Sanctuary of Uvasten (Oo-vos-ten)

Uvasten has only recently come together as a political entity, so the rules of government are still being made and tested. Most of the valley is made up of self-governing tribes, homesteads, and villages with their own rules and leadership, but all of the major groups acknowledge Genrik, the Scaled King, ruler of the great sanctuary of Durev, as their elected leader. Genrik has spent the last few decades restoring the old systems of tribal democracy, where each of the major groups sends representatives to the capital to make decisions for the valley as a whole, but there are still glitches in the system and factions have been long arguing over the details of its implementation. The representative assembly is known as the Great Moot, and it meets annually every winter for a legislative session of 3 months.    The capital fortress-city, Durev, is a rapidly-growing settlement that holds great sway over the assembly and the villages of the valley. It is a hub of trade and production, surrounded by farms and hosting great markets. The government of Durev is even more patchwork than the Moot; there is a lesser moot that represents the community elites and great families, there is a fledgling bureaucracy interwoven with the military garrison and militia, there is the small bureaucracy of the priesthood, and then there is the clique the King has been training to one day replace him. All of these groups are still feeling out their relationships to one another, and all attempts at making a lasting plan have failed or required unending revision that continues to this day.   As for the Scaled King, Genrik is an aging Starspawn sorcerer of great charisma and talent who is widely respected and even revered by the people of the valley for his actions several decades ago that saved it from destruction. He is known for his contagious sense of calm under pressure and his persistent humility (which has been greatly tested the last few decades). The old snake is serene and considerate, quick in mind and spell. He is a great warrior, a skilled commander, an inspiring public figure, and an adequate bookkeeper. But while Genrik is skilled in many ways, he isn't one for law or social architecture: he is better at handling the present than designing lasting systems for the future, and he is not particularly well educated on either traditional Uvasten legal custom, inter-tribal politics, or foreign law. In an attempt to find an heir that might do better than him, and to create a long-lasting tradition of meritocracy, Genrik has poured many hours into educating promising youth from across the valley - mostly sorcerers, but skilled hunters and potential scholars as well. These have grown into courtly clique known as Genrik's Bunch, an oligarchy of loyal adults, young adults, and teens from across the valley that consider themselves the legitimate heirs and government of Uvasten.    As Genrik has gotten older, some wonder if the valley will persist as a monarchy after his death. The tribes only traditionally elect monarchs from exceptional heroes or during times of crisis, and they are not all in agreement as to whether they should elect a successor. Others wonder if the Moot should rule alone, or if an oligarchy of elites should replace the monarchy. Still others have gravitated towards Genrik's son, Yolaskr, a rather passive man who has much of Genrik's sorcery but almost none of his leadership skills and who has avoided politics for years.    Worthy of note are the six great tribes: the Trogen, the Sovosel, the Remva, the Ogeta, the Shorna, and the Rukesseg. The Trogen are patrol the Southern mountains, and are some of the only people to be able to navigate Hell's Cradle; they are also famous and infamous at once for their unusual custom of sending ritually prepared elders into the chaos wastes to 'commune with the land', returning partially enthralled when they do at all. The Trogen use their 'ascended' elders as conduits to negotiate with Ederstone threats and to liberate other enthralled starspawn, but the practice is considered scary and inhumane by the other groups. The Sovosel inhabit the North along the edge of the Snaring Mire, and are the largest group of Kobolds in Uvasten; unusually, they are also Promised Path Kivish in religion. The Remva inhabit the West and have the most commercial connections to the Kingdoms there. The Ogeta inhabit the East, and are known for their architectural skills and education. The Shorna are known for their military veneration and more unforgiving social structures, and they inhabit the Northwest (along the harshest part of Scourging's End). And lastly, the Rukesseg are famously pious Uvarans who consider themselves the guardians of the valley and chosen warriors of Ustav.

Community is everything; survival is everything; leave no one behind. These are the three fundamental values of Uvasten culture. Children are taught from a young age to cherish what good times come and to be grateful for everything they have, but also to be ready to abandon any material possessions or conditions at a heartbeat. Short-term mindsets are used for individual situations: all possessions will be taken with time, so use what you can while you have it. Long-term mindsets are saved for the community, for its survival in the long-term is the only thing more important than the short-term survival of the individuals.    The dead are mourned during times of rest, but mourning is a luxury; one is to bury their feelings, focus on their work, and endure. The living are to be cherished, regardless of station. To leave a child without a family is to commit a sin against life itself, as it is to leave someone starving if you have food. All strangers are to be welcomed, and all food and shelter are to be shared if possible. Death may be inevitable for all, but it must be fought at every turn.    Community traditions and norms are to be followed, and those who fail to uphold them are encouraged to leave for a different group. There is a certain conservativeness to Uvasten culture, a reluctance to embrace new things and a pressure to conform to the status quo. This can be difficult for some, though the freedom of movement that Uvasten society offers at least offers choices of social norms - worst case scenario, one can homestead a new farm, or join a mercenary group to leave the valley entirely.    Grave crimes such as murder, assault, or provoking inter-group conflict results in exile into the harshest parts of the chaos wastes. Executions are rarely ever performed here; to inflict death against a fellow Uvastan is to invite evil into the community, even if done justly.

