The Birth of Willowfen
Eight separate states shared the island of Linomnount prior to the Apocalypse that ended the Span of Ruin. They were Cloudspeak, Endlin, Estlin, Herder, Icebrunt, Latewich, Sothlin and Treelin. As the events of that Apocalypse unfolded, Icebrunt was lost to the Villain Lich.
The fledgling Government of Reform quickly seized control of each state, excluding Icebrunt. The Reformers recognized that each government was weak and vulnerable in the face of Apocalypse. They offered guidance to leaders. They gave aid to the people suffering during and after the Apocalypse. They provided food, shelter and safety. They brought much needed leadership to a chaotic situation. In this way, the Government of Reform gained the trust and acceptance of the people.
The Government of Reform took their name from their religious beliefs. They were practitioners of Weaverism, like most people on Linomnount. But even before the Apocalypse, they wished to change their religion. They perverted the old ways of honoring the gods, appeasing the spirits and living well. They turned the old ways into a strict bureaucracy of governance and punishment.
Weaverism had traditionally been practiced at home, individually or with one’s family. The Reform Weavers erected new community temples. Attendance was compulsory. People were encouraged to turn in their neighbors to the Behavioral Authority when they neglected their attendance and duty to the temples.
The Government of Reform used religion as an anchor in the unruly seas of a chaotic world. In the face of so much uncertainty, Reform Weaverism was a small price to pay to bring stability back to people’s lives.
The Government named their new country after the island. The country of Linomnount was born. Each state was now categorized as a province. The largest city in each province was given a governor. Strongholds were built at the southern and eastern borders of the Lost Lands. These strongholds were tasked with watching the land of the Villain Lich. At this time, they did not know whether she was still an active threat. They had a real concern about invasion. This concern was far from unfounded as it did occur, but in a very unexpected way.
All citizens were ordered to report to the nearest city. They would be given a job and a place to live. Every person had lost everything with the mass extinction of civilization. The Government put society back together one citizen at a time. They succeeded at this, despite the oppression brought by Reform Weaverism. Civilization was reborn and slowly began to thrive. But not every person was appreciative of the Government of Reform.
Some people had no desire to live in a city. Others wanted to live in homesteads in the middle of nowhere, growing their own food and living free. Individuals had their own reasons why they did not want to participate. To be fair, they took nothing from the Government and expected to be allowed to live their lives in their own way.
Survivors began to rebuild villages all over Linomnount. True to their independent nature, many refugees from Icebrunt set about building homesteads in the freshly reborn wilderness. However, the Government of Reform shut down all of these attempts. They wanted to keep control over the people while they organized the basics of life: agriculture, food production, crafts, services, military, etc.
People continued to defy the Government of Reform. They built up their homesteads. The Government would order them to vacate the land and move into the nearest city. The people would refuse. Their homesteads were knocked down. This process of nonviolent disobedience continued throughout the summer and fall of 1929. The rebels met with the sympathetic governors of the central Latewich Stronghold just before winter. They formulated a plan of revolt. They named themselves the Homestead Coalition.
Winters on Linomnount can be brutal. People have traditionally stayed home and waited out the season. Travel can be lethal due to freezing winds and snow laden roads. Only the direst of circumstances will bring people out to travel between settlements. Revolution was not a dire enough goal to brave the fierce season. The Homestead Coalition agreed to meet at the stronghold on March 1, 1930. Revolution began in Latewich on this day.
After several battles, the Government of Reform relinquished the province of Latewich to the Homestead Coalition. They had lost all of their strongholds and a castle. The capital of the province, Latewich City, was at this time untouched. As the rebel army approached the city, the governor met with them on the field.
He advised their leaders that Latewich would be forfeited to them. They had not won the war though. In fact, it had not yet truly started. The Government of Reform had not even brought in reinforcements from the other provinces. Instead, they were letting the rebels keep the land as a buffer between the country of Linomnount and the Lost Lands.
They had learned that the Villain Lich had some sort of weapon planted in Latewich. She would activate it and cause havoc within the province. The amount of kidnappings would substantially increase soon too. In the previous year of 1929, the Lost Lands began kidnapping citizens of Latewich and Endlin. No one knew why at the time. No ransoms were received. People were taken and never heard from again. Every attempt to enter the Lost Lands to find and recover them was futile. The significant threats of secret weapons and kidnappings were more than the Government of Reform cared to deal with. They decided to let the rebels have their land and deal with the threats on their own. This would give the Government time to plan and organize a response for the Lost Lands.
The people of Latewich took this challenge upon themselves. The secret weapon was soon activated. People all over Latewich suddenly burst into flames. Their heads burned with black fire. They wielded fiendish weapons that also blazed with unnatural black flames. Any person wounded by such a weapon soon found themselves ablaze as well. These Horrid Fiends began killing any person nearby. These secret weapons were enemy warriors that changed friends into foes.
The Homestead Coalition soon learned that an invasion from the Lost Lands was imminent. They devised a plan to allow the enemy army to cross the border into Latewich. Meanwhile, a small team would sneak into the Lost Lands to find and kill the Villain Lich.
