly to buy smoking equipment, ammunition, cola and coffee, shoes, and cloth. There is a lot of trading and barter throughout the country, cloth particularly being easy to trade for furs, meat, moonshine, gathered produce, and other local scrounge.
Agriculture
The Bentwood small farmer usually occupies a shack on 4 square feet (Ornrian feet), of which as much as half may be unusable due to inundation at some point in the year. On the rest depends the crop; corn, okra, cucumber, tomato, sweet potato, watermelon, carrot, hot pepper. Possibly there are some trees for fruit or nuts; peach, pear, persimmon, cherry, walnut, acorn. And usually some chickens, a pig or two, or a cow, or more rarely a goat. Berries, muskedines, and edible weeds are gathered in season, and it’s not uncommon to see a the children of poor families scrounging the road sides for all these things, plus frogs, amaranth, discarded cans and bottles, and anything else that can be eaten, or used at home. Some farmers are successful rice growers, but usually at the cost of intensity and produce nearly nothing else. All farmers rely on the fallows and the commons to hunt, taking rabbit, squirrel, possum, racoon, and occasionally deer, or sarcodile, and upon the waters to fish. Much of a farmers income will come from carefully preserving the furs of his dinners and “jugging” up the distillates of his corn crop, or the wines of dandilion, muskedine, and other fruit, and the pickled vegetables not intended to last the year. The tax burden on these small farmers is surprisingly light however, mostly collected in the form of a Hunting excise, and a sales tax on the pitiful few luxuries sold in the local general store.
The Industrial output of the County is low, and limited to medium and light industries, food packing concerns dominate, absorbing much of the produced glass, and metal. Jugworth’s County Bourbon is known all over Ornria, a major export food item from Fort Duqthape. Chuckbodien’s Meats tins Bulldogfish, Pork, Possum, Racoon, shellfish, and whole chickens, the majority sold to exporters.
The Railroads have invested heavily in the Smokyjon Ironworks of Duqthape, which roll a little rail and sheet, making what the Railroads request, and feeding the Bentwood Metal Package factory, which is owned in part by Chuckbodien’s Meats who they chiefly supply. Some small amount feeds the shipyard at Post Morbourbon, and a little is sold to the government for the Armory in the Fort.
There is a profitable brick works and less profitable cement factory in town. The Wilburton Sawyery is the single largest non-comestable concern in Fort Duqthape, producing yards of milled wood a year, most of which is sold overseas, and without which the The Frogswerany and Hawgstump Slough Railroad would fail. Wimson’s and Sons are wainwrights and carriage makers, and if it has wheels and isn’t on the Railroad, it’s probably been in their shop. There is only one “heavy” industrial plant making machinery; Dorfroliet Works, whose small machine shop produces equipment for the railroads, the port, and even a small model of automobile.
Demographics
Population
The last census counted 1,049 souls in the County in 251 households. Fort Duqthape was home to nearly 324, and a further 231 in Sahbama. The 86, and 90 of Post Mobourbon and Canocoffeecola Courthouse respectively, account for the remainder of the urban population, less than 25 percent of the population actually lives rurally. Bertwood citizens are more than 85 percent ethnically Zuthron, and of the 15 percent remaining, 7 percent are Dundoonic, and the remainder largely Miscellaneous foreigners.
Religion
Bentscopalanic Simotheosophy is the dominant religious observance for most city and upper class persons in the County, and their meeting houses are quite conspicuous for being brick, well shaped, with fine roofs and tall steeples. There are generally three or four meetings a week, the dominant one on Shatterday will feature grand Choral music to Organ accompaniment. The chief conceit and tennant of the BS faith is that death can be avoided, and wealth brought to one through careful observance of ritual, especially including financial sacrifice and deference to BS’s array of Deacons, Solacers, and Preachers.
The other common religion seen mostly among the poor citizens is Cantic Acceptionism, whose meeting houses are usually wood, and small, and notable for weekly services dominated by choral singing with light accompaniment. Here the belief is that the creator of all things intended the parishioners to be joyful and happy, and to endure all slights quietly and prepare to be hotly and violently revenged on their enemies in the underworld. it’s a bipolar religion of peace and happiness in this life so as to wreak blood and terror in the grave.
