Springdale (Realm)/Founding

The Springdale founders

   

Founderstree with the names of everyone in this story,
and thus every founder of Springdale.
Click the image (or click here) to view the full size version.

Summerdale: War, Religion and Fleeing Families

Springdale. A few hundred years ago, Springdale was nothing. This is the story of how Springdale came to be:

In the far east, brutal wars were fought. One city was the focal point of the war. The city was called Summerdale. It had a large port and was close to the border of two other realms. It quickly became a keypoint and strategic foothold in the warring. It turned into a warzone. The city changed hands so often, that pillaging and robbery was commonplace. The entire city was ransacked over and over. The peasants who were already paying huge amounts of taxes were being beaten over every last penny they had. If one opened his mouth, he would be threatened with hanging.

One such noble, an Estore Miriel was the first one to come to the boil. His hot temper, brutal fists (landing 2 soldiers in the hospital) made him the first to get hanged. He was tried after being caught for starting demonstrations and sabotaging the tax office - attempting to return some of the city's gold to the people who deserved it most - the townspeople. This left his son, Walter, and a wife to fend for themselves.

The local priest (Tristan Loper), was also struggling with his existence. His God didn't seem to provide him with the answers he needed to help solve the problem of the great city of Summerdale, and he was getting frustrated that he had no answers. It was not surprising that he decided to found a new religion. This religion was based upon the belief that you had to work hard to please God, and she would give you the rewards. His sudden change of belief did not please the rulers as they worshiped a male deity. He was quickly hung, along with the few believers he managed to collect; leaving his acolyte, Peter Tolvich the only remaining person who understood the new beliefs. He was spared because the town desperately needed a priest to calm everyone. In secret he kept the teachings of his late master alive - preaching night masses and to the sick on his hospital visits. And so a new religion - Atinism - was started.

Things turned from bad to worse. The nearby farms were now being raided to stop the food supply into the city. One of the farms was owned by Roger Clifton who married Catherine Bateman in secret under the religion of Atinism. They were the first couple to get married in the new religion. However, their farm was raided on the night of their honeymoon, and the house burnt to the ground. They both had no possessions, except for the clothes they wore, and a couple of wedding gifts. Because there were no farms, Catherine Clifton lost her job - the only thing keeping the two still on their feet - as she had nothing to cook with. They turned to the only person they thought would understand their position - Peter Tolvich, the priest who wed them. He welcomed them into his own home, under the new religion and with a little of the priest's own gold, they started to work for the religion.

The three of them were good friends of the son of their late friend Estore Miriel. They held out their warm hands to Walter and his mother and took them in under their care. Soon after the death of her husband, Walter's mother passed away through grief - leaving Walter to be brought up by Roger Clifton, his wife, and the priest.

Edmund Crewe the town Tanner, and his fiance, Elizabeth Rose, a nurse, were also good friends of the Miriel family. They and their two daughters took great interest in Walter's upbringing. They became close to the priest and soon adopted the ways of Atinism for themselves. Edmund's sister, Mary Dwyer (formerly Crewe), a Weaver, followed shortly thereafter, and her husband Peter Dwyer, one of the two town Bakers included themselves within the quickly growing group of friends and the Atinism religion.

The city's renowned artist, Beatrix Figg, was put out of business after her studio was ransacked and all her canvases, brushes and paints were taken and used to pollute the rivers. After this she became bankrupt, and married Oliver Chorter sooner than she planned. Oliver was the city's Physician who worked hard for his living, earning a good deal of pay. However, because he earned a lot, he also had the highest taxes of anyone in the town (which were then subsequently stolen like every other tax around). By now, the teachings of Atinism had spread to others within the small community of friends in Summerdale. The belief that something better was out there if they just made the right choices in life was easily persuading people to believe somebody was watching over them. Beatrix's sister Alice soon joined the religion after seeing how happy it had made the former artist. As a Candlemaker, Alice had a steady business making new candles as most people were now moving about at night, and needed the light to see/work by. With a little persuasion from his brother, her husband Frederick Dwyer, the cities' only Armorer was swayed over to the belief. The religion was quickly growing, and it was hard to keep their enthusiasm away from others in the dark times of the wars. The maid of the Loper house (the former owner) overheard the new priest discussing some finer points of the beliefs with Roger and his wife, while she was tending to young Walter. Helena Worswick liked the idea, and after meeting the young carpenter, William Holmes on his way to his first meeting, she decided to tag along. They later married.