The great valley of Uvasten has acted as a sanctuary for as long as Ederstone has leaked chaos into Stildane. The valley is a defensible corner with Ederstone meteors in every direction, just far enough away to not make the valley unlivable but not far enough away to allow life to be truly pleasant. Uvasten became the winter refuge for many of the region's peoples, who would then migrate along the edges of the nearby chaos wastes to hunt and forage during the rest of the year. During great disasters or when truly terrible beasts formed, these tribes would return to Uvasten to protect each other and share resources.   In the late 400s and 500s ME, the Kivish invasions forced many coastal peoples inland, and Uvasten's population suddenly soared. With the help of these refugees, the tribes of the land built the Great Sanctuary, also known as the Ruheilk (Roo-Hai-ilk): a great fortress-town at the most defensible corner of the valley that could protect a sedentary farming population and serve as a site for inter-tribal trade, ritual, and discussion. It is said that at this time, a great presence also entered the valley, and it pacified many of the monsters and shielded the valley from harsh winters. Gradually, once the Ruheilk was finished and the valley had entered a steady rhythm of life, the presence gradually receded.   Uvasten's remote location shielded it from Kivish attacks, but also killed many of the refugees and merchants who tried to visit it. Only one group of Kivish dared to consistently attack Uvasten: the Children of Verkhon, members of the Kivish royal family and aristocracy who would be sent by their families for years into the chaos wastes to become hardened warriors. One group of Children settled into the chaos waste to the West of Uvasten, the forest known as Scourging's End. This cult took in many Kivish warriors who rejected social norms for a life of solipsistic violence, and it eventually noticed the Valley to their East. The Children of Verkhon led in warriors from the Kivish main empire to raid and pillage Uvasten during the late 700s through 900s, and they inflicted serious damage on the Ruheilk. It is said that, during this time, the keepers of the Ruheilk made a pact with spirits to secure the loyalty of a great beast that protected the sanctuary night and day.   In 945, some of these Kivish raiders brought a terrible plague with them known as Mageplague. The Mageplague didn't much effect the valley's more disparate tribes, but it did horribly ravage the Ruheilk. The great defending beast could do nothing against disease, and much of the sanctuary was emptied of life. The Children of Verkhon were able to slay the great beast and launch Ederstone into the very heart of the sanctuary. The diseased and dead comingled into a horrific creature that assimilated all life it could, and this infection of the world itself consumed much of the Ruheilk. According to legend, the last of the great heroes lured the Worldblight into a great vault, which the tribes sealed shut with the heroes and monstrosity inside. The horror was sealed away, but the Ruheilk went from being a haven to a tomb. In the late 1000s, a third Scouring of Stildane pushed new waves of refugees into the wilds. A number fled to Uvasten yet again, and they built a second sanctuary known as the Yuheilk (or New Sanctuary) nearby the old one. Much of the Ruheilk that could be reused was taken and used in the Yuheilk, and the mountain was sent tumbling over the Plague Vault so that the horrors inside could never escape. The Yuheilk held for three hundred years against monsters and the Children of Verkhon alike. But in 1410, a horrible monster known as the Tarrasque descended upon the Yuheilk and destroyed it so utterly that the very hill it was built on was no longer defensible.   A new wave of migrants arrived not long afterwards, in 1420. This new wave was, again, responding to another Kivish scouring, and it was met by the survivors of Yuheilk with open arms. Among the refugees was a strange Starspawn known as the Mad Seer Zoromet, who claimed to be able to commune with Ustav himself. Zoromet introduced the tribes of Uvasten to formalized Uvara, renamed the valley 'Uvasten' and supposedly discovered the way to the Great Tree of Ustav (though old oral histories dispute that last claim, and describe the survivors of Yuheilk as already living under the tree). At that time, the Great Tree was partially underground, in cave systems in the South - some miles away from Yuheilk, but not dramatically far.   