Rypost

Whaler's Rest

Rypost is a large whaling town on the northern coast of Novyum, on the major continent of Novyum. The town is home to the Yulfing people, a tribe of Plasha people that have, as the Novya say, 'been civilized.' The Yulfing town of Rypost sits on the coast of Rypo Bay at the north end of the Plashin Range. The bay and Rypost, are hidden from the northern Piercing Ocean behind the Rypo Archipelago. Rypost is difficult to reach, both by sea and land, but in an important port in the north. It is one of the only whale oil processing sites in Novyum in the modern day. Its isolated location, however, means that much of this manufacturing is dependent on their whalers traveling to hunt, returning and then traveling again to sell their products in other Novyum ports. A costly endeavor in time and money spent in travel and sales. The Yulfing know it would be a financial boon if merchants could sail to them instead. They gladly take the loss to preserve their way of life, as they have seen so many other cultures vanish into history when connected to the Heartlands.

Yulfing legend claim their ancestors were led to the site where Rypost would be built by a pack of Plashin Wolf. It is said the winters were endless in those days and the people starving. There they found a sea so full of Rypo Seal they could walk across the waters. The people and the wolves ate and were satisfied. The descriptions of an ice-covered world have led some to believe this was as far back as the Randagri Period of history. Opponents of this theory point to the fact that the Plashin Range of the Plasha people have always been covered by glaciers and thus the world of the Plasha would always be covered in ice. At best guess Rypost was founded sometime between the fall of the Republic of Lakorth, and the rise of the United Kingdoms of Novyum. This is estimated due to the lack of any text speaking of the Yulfing in Republic records. By the founding of the United Kingdoms, however, reports of whalers with 'skull' for faces were spreading among the ports of the Piercing Ocean.

When the first Trijan missionaries arrived in Rypost the expected the possible deadly resistance the other Plasha showed. The Yulfing, on the other hand, welcomed the missionaries into their town. Novya sailors had stumbled on to the town in the past, most rescued from shipwrecks in the Rypo Archipelago. Many of these sailors had settled the town and taken wife. The sons and daughters of these sailors greeting the missionaries using the common tongue learned from their fathers. Within that generation much of the town had converted to the Trijan faith and joined the greater economic tradelines of the Piercing Ocean.

Rypost fell back into isolation and obscurity after the decline of the United Kingdoms. Through the century of the Novyum Civil War the Yulfing have continued their trade of whaling. They now have to contend with privateers and pirates in the north sea. This has meant less Yulfing ships in the seas over the years. They are rarely seen selling their oil and meat Novyum ports. Keeping it in Rypost and demanding any who want to buy must come to them. Though large trade companies ignored this offer, but a few merchants, with smaller ships able to navigate the dangerous waters of Rypo Bay, have made a fortune in this. Their ships arrive in the spring and summer to buy and trade with the Yulfing. Most other of the north have long forgotten Rypost exists.