Deglos
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| Map of Deglos | |
| Deglos | |
|---|---|
| Geography: | |
| Capital: | Nutzdagezehesple |
| Region: | Central Negaria |
| Society: | |
| Population: | 10 to 15 Million |
| Races: | |
| Gnomes 50%, Dwarves 40%, 10% Other | |
| Languages: | Ghnomish, Dwarven, Undercommon |
| Deities Worshipped: | Fegall (primary), Gorethar, Hurine |
| Politics: | |
| Head of State: | High Guild Council of Deglos |
| Government: | Confederation of large corporate guilds |
| Military: | Gnomish Auxilliary Volunteers |
| Commerce: | |
| Imports: | Grains, fruit, timber |
| Exports: | Metals, manufactured goods, gems, magical trinkets |
| Trading Partners/Alliances: | Ferrell (minor trading partner), Galdos (minor trading partner), The Kurathene Empire (major trading partner), The Seven Cities (major trading partner), T'Nanshi (major trading partner) |
Deglos lies north of the elven nation of T'Nanshi. It is a vast area covered by two whole mountain ranges and part of a third with two major canyons. To the east are parts of Drotid, Jechran, and The Wastelands. To the west are the nations of Tyedu, The Kurathene Empire, and the orcish nation of Dubunat. On the north side is the other nation of Galdos.
IC Information About Deglos
When it was part of Galdos, Deglos was a monarchy. However, its principle inhabitants of gnomes and dwarves have long since gained independence from Galdos to form their own nation. As a nation, Deglos is fairly neutral aligned, but they have some chaotic tendancies.
The government of Deglos is a system of trade guilds. Every trade imaginable has its own official national guild that concerns itself only with its own trade, and nothing else. These guilds never try to outdo another or achieve more personal gain than another guild. They merely exist for the purpose of existing and teaching their craft to anyone who wishes to learn, sometimes for a fee, sometimes not. When it becomes necessary in a time of war, or just when a decision of some sort is needed, the guilds pick representitives to send to a High Guildhall Convention (HGC). The is merely a means of setting some order among the inhabitants of Deglos. It can pass laws, though it rarely does. The individual guilds are more than able to handle their own members, and they do. If there is a war, the HGC will attempt to coordinate the interactions of the various armor, weapon, and other munition guilds to arm enough soldiers to fight. For the most part, this is unnecessary, however, because Deglos has enough of a volunteer army to meet its current needs fivefold.
As a society, the gnomes and dwarves live in close proximity. Often there is no distinction in their cities between where the dwarves live and where the gnomes live, although communities where one or the other race is sparse do exist. As individuals, dwarves tend more towards the "hard labor" crafts such as smithing, leatherworking, armoring, etc., whereas the gnomes tend to focus more on the "esoteric" crafts such as alchemy, astronomy, invention, and other sciences. This is not a rule, but it is the norm. Crossovers are found very often, i.e. gnomish blacksmiths, and dwarven astronomers. Society tolerates these without much trouble.
About one in ten dwarves and gnomes do not take well to any craft, or find an interest in working with their hands. These members of society may or may not be looked down upon, depending on their personal history, or the village they live in. But Deglos always has a use for them. It is these folk that tend to become the traders and the adventurers, as well as the ones who do the upkeep in the inhabited areas, i.e. the odd jobs. They may never happen to join any official crafting guild, and they usually don't seem to mind. On some occasions they may even move out of Deglos alltogether. It all depends on how their family units view them. Crafts are often passed down from father to son. It is much easier to enter a crafting guild if your father was in one. This is mainly true of the dwarves and their guilds. Gnomes are a bit more lenient because they are more likely to try to learn more than one craft, or as many crafts as they can. Multiple guild membership is not unheard of.
Although it is rare, the close proximity of the dwarves and gnomes sometimes produces unorthodox family units made up of a dwarven and gnomish spouse. These unions will sometimes bear children. Oddly enough, the children appear mostly dwarven, albeit slightly skinnier and lighter. Females however, do not grow beards when they are hybrid. These members of society are often referred to as "Stone dwarves" because it is thought they look more like their Galdossian cousins. This is true to some extent because the gnomish race evolved from the Galdossian dwarven race with the help of some magic. The Deglossian dwarves, although still dwarves, have changed a bit as well over the years. They became a bit more stockier and heavier than the Galdossian dwarves. When combined, the two races wind up making offspring closer in proportion to a Galdossian dwarf. The name "Stone dwarf" refers to the Galdossian xenophobic tendancy to stay in their own isolated nation of stone. Galdossians often refer to the Deglossian as "Grass dwarves" to reflect their more ebullient and sociable relations with creatures from the surface.
As a nation, Deglos is a heavy trader. Those one in ten non-craftsmen assure that. It trades most heavily with the Seven Cities, although that is often made difficult because it has to go through Dubunat to get there most easily. Unfortunately, the orcs of Dubunat are constantly plotting to take land from Deglos in an effort to dominate the continent and regain their ancestral homeland on the other side of the landmass. Skirmishes happen, but the gnomes are quite adept at protecting their caravans with the help of dwarven warriors. Trading with the Kurathene Empire also happens frequently, however the Deglossians often get very confused with all of the human manuvering and politicing among the nobles over there, so they often purposely trade less with the humans to not become involved. Trading with T'Nanshi is very brisk, second only to the Seven Cities. The relations between these two countries are very peaceful, though the Deglossians are careful not to meddle in elven affairs either. Small hunting parties from Jechran and Tyedu are known to frequent the trading posts the gnomes have set up near their lands, but this amount of trade is somewhat negligible. Trade with Galdos ocurrs at times, but relations with them are often a bit cool, though not bad. The main reason why trade is not big with Galdos is because they really don't have any comodities to exchange.
In Deglos there are many cities or towns of varying size. Usually, each town is run by one of the crafting guilds. Often, the guild who runs the town actually makes sense to run it. For instance, a town run by the Mining Guild may be located near a large mine, and a neighboring town may be run by the Weaponsmithing Guild with a route between them. Other times, it is just what guild happened to be there at the time to run the place.
Most of these towns are underground within the caverns of Deglos. However, there are quite a few towns located either entirely or partially above ground. These tend to be near trading centers with other nations, however another place they often pop up is near a volcanic area where the gnomes are dwarves happen to be collecting a resource of some sort.
If you are not located in a town in one of the caverns, but instead you are walking in the caverns between the towns, you are considered to be in "The Deeps". This is just a generic term that the Deglossians use to represent an underground cavern area that is uninhabited (by them). Some of the caverns in Deglos can be quite dangerous, although the army regularly cleans out the heavily travelled ones. Still, one never knows when they will be walking through caverns to stumble upon a small guild village. The dwarves and gnomes of Deglos are very self-sufficient when they want to be, and can live far apart from other inhabited areas with no problems.
In Game Developments
- City of Nanshi Urbaz Forum Discussion of the daily events in and around the City of Nanshi Urbaz in Deglos.
- Nanshi Urbaz Tradehall
- Deglosian PCs
- Major Meeting Points
- Tavern Locations