Ortinbras

Level
 Location
 Inhabitants

**Ortinbras** is one of the constituent regions of Trost and was a sovereign nation ruled by Kings of the Northlands before the kneeling. The region covers the entire area within of the Great Wall.

Ortinbras has been ruled by House Winborne for thousands of years from the castle known as Ortin's Keep. Other notable houses of the region include Branch, Sunderly, Airborn, and Krohn. The lordship's successive law is of gavelkind succession. Bastards of noble origin raised in Ortinbras are given the surname Mount.

## Geography

Ortinbras is vast in size. It is the largest of the kingdom's regions, nearly as large as Beorgan Way and Grovenreich combined. The region is sparsely populated, with vast wilderness, forests, pine-covered hills and snow-capped mountains, speckled with tiny villages and holdfasts. Its climate is cold and harsh in winter and occasionally it will snow in summer. Ortinbras has two major barriers, the Great Wall to the south and the sea to the north.

   Ortin's Keep, the ancestral seat of House Winborne, is a large castle located in Ortinbras. The vast Winterswood, the only forest in Ortinbras, extends upwards along the river and east towards Freyhall. Icewyn, the seat of House Branch is in the northern mountains. House Airborn rule Wolfsgate in the south of Ortinbras, a major gate in the Great Wall. The northern mountains from the eastern shore to the Great Wall's furthest point west and are inhabited by tribal mountain clans.

## People

The Ortinian are nearly all descended from Islanders. They are known as a straight-forward, hardy, tough breed who hold the comforts of the south in disdain. Most of them still follow the old gods and their sacrifices, and have little inclination for the new gods. There are a few houses who instead follow the new faith, including House Sunderly of Northmont, House Branch of Icewyn, and House Wylle. Most knights of Ortinbras live in the region's southern lands, unless they are exceptional, in which they will be invited to Highvale or Ortin's Keep itself.

The lasting cold and the grip of winter set apart the northerners from the people of the south. Their whole life rests on the fact that winter is coming and they have to prepare themselves in order to survive it. Ortinbras' terrain and climate do not easily yield the necessities of daily life. In such an environment there is no place for hollow courtesies, courtly rituals, nor fancy culture and tourneys. The Ortinian have long memories. A lord who does not seek his rightful vengeance threatens to have his own men turn on him.

Some of the Ortinian live in remote, distant areas where they act as little more than clans and tribes. These remote folk, such as the northern mountain clans and the Islanders, are still vassals of the Winbornes, however, and are allowed to maintain their own ways and traditions as long as they remain loyal to Ortin's Keep.

Heraldry in Ortinbras is significantly simpler than that in the south, showing the lesser influence that chivalry has had there. Due to its religious aspect, most Ortinian refuse to take holy orders and thus cannot become knights of the south, and there are some northern knights who still follow the old gods instead of the new. Ortinian hold the Scouting Watch in high regard.

Ortinbras can perhaps raise forty thousand soldiers, although it would take a long time to gather them from such a large region.

## Military

The aim of the system is to produce physically and morally strong males to serve in the Ortinbras army. It encourages conformity and the importance of the Ortinian state over one's personal interest and generated the future elites of Ortinbras. Discipline is strict and the males are encouraged to fight amongst themselves to determine the strongest member of the group.

### Service

Men remained in the active reserve until age 60. Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30. They called themselves equals, pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades. Insofar as warfare could be perfected.

### Warfare

When an Ortinian man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his shield and say: "With this, or upon this", meaning that true Ortinians could only return to Ortinbras either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it). Unfortunately, poignant as this image may be, it is almost certainly propaganda. Ortinians buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their shields.

### Derangers and Raiding

These fabled warriors are said to powers that allowed them to become impervious to injuries on the battlefield. While these stories are exaggerated, the term derangers is rooted in truths about warriors who are able to enter an intense, trance-like state whereupon they would engage in reckless fighting. These warriors are greatly feared by followers of the New Faith in southern regions who viewed such men as demonic. Ortinians are notorious for laying ambushes and using woods to lay in await for armies approaching along established roads. If confronted by legitimate forces, Ortinians create a wedge formation, with their best mean, or beserkers, at the front of this wedge. They would throw spears, and rush this wedge through enemy lines where they could engage in hand-to-hand combat, which was their forte. Their military tactics succeed mainly because they ignore common battlefield tactics, methods, and customs of the time. They ignored the unspoken rules of warfare giving holy sites immunity, and they would never arrange battle times.

### Legitimate Battles

In legitimate war efforts, not raiding like when they are a neutral force, their militia are equipped in segmented cuirasses, with hauberks underneath. And they were armed with broadswords or axes and round or rectangular shields. They would accustom to southern ideas, with cavalry consisting of knights armed with lances, swords, and pikes

## Commerce

As Ortinbras is largely uncultivated, there are few roads of import there. Most of the inland trade passes by either the Beorgan Road or the river. Trade items from the North include wool, hides, stone and timber. Along with armaments and armours.

## Houses

* **House Airborn** of Wolfsgate
* House Allun
* House Boatswain
* **House Branch** of Icewyn
* House Derran
* House Drewery
* House Elyot
* **House Flinch** of Freyhall
* House Forrester
* House Gardyner
* House Goldwell
* House Gudde
* House Gulliver
* House Hvitserk
* House Kraken
* **House Krohn** of Coldshore
* **House Larke** of Dragonfall
* House Loren
* House Lost
* House Malyn
* House Oriel
* House Ryall
* House Stork
* House Strange
* **House Sunderly** of Northmont
* House Thorne
* House Thorpe
* House Ubbe
* House Waylan
* **House Winborne** of Ortin's Keep
	+ Winborne of Coldshore
* House Wylde
* House Wylle