Mech Alb
On the Lands and Cultures of Mech Alb...
From a description by Widden Fraoch:
"Mech Alb is a land of rolling hills, seas of green, and not much else. The Old Road skirts alongside the Northern Woods, which the locals call "Hangman's Heaven" for the occassional bandit hunts which use the trees as gallows. These same bandits eventually caused the main road to move to the south, winding past a small flat-roofed temple which also serves as the local school for the estates.
Though the fact escapes most locals, the vast emptiness contains a stunning number of mass graves and most locals assume the graveyard near their farm is "the graveyard," when in fact there population of the dead vastly outnumbers the living, as Mech Alb has found itself between nations of completely ungoverned for much of its history. There are very few undead attacks, which has Father Stephane deeply concerned about the possibility of some cavernous kingdom lurking below which harvests these graves. The locals think he's crazy, but he's also a very good children's tutor and one of the only people who will write letters for commoners free of charge so his eccentricies are mostly tolerated."
The Current Lord, Girard Hurlant, had this to say upon his first visit...
"While making a quick stop in Mech Alb, my scribe (a handsome and brilliant fellow) and I took note of a local Tavern- the Greatly Good Bear-King Inn, on the Long Road in the southern district.
While there, we had the most delicious meat pies. The ale, it was middling, tasting of moldy groundwater, but the pies! They were magnificent!
The Captain of my guard inquired as to the recipe, and came hence from the kitchen with a most sour and terrified look, which is passing strange to see on a grizzled man-at-arms. I asked him to pass the recipe to my estate-servants, and he but muttered, 'aye sir... but please note the sad faces of the peasant children round these parts, as they have no pets to race and tousle with in the streets. If'n you catch my meaning'.
I did indeed! The good people of Mech Alb know better than to let their children run 'round with dogs, even if it means the children go sad! A sad child is a child who has no hope, after all, and a child with no hope harvests more grain! All for the greater good, I say! Well met, peasantry of Mech Alb!
At any rate, try the meat pies, I say."
