Ferrantia

Ferrantia is a town of about 1,000 people, a quarter of whom attend or teach at the university. The founders were a family of noble lineage, some say dating back to the Ancient Empire, who named both the region and Mount Ferrantia, which looms over the town from the north, part of the Grey Mountain range.   Ferrantia was sacked and burned 200 years ago by the Black Skull tribe of gnolls, one of the many nomadic tribes that raid throughout the Sighing Plains. Another tribe, humans called the Umbaks, came upon the town not long after the gnolls left it in ruins. Chief Umbak noted with interest that the desperate townsfolk still stood to defend one building at the center of the town.   Demanding to know what they hid within the building, the chief expected the Ferrantians to say “gold” or “diamonds.” He was dumbfounded when the Head Librarian declared proudly that what they were protecting were their books, and that they would defend them to the death. Chief Umbak had never heard of such a thing, but was moved by the conviction of the city’s librarians, and instead of ordering his warriors to kill them, he agreed to a parlay. In the end, the librarians convinced Umbak not only that the library was worth defending, but that education could one day end the cycle of violence that plagued the Southlands. Umbak did the unthinkable for a nomad chief. He ordered his tribe to settle in the region, and protect the town of Ferrantia.   Many of his tribesmen balked at the command, and left to form their own tribes. Those families who remained mostly incorporated into the town over the next 200 years. The Umbak tribe built a great hall not far from the town from which they could send out patrols to guard the library. Over time, as the nomad attacks lessened, especially due to the rising power of the Army of Baal, Umbak’s descendants converted the lodge to a ranch which the Umbak family now tends to supply the town with livestock and milk. However, every Umbak child attends the university in Ferrantia, and some of Umbak’s descendants have used their new education to travel outside the Sighing Plains and populate other parts of the Anoria.