Languages
Zuthron, entirely Zuthron, though in as many as 9 major regional rural dialects and a single fairly universal urban one.
Education
Among BS church initiatives is the establishment of public
schools; there are 3 now; the Herferb Crappy Lyceum in Fort Duqthape,
the Marcery Magnappy Public School in Canocoffeecola, and the Moob
Bacon Academy in Post Mobourbon. Many smaller towns have school on
intermittent basis, when local people ante up to bring a teacher into
town for a limited engagement usually long enough to give some
ability to read and write to some of the local kids. The wealthy and
educated citizens either send their progeny overseas to expensive
schools, or hire tutors to prepare them for the entrance exams of the
Magnolia Conserversity in Canocoffeecola.
Culture
Music
Bentwood’s people delight in music. Get any two together and a good chance is that they will spontaneously begin to hum and sing. a great many keep small instruments on their persons; homemade whistles, reeds, mouth-harps, or will grab almost anything nearby to make a joyful noise. The songs are very often impromptu, and weave folk tales and current events into a medley or soup of fantasy and history, or just as often become sheer nonsense lyrics. Roving minstrels ply the sandy road from town to town, trading a warm meal and drink for favorite songs performed with homemade banjos, or even store bought accordions. In the cities there are rival bands sponsored by civic associations, factories, schools, and even the railroads. These groups vary in quality, and vie for prestigious honors such as the right to play for visiting dignitaries or to open civic ceremonies...not uncommonly street brawls can rise as two or more bands literally battle it out.
Arts
There is a museum in Canocoffeecola in the basement of the University, by this one may guess that Bertwood has not sired any great painters of note, no architects, no sculptors beyond a few seamen who took up scrimshaw in past centuries, only two or three novelists have risen to world acclaim; Gully Frogtoe by Eudora Waters is perhaps the best known in the Freestate, though little read in the County. Murkey Faller’s Unreasonable Homilies, and Grandma’s Wisdom are more popular and familiar to Bertwoodians though few have read them entire, and not many have read them at all. The Anonymous Funny Tale of a Drunken Sarcodile a ridiculous collection of anecdotes involving anthropomorphic animals, full of slapstick and low cunning, is perhaps the most universally owned and read book next to the BS Songbook and Cookery guide.
Cuisine
Though there are wide varieties of foodstuffs available, the mode of cooking comes down to two systems; deep fried, or grilled on iron over open flame. For special events a pig, deer, or Sarcodile will be prepared and spit roasted whole, and a few cold salads might accompany any meal. The boiling pot is reserved for chiefly for grits and greens. The baked dish is almost unknown aside from pies of fruit or sweet potato, and that is usually winter fare. Little bread is eaten or wanted save the ubiquitous hoecake, and hardtack or fruitcakes for special occasions.
Alcoholic beverages are common at get togethers, home made wines, and distilled corn liqueur predominate. And then there is the Black Drink. The traditional article is nearly unknown these days, and recipies for it mostly seen in old books and stories, you aren’t likely to taste it unless you travel deep into the back water of the swamps where it’s still brewed with sasparilla root, tree bark, and the leaves of swamp laurel, and bitteroakweed. It may be argued that Blackdrink is less beverage than test of endurance; and requires a lifelong use to inure one to it’s harsh effects upon the body. A bitter black liquid at once emetic, diuretic, expectorant, laxative, stimulant and hallucigenic a big cup will be the experience of a lifetime for the unwary traveler. It’s been replaced with the far less grueling Coffeecola; produced with the Gola-nut, the Black Walnut, the Coffee berry, Chocolotl, and brewed to produce ideally, a velvety rich black sparkling bitter but slightly sweet beverage best served cold. In the sweltering sticky summer days a cold coffeecola is extremely refreshing, and stimulating, without the unpleasant physiological effects of the traditional native beverage.
The Countyfolk delight in contests. While there are no organized team sports as in many other nations, the locals love tests of skill, they race on foot , boat, or horse, gamble heavily, there are many games of kick the can or rock throwing, knife chucking, horseshoe flinging, stone skipping, rabbit chasing, and trick shooting and one is likely to spring up anytime people gather. Indoors all classes play card games; Go Fish! Is very popular.