As more people joined, stories of the religion began to spread. The members were keen to express the happiness they felt from believing and from the sermons that Peter gave them each day. Walter had been trying to persuade a young lady, Arabella Savagne, for a while. She was a Clothier from a wealthy family, who owned and outfitters. Her brother Martin took care of the business, while her sister Gloriana had the role of Seamstress. As Walter came to visit Arabella more often, her brother got weary, and decided to listen in on one of their conversations. Stories had started to spread, and he immediately understood what was going on. He did not want any part of this new religion, and attempted to persuade Arabella not to join what he believed to be some "weird happy cult". Little did he know how much Arabella loved Walter Miriel. He couldn't stand seeing his sister "tainted" and left the business, putting his sisters in the lurch. Walter came to the rescue however, and looked after the business for the two sisters, moving in with Arabella and wedding her.

However, this was not the last heard of the brother. It soon became known to the small group of Atinists that Martin's stories now really started to spread, and the Atinists began to fear for their survival. It seemed that Martin had spread some malicious rumours about a small group of people, lead by a local priest, who were brainwashing people into their way of thinking, even punishing people until they gave in. None of this was true of course, but as Atinism was still "illegal", the believers had to remain silent. The government finally heard about a crazed and broken man wandering around the outskirts of the city and had heard the stories and whispers surrounding some sort of religion. They put out a ransom stating "New Religions are a waste of Gold and resources that should be put into keeping our city safe from thieves. Therefore, anyone found to belong to any other religion than the state religion will be tried and if found guilty will be hung by their necks the next morning".

The believers in Atinism understood that they had to flee. Arabella's sister, Gloriana and her husband, Francis Bolbec, a farmer, while not really followers of Atinism, joined the fleeing group to help support them. Francis owned one of the few farms still left standing despite the plundering and he decided to sell it for a nice bag full of gold coins. This would go towards a boat to escape the city.

Right before the journey, Margaret Clifton, a dyer, joined up after being persuaded by her brother. She dragged with her, the city's finest stonemason Arthur Worswick whom she had been courting for some time.

They managed to persuade the town's Apothecarist, Geoffrey Gallahad, bringing with him his wife Anne and her parents - the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Donaghue, the town's best Shoemakers. After buying enough supplies for the ever growing group of people, money was getting short. They had just enough money left to hire a small crew of sailors to man the ship and in one day they had gathered everyone willing to leave Summerdale.

14 families, fleeing from their own lands, then started a journey to where no one knew.

Springdale: The Founding

As they had been in a rush, they didn't get the best boat, and far from the best sailor. Even so, there was no turning back. Behind them, all that was waiting were some angry politicians, and even worse an angry town since they had disappeared with some of the most important professionals the town needed during the hardship of the various wars. As they pushed on, the sea got rougher, and the boat got smaller and smaller in the vast ocean. Without a clue of where they were aiming for, or where they were at all, the friends sailed on.

After months of sailing, a storm picked up. A lightning bolt struck the mast, splintering the top of it. The Captain climbed on top of the mast to repair it. Unfortunately for him, as he reached the broken timbers, the boat rose up on a great wave, and as it crashed down, the sailor slipped from the sails and was lost in the torrential rain drowning out the shouts from the boat. With the Captain dead, and the main mast utterly useless, trying to navigate was impossible. All they could do was pray to their god, Krystyn and hope she would save them. And respond she did. The boat smashed into some rocks, and eventually stranded on a beach. They had all survived (bar the captain), but it came at a price: Their boat had became useless and unrepairable.

