Barony of Blue Peaks

Originally the realm had over 76,000 mortal souls living in its borders. About 13,000 people left after the recent coup and about 1000 new people have moved in.   The population reduction is a blessing in disguise because the realm was overcrowded and overtaxed before, so now the farmers have some breathing room (though there is a lot of feuding over who controls the now empty land).   About 90% of the population is humans with a majority of the non-humans being gnomes, about half of whom are newly immigrated Fumayan gnomes.   About 70% of the local humans are Borderlander humans, about 15% Swynfaredian humans, and about 10% Fumayan humans, about 5% other. This is not counting mixed race humans of whom there are lots, especially Swynfaredian/Borderlander hybrids.   About 10% of the farmland is in the hand of yeoman who have gotten their family land as a reward for services during the coup and transition and the remaining 90% is technically owned by the new Baron Tacitus Wiern though he has announced plans to formalize the distribution of land to people and families who serve him well.

Baron Wiern inherited the defensive structures built by his predecessors Old Uwcharedia.   He inherited Duchess Nia's small but highly defensible castle intact.   West Fort facing the road to Prophet's Pass and East Fort facing Wooly Slopes suffered some minor damage during the coup, and they won't be able to be repaired until spring but they are still formidable structures.   The realm also has three incomplete and ruined castles that nevertheless have strong foundations. Baron Wiern hopes to eventually complete these castles and set up four administrative divisions in Blue Peaks based on these castles once he has the time and funds necessary to finish these castles.

The realm had a sizeable treasury of gold and other valuables as spoils of war from the recent coup, but the Baron has liquidated most of his treasury to deal with various shortages that have cropped up as the old regime grabbed a lot of food and supplies on their exodus out of the Barony.   The Barony was able to capture a fair portion of the weapons and armor of the old regime, but a large portion of the arms were looted by third party thieves, now believed to be loyal to the sorcerer Mostyn and the sorceress Talaith and currently residing in the Petty Kingdom of Altudaredia.

Uwcharedia was usurped by an army of squib soldiers backed by House Goirsonad battle sorcerers roughly 200 years prior.   At the time it was controlled by a rapacious warlord believed to be affiliated with the Testers. The previous warlord had usurped the realm from a kindly but relatively feckless and weak Border Baron (the last previous Baron to call the province "Blue Peaks" roughly 20 years prior, claiming his daughter as his war bride.   Given that the previous warlord was so hated, at the time the common people greated the Swynfaredian transplants as liberators.   While the Swynfaredians made a big deal of taking out an evil tyrant, they really wanted this land as a convenient place to ship off Squibs to, in order to give them their own proverbial sand box to play in. Over the years, more and more squibs get shipped off to Uwcharedia and the first Uwcharedian squibs paired off and had children meaning the realm quickly grew top heavy with more nobility than they truly needed, and this led to relatively high taxes on the commoners in order to support this bloated upper crust.   Over the succeeding generations, the common people had grown to resent their Squib overlords. The nobles did not beat, rape, or murder their peasants, but they do charge a higher rate of taxes than most other Border Baronies and a lot of peasant families struggle with finding enough food to make ends meet. Thus when Baron Wiern and his allies set up a coup, most of the locals greeted the newcomers as liberators.   That said, Baron Wiern has not yet earned the undying loyalty of his new subjects. The land redistributions has certainly created winners and losers and many are grumbling about the various supply shortages.

Within the rugged highlands there are pockets of isolated flat valleys, which are relatively small but have an excellent crop yield acre per acre well suited to cereal crops. Blue Peaks has a modest amount of lush grazing land which is good for sheep and goats. Their herders periodically trade breeding stock with their allies in Wooly Slopes.       There are some modest mineral resources but they are all hard to get to. It's not cost effective to hire non-dwarf miners to get at and the the dwarf nations were not exactly eager to work with the Uwcharedians. Baron Wiern is hoping to change this and is seeking to build bridges with Meckelorn.