The Vestrians

*Page Status: Accepted Canon*

## Geography and Customs

The Vestrian lands encompass the entirety of the Försvarian coast on the Vestrian sea. For this reason, they have been known to southerners on the Vestrian coast to be the scourge of the seas for many centuries. Skilled craftsmen and boat builders, veteran sailors and keen raiders, the Vestrians have thrived on their coastal raids, piracy, and mercantilism.

Elsewhere in the ancestral lands of the Vestrians, much of the land is swampland,  dense forests, and the mountain plateau of Mount Anvil. These lands are the most temperate of all Forsvar, yet the Vestrian sea still brings forth cold gales and severe low temperature cycles in the winter.

Cod, salmon, and other fish of the Vestrian sea are a staple diet of the Vestrians, who do not practice extensive agriculture, and often rely on local trade across Forsar. The Vestrians rely on their own craftsmanship to produce a wide variety of goods - weapons, armour, arrows, bows, and more, rather than commodities for trade.

## History

### Origins

Ancient legend dictates that the last Forsvar birthed from the icy wastes of the north ventured further west than any of their kin - past the Nordskeldr mountains, until they met the Vestrian Sea, at which point they settled small villages scattered along the coast.

In early centuries, it is believed that the Vestrian societies developed much more slowly than their eastern kin, being regarded as an array of frail fishing villages. Yet, from their easterly kin, they ascertained the art of smelting, smithing, fletching, and warfare. In particular, from the Skogurmenn, the Vestrians learned in the most brutal ways, as superior Skogurmenn raiders plundered and enslaved vulnerable Vestrian folk, village by village. The Vestrians developed a culture of resentment towards the Skogurmenn, built up over devastating decades of defeat and massacre.

As Vestrian villages established fighting forces and forged weapons at a scale previously unseen, they handed their own brutal retaliation against Skogurmenn populations, leading to utter chaos across western Forsvar, with villages trading blow for blow. Amidst chaos, Vestrian warlords and chiefs saw fit to take advantage of other struggling Vestrian villages, and many set out on paths of conquest. From the successful warlords of this era came the first Vestrians to apply their new-found warfare to the seas. By passage of the coast, raiding parties were able to pillage with great mobility and surprise. Soon enough, the warlords were extending their raids far beyond the Forsvarian villages, and for the first time in history, Forsvarian raiders began to terrorise villages and towns of the south.

### Velosian History

The societal landscape of the Vestrian people had become warlord-dominated. Population centres along the coast had developed into thriving towns, and the plunder of foreign lands had started to propel their wealth and prosperity. No warlord had yet conquered all of the Vestrian lands, but many warlords managed to control even up to a third of all Vestrian villages and towns. Fighting would rage not only between warlords but also with the neighbouring Skogurmenn, who had lost their regional footing against the wealth-driven Vestrian warbands.

It was in these times that a sea raider named Velos Grenjarsson rose to prominence. Fighting in the personal warband of a powerful warlord named Torag Ovarsson of Mount Anvil, Velos would partake in the famous ‘plundering of the six’, where Torags' raiding fleet sailed to all six major southern towns along the Vestrian coast. The first three fell to their knees - their port defenses not sufficient to prevent a wave of raiders from pouring into the streets, burning, stealing and murdering. By the time the raiders reached the fourth, fifth and sixth cities, the news had spread, and the townsfolk simply paid the raiders to leave. Having nearly overloaded their vessels, the raiders obliged and continued on their way to return to Mount Anvil.