Two leaders of the Homestead Coalition entered the land of the enemy. Their names were Isle Brightwing and Copper Icehawk. They searched the Lost Lands and found that all of the citizens were captive to the will of the Villain Lich. Many citizens had been kidnapped from Latewich, but could not leave their new homes. That story is too long for this piece. But the heroes freed several villages and found their way to the tower of the Villain.
The Villain Lich, once known as Fern Quickstream, explained her actions to Isle and Copper. Nonetheless, she had to die. They battled and Fern was put to death.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the Villain Lich was not the true enemy. One of the gods' children, the Lord of Feasts (also known as the Lord of Terror) had orchestrated the events that led up to the Apocalypse. He took Fern’s soul, which changed her into a Lich and caused her to bring woe unending to the land.
After Fern’s final death, one of his disciples completed a ritual to bring him to the Living World from the Realm of Terrors. He sent Isle and Copper away via his godly powers. They suddenly found themselves in one of their towers in Latewich.
The Lord of Terror wished to transform Linomnount into a new realm of fear, simply to satisfy his own awful desires. He caused all of the dead to rise from the catacombs, graves and tombs scattered around Linomnount. These undead were not an organized army. They were an ocean of violence crashing on the breakers of civilization.
These undead were different from the demons of the Demon Plague. Demons were recently deceased bodies whose souls had returned to them. Due to some broken part of the person, they would unceasingly attack any people they encountered. The Lord of Terror’s undead were unthinking, ambulatory corpses that attacked living people. The only difference that really matters is in how they came to be.
In an ironic twist of Fate, the cities of the Government of Reform became the only bastions that the undead could not overwhelm. People were trapped within the city walls, ceaselessly defending against the dead. The siege lasted a long time and food became scarce. Commerce came to a halt. Defense was the only action that anyone could take.
Fortunately, Copper Icehawk and Isle Brightwing discovered a ritual that could be performed that would banish the Lord of Terror. They gathered the necessary objects and performed the ritual in the Child’s presence. The ritual activated certain parts of the World Machinery that allowed the other Children to enter the Living World. They seized their brother, the Lord of Terror and took him high into the sky, where every person could witness their justice. They put his eyes out and bound him in chains. The Children of the Gods vanished from the Living World. The vast hordes of undead fell to the ground, lifeless once more.
Isle Brightwing and Copper Icehawk had saved all of Linomnount, though they stood on the shoulders of heroes that had come before them, many of whom had given their lives in the struggles. Through the miraculous power of the Children, full knowledge was bestowed upon every person of the events that had transpired. They knew the Lord of Terror’s crimes and the heroes that saved them.
The Government of Linomnount met with the leaders of the Homestead Coalition to sign treaties. They issued a proclamation to their people that said:
The Lost Lands have been reclaimed by the people of Latewich. Two people, Isle Brightwing and Copper Icehawk, infiltrated the land formerly known as Icebrunt last year. They found the Villain Lich, Fern Quickstream, and slew her. She brought so much suffering to the land with the Demon Plague and the Apocalypse. She has paid for her crimes with her life.
In gratitude for their stunning achievement, the Government of Reform has given them the Lost Lands and the province of Latewich. These two territories are now the sovereign country of Brighthawk. The two heroes, Isle and Copper, were joined in marriage and rule this country as queen and king.
We consider Brighthawk to be our neighbor and ally. We are forging diplomatic and trade relations. We hope that our economy will be functioning again soon.
As part of our agreement with Brighthawk, we hereby relinquish the name of Linomnount that we had claimed for our nation. That name will once again only refer to the island itself. Our nation’s new name is Willowfen, in honor of our leader that rebuilt civilization after the World Woe.
Life was slowly returning to normal. Skilled people were put to work in Willowfen doing the things that only they could. Others were put to work by the government to clean up the corpses of the undead that littered the landscape. It was a task of pure nightmare and trauma. But people earned money and the economy functioned once more.
The Resettlement Decree was enacted on 1931-04-03 by Willowfen to rebuild their country after the World Woe and Undead Plague. This set of documents was the plan to resettle all of Willowfen. New villages, forts, strongholds, roads, etc would be constructed. People would spread out from the cities. It was time to get back to working the land, rebuilding commerce and restarting the economy. People were assigned to build farms and villages throughout the provinces. Forts and strongholds were erected. Roads were created. Roadside establishments were built to service travelers.
The province of Endlin was mostly abandoned after the Apocalypse of 1929. The brutal, barren land was too difficult to repopulate and rebuild. The Government of Reform maintained strongholds on its border with the Lost Lands. But the land remained empty until now. The dead were carted to the barren land of Endlin. The corpses were burned in great and terrible pyres that lit the night sky for days.
The strongholds are still maintained as a northern outpost of the military. The settlements of Endlin’s past are still buried and forgotten. There are many opportunities for loot and lore that intrepid adventurers can discover.