Mann Islands

**Population:** 20,000 farming people and dwarves plus unknown number of savage
people.

**Language:**
**Illian**

**Ruler:** Governor Davros Lynn – dwarf miner, chief of the Thralgren-Firth
Mining Company

**Industries:**
**Minerals, ore, fish.**

Mann is the smallest (by population) and
youngest of Xian-Tau’s generally recognized nations. It is located some 200
miles north west of the city of Venac across open sea. Whilst small dwarf run
mines have existed on the archipelago for centuries it wasn’t until just over 100
years ago that the place developed into anything that could be considered
civilized and attained nationhood.

A more organized colony was founded by the
Thralgren-Firth Mining Company some 150 years ago. The company is a rare joint
venture between dwarves and farming people that combines the dwarves’ skills
with rocks with the other races skills with maritime matters, trade, farming
and everything else needed to survive. It wasn’t long after this that Venac
realized how much money was coming from the islands and attempted to claim them
as part of its territory – the company responded by declaring the islands a
sovereign nation and after a few years of tussles Venac and the rest of
Xian-Tau came to accept the claim.

Initially the islands were run as part of
Thrlagren-Firth’s private business empire but over time the company’s
activities outside the islands withered away as so much of the focus was taken
up here and now it and the government of the islands are one indistinguishable
unit. The Governor of the islands has always also been the company head, a
position that has been held for the last 25 years by Davros Lynne, who is a
somewhat benevolent dictator.

The islands are mountainous and covered in
jungle. Despite 150 years of civilization most of the landscape is still wild;
mines sink into the ground wherever ore can be found and small areas of
farmland are clustered around the mouths of the larger island’s rivers but the
rest of the landscape is wild, inaccessible jungle. The only roads are those
that lead from mines in the interior to the towns on the coast, all other
travel is done by ship.

The ‘civilised’ humanoids live in 9 medium
sized towns and a few dozen smaller ones (few mainland folk would consider Mann
City as a genuine city) scattered around the coasts of 8 of the large islands.
Tribes of lizardfolk, orcs and goblinoids live within the jungles and mostly
stay away from the civilized folk. Small amounts of trade go on, but so do
raids, and whilst Lynne has an official policy of maintaining peaceful
relations with the local savages profit takes precedence over peace in cases
were the two can’t exist together.

The nation’s kobold garrison is more
isolated from the humanoid populace than most, occupying long abandoned
mineshafts on the otherwise uninhabited island of O’Flar. These were some of
the oldest mines to be established in the archipelago and the company abandoned
them decades ago after they became exhausted, yet the kobolds still seem to be
mining something there, shipping it off to their cities on the mainland for
unknown purposes. The dragon overseer of the islands is a green who lives an
isolated life on Outer South East (for some reason the four uninhabited outer
islands have never been given proper names).

Mann doesn’t train its own defense force
and instead relies on a navy of contracted mercenaries. Lynne has no qualms
employing pirates in this regard as long as their loyalty and discipline can be
maintained. The many uninhabited stretches of coastline and heavy shipping
traffic also make the area popular with pirates who use it as an isolated place
to hide not far from one of the main shipping routes between Xian-Tau and
Athos. Attacks on ships are rare in local waters as pirates don’t want to draw
too much attention to themselves here and risk their sanctuary.

Dangers include local tribes of sahuaguin that
sometimes make a nuisance of themselves when the navy is otherwise occupied and
various monsters that lurk in the jungles and the seas. Every year or two a cyclone
hits and every decade or so a volcano on one of the islands erupts. People can
can flee from cyclones in the jungle and mine shafts and flee from volcanoes on
the sea, but towns can’t, so aside from Mann City (which is built from hefty
stone and on the one large island whose volcanoes are all extinct) the other
towns are relatively ephemeral affairs, composed of wooden and thatch
structures that no one expects to last a lifetime.