Westic

Westic is primarily made up of human northerners. Westic is a relatively poor village with many citizens taking up trades such as candlemakers, forgesmiths, carpenters, etc. There are a few folks living in Westic that own shops and a single tevern/inn called 'The Red Dahlia'.

Westic is a village within the northern region of the human kingdoms. The capital closests to them is Halothial, and their closests neighboring town is Steme, a merchant town. All the supplies they are unable to produce is imported from Steme in large horse drawn wagons. There are also a few merchants that make trips that far north, but it is a rarity.

Westic is ruled by a council including one tradesman from each trade done in the village, one candlemaker, one forgesmith, one carpenter, etc. In Westic, if you were not somehow connected to a trade, you weren't worth the ground you stood upon. Trades and manual labor were everything in Westic. Most of the manual labor is done by men, however, there were a few women who refused to go on their ancestral treck to the archives and ran tradeshops of their own.

Everybody paid taxes to the council, Steme, and Halothial. The council justified theirs as a minor fee for avoiding all the headaches related to being a council member. Steme called theirs transactional taxes since they handled all imported goods to Westic and the surrounding villages. Compared to taxes paid to the council members and Steme, taxes paid to Halothial seemed like mountains of gold shipped off to people who didn't deserve it. Westonians didn't believe Halothial should tax those in the north since they didn't appear to do anything for them. Northeners were quite secluded and were uneducated in the events of their southern compatriots. It isn't for the lack of trying, news just doesn't travel that far north.

Westonian architecture is known for their large wooden beams that make up the majority of the structural integrity of the buildings in Westic. Stone is also a popular material and is used for floors and foundations. Another staple of Westic architecture is their steep curves rooves. Due to heavy snowfall, steep rooves were a must to avoid snow piling up and weakening the structure. Older structures in Westic also have the peculiar feature of being dug one to two feet into the ground and the structure built lower to improve stability, but now buildings are just reinforced to avoid having to dig massive holes during the small window when the ground was thawed.

Cold, frozen, snowy, hellish, and just about every word you know that relates to the word uncomfortabe. Westic has nine months of pure frigiddness and is completely covered in multiple feet of snow and a nice, top layer of ice. Nobody ever wants moves to Westic, and most wish to leave. The other three months are relatively bearable as the snow melts away and reveals short, stubby blades of grass more stubborn than the inhabitants of Westic. Strong winds blow in the warmer weather, take a short vacation, and then blow in the cold weather and stay till spring. The tempatures will vary but in winter the temp can drop to -80+ degrees, but the average hovers somewhere around -27 degrees and goes up to a breezy 55 degrees towards the warmer seasons.