Around the tree, the refugees and survivors built a new sanctuary known as Durev (or "third place"). Durev was more difficult to build in and around, but was even more defensible than the last two attempts. But before Durev's fortifications could be finished, the Children of Verkohn cult launched their final assault, intended to wipe out any attempt to build a sanctuary before it could start. This is remembered as the Great Night Raid, where the wells were poisoned and the land was burnt. The Kivish left behind a parting gift - a horrible, monstrous spellcasting creature known as the Night Goblin - and congratulated themselves on a civilization well eradicated. But the people of Durev refused to die; they drove off the Night Goblin and rebuilt their home. And the Children of Verkhon never did realize that Durev survived; they grew distracted with politics, and eventually moved out of the nearby wastes entirely.   Durev took centuries to recover, though. It took until 1510 for the population to recover to its meager 1425 levels, and the farmers struggled to expand from their new location in a safe and easy way. It was a great feat of generations to build up Durev, to make safe irrigation canals and carve passages through the stone. When refugees became pouring in one last time from 1690 to 1750, Durev was ready for them. Durev was thriving once more!   The prosperity of Uvasten attracts ill-omens, and in 1800 the Tarrasque returned. Good news: the tree was left unharmed, and the land was accidentally left more accessible (and in some places defendable) by the Tarrasque's passing. Bad news: over two thirds of the population and all of their houses were gone. But the devastation was far less total than the last Tarrasque attack, and the people of Uvasten rebuilt. There was a minor problem in the form of an 'Angel' (or Kivish-made semi-sentient spellcasting magical monstrosity) known as the Shadow-Eater that both haunted and aided the people of Durev from 1905 to 1912, but the nomadic Kazel-Karn movement scooped the Angel off their hands in 1912.   By 1940, Durev was still not returning to its full 1799-level might. The population was booming, but they were scattering to small hideouts and villages. Many feared that clustering in one place would summon the Tarrasque once more, or some other horror. The tribes avoided one another; the sanctuaries struggled by themselves. Monsters that managed to breach the edge of the valley ran amok, dancing between groups before they could be caught. The new system was measurably less functional than the "all together in one sanctuary and organization" approach, but such was simply life.   In 1941, a child was born to the village-sanctuary of Vurgefren, and this child was blessed with great sorcerous potential. Vurgefren was a recently-made sanctuary village nearly on top of the cursed vault of Ruheilk, and it is possible that proximity to that horrible plague-beast granted the child some of their power. It certainly made a bad place for a village, as Vurgefren mostly died off from plague in 1947 and the child was taken away to Durev for adoption. The child was named Genrik and was raised to be a warrior and hunter for Durev. Genrik left Uvasten not long after he came of age, to work as a mercenary and merchant in the wider world. He became an accomplished monster hunter, guide, and adventurer over the years, but over the years he began to yearn for home - or perhaps for a better version of home. He returned to Durev permanently in 1972, leading a group of war refugees from the Federation of Verzohn to the Northeast. From 1972 to 1980, Genrik gathered the disparate villages to build Durev back to its former glory. As if to punish the sorcerer's hubris, the Tarrasque returned to attack Uvasten again in 1980; Genrik accepted this as his fault alone, and set out to distract and lure the Tarrasque away, into the wilds. Genrik and the Tarrasque dissapeared for five days into the wastes, but miraculously Genrik returned alive. According to him, he had been cornered by the Tarrasque and had wished desperately for Uvasten to be spared in his final moments - and something happened that not only spared him, but caused the Tarrasque to vanish entirely. Whether this was very potent Tragedy Magic or Ustav himself manifesting to save him (or both), Genrik had spared Durev from destruction. And when the Tarrasque did not return the following years, the townsfolk agreed to rebuild Durev once more, to make it the ideal sanctuary.    In 1983 Genrik was elected the leader of the united Sanctuary. He has worked to bring in refugees and survivors from across Stildane and has used his powerful sorcery both to build up the sanctuary and train a new generation of sorcerers. Uvasten is currently prospering as it hasn't for centuries, and many hope that this prosperity might last. New problems are emerging, but the people of the valley seem optimistic since they aren't the insurmountable horrors of the Tarrasque or the Kivish.

