Crossroads

Crossroads, is a large seasonally-populated city located on a rocky promontory of the same name in thecentral Lordless Lands, in the territory disputed between Bastonia and the Mighty Northern Horde. The city is traditionally considered part of the territory of the Confederacy of Sages, held in common with their cousins in the Orcish Nation. Because the city is only heavily populated during the times of harvest for trade, beyond a small core of permanent residents, its population is highly variable. With the expansion of the Frontier Counties, it is lately flooded with refugees of the Mighty Northern Horde from nearby orcish settlements like Green Knoll.

Geography

The city is on a low flat near a lake known simply as Duck Lake due to the prevalance of ducks in that area in their proper season. This position makes itself a nexus on many of the traditional migration routes among both the Orcish Nation and the tribes of Centaur who are the most common members of the Confederacy of Sages in the region.

Traditionally, the city spent most of its time as a small town populated by fishermen and duck farmers, swelling several times a year to the size of a small city when the nomadic tribes in the area came together for grand harvest markets. As a result the city had a remarkably empty and impermanent feel. Since the seizure of the Frontier Counties and the Green Knoll Purge, however, the desperate remnant of the Mighty Northern Horde has banded together and fortified the city, placing it under Orcish rule.

Economy

Traditionally, Crossroads boasted of a very rich economy by the standards of the Lordless Lands, where most trade is conducted in bartering and merchantilism is not a widely adopted method of economic prowess. This economy has only flagged with the hostility of Bastonia. Crossroads is no longer central to the movements of any tribes of either Sage or Orc, and instead serves only as a last holdout for a people heavily displaced from their traditional homeland.

Politics

The act of the Mighty Northern Horde which effectively colonized the city has soured the relationship between the Orcish Nation as a whole and the Confederacy of Sages, who feel that the orcs' increasing isolationism and hostility will only be used against both nations by Bastonia, both as excuse for future wars and by allowing them to be driven apart.

The town itself has a split government. The Horde government remains in control of the defense of the city and makes grand and sweeping use of the city's resources to rearm and resupply itself while it musters for a fresh counter-offensive, but the day to day operation of the city more or less remains in the hands of the Centaur tribes who made up the original permanent inhabitants.