The sea journey had been tiresome, and as far as they could see, the island was uninhabited. After plenty of arguments, and some more heated discussions, and then back to arguments, Walter Miriel decided to take charge. He organized a sheltered area where the families could sleep that night. The next morning, after a short funeral for the late captain, the families resolved some of the arguments from the night before and began to construct some lodgings for themselves. Walter's town planning skills came in handy as he supervised much of the constructions and gave tips on where the best places to build certain things were. It took a few days, but finally the families had set up a decent camp.

As time went on, they started exploring. They did have farms, but because of the heat it was hard to grow much. By now, people had really started to miss their home, and decided to name their little village with at least half of the name of the place they had ran from, thereby, leaving out the "evil" in it. They eventually settled with the name Springdale (for autumndale and winterdale seemed too bleak). They soon discovered a place with much more fertile soils, and for some reason, it seemed to rain more there than where they had landed. They firstly decided on the name "Cold rain", but later, as time went on, it eventually changed to "Cold Spring". Both of the farmers settled there and staked out the boundaries of their farms. Meanwhile, south of Cold rain, Arthur Worswick finally found a place to gather stone, which they really needed. After some days of collecting, he began to work on making their settlement in Springdale into something much bigger.

As time went on, everyone eventually split from each other. Everyone made their own house in the town or farm in Cold Spring a little away from each other. Everyone who had started the journey was getting older, and most even had children. As the individual families grew, the houses in Springdale and farms in Cold Spring expanded. Trading caravans were sent between the regions, keeping Springdale and Cold Spring in touch with each other. All looked up to the ever growing Springdale, and all trade was done through the markets there, and soon the banks too. This worked well for a quite a while. Until Froud and Ule Chorterfigg, who where the descendants of Oliver Chorter and Beatrix Figg (who by now had their own families), decided they wanted to be just a bit richer than the rest and began to tax the inhabitants of their land and keep the gold for themselves instead of sending most of it to Springdale. Soon after, everyone started following in their footsteps, greedy as they had become. By now, the population had really grown, and there was enough disagreements for fights to break out, and thats exactly what happened. As the families fought over the land the land boundries were destroyed, and many houses were left in turmoil.

Meanwhile, Walter Miriel juniour, named after his great-great-grandfather, had become the mayor of Springdale. He sent out a scouting party to find out exactly how big the island was. They returned with shocking news: They weren't alone, and far from it. Judging from the stories they had heard, the others werent friendly either. They had to get their act together and unify the people, be it friendly or the brutal way. Walter knew the danger of it, and immediately set out to put a stop to the bickering between the families in the neighbouring villages. Using the powers that the priests of Atinism bestowed upon him, he marched with his best unit into the midst of all the fighting. Upon seeing Walter, clad in his full battle armour, everyone seemed to falter.

As the fighters quietened, eventually you could hear the pigs squeal from miles away. Without raising his voice, Walter told the people: "I have sent scouts far and wide in this island. We are not alone, and the people already here are far more civilized than ourselves. Why are we fighting amongst ourselves? We do not wish to become what Summerdale was. We are Springdale. Let us not dishonour our families who worked so hard to get us here and start out our new and happy lives. We should be working together to continue to expand our people and discover the other people of this island which we thought was so small, but is in fact vast."

The people listened intently, and as his speech continued, they began to put down their weapons and began to agree with his way of thinking. After some time Walter's men had rounded up a few people who continued to cause trouble and brought matters under hand.

"From now on, all the families in this part of the land will be united. You will stand under the flag of Springdale, and we will be as one. Springdale is your city, and you will be the first outlying region. In memory of one of the first settlers here, we will call this region Cold Spring."

Some of the people cheered, and Walter knew that his speech was working. They didn't really want to fight each other, they just didn't know what to do with themselves. In time they would, and as Walter and his men began to aid the commoners in repairing the torn down buildings over the next weeks, the people began to look up to Walter as their leader.

And so, a Kingdom was born.