Villages:

It is said that where cities falter and towns teeter, villages rarely endure. Everwealthy villages are not so much planned as they are forced into place, stubborn knots of kinship tied to the land by necessity, memory, and blood. Most begin as little more than a gathering of tents, lean-tos, or crumbling Pre-Schism skyscrapers casting shadows on an inn built from their floorboards. Yet over decades, sometimes centuries, they become homes. Tucked in the shadow of broken watchtowers, nestled among poisoned rivers or forest clearings where even hungry beasts dare not tread, these remote enclaves survive often on grit alone. They are often overlooked, even by the maps etched in ink by The Scholar's Guild, not due to oversight, but because many will likely die by the time they are marked. Life in these places is harsh, brutal, and rarely long. Medicine is homemade or superstitious. Laws are more likely to be carved into bark or passed down by song than enforced with any king's seal. Folk here are marked by soot-lined faces, cracked hands, and sun-scorched hides, many never seeing a city in all their days. They barter, they bury their dead where they fell and name the stones after them. Villages may lack infrastructure or trained soldiers, but they possess deep-rooted knowledge of the land, the cycles of creatures that wander it, and which spirits require feeding. It is not uncommon for an entire village to vanish overnight, not just because they were slaughtered, but because they knew it was time to move on. Despite their isolation, their cultures are rich. Festivals of torchlight and bone-masks, harvest rites where old songs are sung to keep the beasts at bay, murals etched into cliff faces by firelight. And though The Monarchy claims dominion over all who live under its sky, many villagers hold allegiance only to their soil, their saints, and each other. Travelers from outside these enclaves would do well to tread carefully, for the smiles of villagers are not always welcoming, and what lies buried beneath their hearths are usually old enough to have watched Everwealth be born and learn to crawl. Though viewed by nobles as mere specks between the 'real settlements' villages are the first to see disaster, and the last to be saved. Yet somehow, they remain. Not proud. Not safe. Present.