Around 28,000 humanoids live in Uvasten: 20,000 in villages and tribes around the valley and 8,000 in the capital of Durev. 70% of these humanoids are Starspawn, 20% are Kobolds, and 10% are other species. Chaos mutations are extremely common among that last 10%, and the line between non-Starspawn and Starspawn is thin.

The valley of Uvasten is roughly 50 by 50 miles across, and is encircled by a ring of hills and mountains. The valley itself is forested, with small grass flats in the middle. The mountains along the South are the tallest and most difficult to cross, and much of the population clings to the base of these mountains. The main settlement, Durev, sits in the Southwest, while the old capital (and current haunted vault) or the Ruheilk is in the Southeast.    Across the Southern mountains are two particularly nasty chaos wastes: the Bladed Wastes and Hell's Cradle. The Bladed Wastes are more accessible via mountain pass and are easily the less dangerous of the two; Hell's Cradle is not only difficult to get to, but grows more difficult over the years as the 'Cradle' spits up molten stone and new mountains regularly. The Bladed Wastes are a grassland to the Southwest, if grass was sharp and made of minerals and if shrubs were metallic (also sharp) and slithered through the ground. Hells' Cradle, meanwhile, is a region that seems to be sinking into increasingly volcanic earth and is a vast, unlivable depression of chaos-infused land. More moderate chaos wastes (mostly grassland and forest) sit between and around these two, but they aren't exactly safe areas either.  On the other side of all this is the Kingdom of Hain and Andrig, but it may as well be a hundred miles away.    To the direct West and Northwest is Scourging's End, a horrible forest of flesh and cruelty that acts with outright malevolence even by chaos waste standards. North is the Snaring Mire, a great swamp and forest entangled with strands of (often dangerous) living water and quicksand that drag creatures and objects into the heart of the waste in the Northern river. Beyond these are the kingdoms of Verzavek, Verzohn, and Kagaren.    To the East are the Accursed Rurategs, giant mountains irradiated and infested into an Ederstone waste. The Rurategs go on for many hundreds of miles and are considered an uncrossable wall by most. Some of the few guides can be found here in Uvasten, though they tend to be expensive for foreigners to hire.

Skills at arms is a mandatory part of Uvasten upbringing and life, and the basic weaponry is rationed among the populace. Most of the military are militias and the warriors of the nomadic tribes - many of which act as mercenaries and monster hunters for foreign countries from time to time. The closest thing Uvasten has to a central army are the Warriors of Durev, a standing army of men-at-arms that organize the militias and protect the central farmlands. The Warriors of Durev are a mixture between locally trained warriors from Durev and warriors from the Rukesseg tribe - pious fighters famous for their use of living organic weapons.    The tribes of Uvasten tend to focus on mobile groups of cavalry, archers, and light infantry, while the Durev militia tends to rely on warbows and heavy spearmen. Artillery is basically nonexistent here.

Uvasten is majority Uvaran, though they do not have much contact with the greater Uvaran religious establishment. The Uvara traditions here emphasize the valley and its ecosystem as a sacred place spiritually connected to Ustav, and many believe that Uvasten is cosmically chosen and blessed. Much cult revolves around the Great Shimmertree, a massive mixture of tree and crystal that sits at the heart of the capital fortress-town and which was supposedly created by Ustav.    Many of the Kobolds here are either Promised or Liberated Path Kivishta. Those of the local Promised Path believe that Uvasten was the chosen valley where the Irunek will be reincarnated again, as revealed to them by the prophet Brida. Brida was the granddaughter of the great Promised Path savior, Munefa the Awakened, and supposedly died and was reborn with Munefa's soul. Brida's body is kept near Durev, at the heart of the hidden tomb where the Promised Path Kivishta here store their dead (and will possibly store any Ederstone they find). This sect of Promised Path Kivishta is entirely localized to Uvasten, though Brida, as a member of the blood of the Irunek, is venerated by other members of the path elsewhere.    A recent trend in Uvasten religion is the cult of Genrik: those who believe that Genrik is either the irunek or some other powerful spiritual being. Genrik has been most unhappy about this, but the practice has continued nonetheless.

Uvasten is a land of farmers, hunter-foragers, and a handful of artisans. Wheat, potatoes, apples, and mutated crops (such as Tallstalks, large artichoke-like plants with edible vines and delicious hearts) are the keystones of farming here. Hunter-foragers also tend to the valley's edible plants, creating an abundance of edible roots, nuts, and berries across the land. Sheep-hounds (incredibly fluffy mixtures of sheep and dogs) are bred for wool and to protect other livestock. Sharp-horned mounts are bred and pastured here, and plenty of mutated goats and small cows are too.    While there is a small mine near Durev, people in Uvasten are typically wary about cracking open the Earth - too many evils live down there. Metals are instead harvested from the Bladed Plains to the South, where terrible monsters synthesize metals and alloys internally. Specialized artisans exist among the tribes, but most specialize as a secondary occupation; full-time artisans are overwhelmingly found in Durev.

Inter-tribal and small-scale domestic trade is extremely common and largely unregulated. Trade outside of Uvasten's borders are mostly done by nomadic tribes with no central coordination or oversight.