I know that this topic has been pounded to pulp, but what the heck. I am of limited imagination and thus seek to impart the fine peoples of Verbobonc with a smidgen of a "real-world" culture, to give me something to start with--other than what is found in the sundry "canon" sources about Verbobonc, Furyondy and Veluna.
For some reason, I get the feeling that the folk of Verbobonc could be described (very) loosely as a corollary to early Renaissance Low Country Flemish/Dutch.
Do any of you get the same feeling?
I plan on using the names of places and people of said time and place as inspiration for some work I'm doing on the Verbobonc area.
God bless the hard work of the Verbobonc Triad and all the various incarnations of Verbobonc-town and surrounding area in canon/non-canon, but I feel the niggling, unexplainable, self-abusive desire to do it myself all over again; recreate the town, villages and geography (a problem—IMO the description of the area in T1 and T1-4, the Darlene map and other maps are all goofed up) and culture. Gotta have a hobby I guess…
I was wondering what, if any, your take was on the Verbobonc area. Are guilds, especially guilds associated/opposed with Dyvers-Furyondy-Veluna powerful (think Hanseatic League)? What is the relationship between the Guilds and the Viscount, the Fey and the Gnomes of the Kron? What is the relationship between the Cuthbertine Church and the Viscount’s court? Does the Church have any palantine Bishopric-areas in the Viscounty, in Furyondy, in Veluna?
I am not a geo-economist/political science historian. Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.
Sincerely,
FL _________________ Nixiespixies and grigs OH MY!
You can see some ideas on the LG Verbobonk site. There are some traveller's guides or something like this in download section with viscount's history and current situation.
Fairylover, I can see your idea to pattern the Viscounty after the "early Renaissance Low Country Flemish/Dutch" but I am ignorant of the Hanseatic League, so I'll respond to some of your questions.
First, however, I think the basic distinction between Holland and the Viscounty of Verbobonc lies in the latter's lack of sea access. Dykes or levees may be constructed to prevent river floods, but I thought that the fantastic thing about Dutch lands was that they sited one of humanity's notable attempts to claim land from the sea (by building dykes and then using windmills to pump out the seawater).
Leaving that point, I now address some of Fairylover's questions.
I think that guilds should be relatively powerful in the Viscounty. Likely guilds in the townships of the Viscounty and the city of Verbobonc should be connected to guilds in neighboring towns of Veluna and perhaps those of Dyvers and a few nearby towns of Furyondy. Alternatively, one might use the Velverdyva River to demarcate the border of this imagined league of guilds, or at least of the merchant guild.
Since the Viscount was originally an especially powerful count of Veluna, I suggest that the guilds are either relatively powerful in Verbobonc or are fundamentally controlled by the Viscount--depending on how you wish to play it. I prefer the idea that the Viscount controls the majority of the Viscounty--the rural manors--and that the guilds are relatively powerful within the city of Verbobonc (and in the major townships) because this presents the oppportunity to have both "traditional" medieval knights and nobility and to have scheming burghers--guildmember citizens.
Note that I'm relying both on the version of Verbobonc presented in the Oerth Journal and on the relatively recent d20 publication--A Magical Medieval City Guide (the earlier, incomplete PDF version).
Regarding the Fey (or Fae), I think that the power elite of the Viscounty have relatively no connections to them but that the commoners (urban and rural) have stereotypically Celto-Anglish (coining a phrase) relationships to the "Good People," i.e., they propitiate the Fey and have many folktales about people who fail to act well and thereby find their doom. The knights and nobility may have some fairy tales too, but I think these must be relatively old--perhaps before the Viscounty gained its autonomy. (I forget when this was.)
In contrast, I think the noniz of the Kron Hills have fairly good relationships with the Fey--another part of the family of "Small Folk." (Note that I believe that the Kron Hills Assembly had an instrumental role in the coordination of the Hateful Wars.) In general I hold the noniz to be one of the most distinctive races of the Flanaess and Greyhawk. Specifically, I think their longevity, unobtrusiveness, and distinctive magick combine to suggest that they value "innocent" life (aligned with Good) greatly and work tirelessly to preserve it. They are "Small Folk" in stature but not in virtue!
Regarding the Church of Saint Cuthbert, I think that the description of the three orders in Greyhawk Adventures best applies to the Viscounty (and then to parts of Nyrond), so the Church should be prominent in Verbobonc--distinctively moreso than in Veluna--and relatively independent (though generally in accord with) the Viscount.
I don't know what Fairylover means by "palantine Bishopric-areas in the Viscounty, in Furyondy, in Veluna" so I can't answer that question directly. However, I think that the Church of Saint Cuthbert (and church hierarchy of Oeridian gods generally) should be based more on the Orthodox Christian religions of Earth than the model of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Most obviously, there should be a set of Patriarchs rather than any singular Pope. (In the former Great Kingdom of Aerdy, of course, the Holy Censor, holds this kind of position. In the Theocracy of the Pale, the Theocrat is the Pope's analogue. In my view, these are the exceptions to the Oeridian rule of regional Patriarchs.)
Hmmm, so you want to get a better handle on the culture and organization of the Viscounty of Verbobonc? When i ran the Temple i ran into a very similar question.
The Viscounty has always occurred to me as being very similar culturally to Revolutionary America culturally, hence the dominance of the faith of Trithereon, and oraganizationally similar to that of Renaissance Florence, politically dominated by powerful oligarchic guilds. Because of the power of Guilds i made the Viscount politically weak, only handling foreign affairs. Alas, the campaign did not last long enough for him to play any major role so i did not develop that part of the plot. I did take a page from Christian history when formulating the role of the Church of St. Cuthbert. Because of the growing power of the Temple and the fear that it created the Church took it upon themselves to use that as a way to expand their faith by supporting the local in their fight against the Temple, but never going far enough to destroy it completely (that bit of corruption was due in part to priests of Iuz working a bit of the ol' deception and trickery, something that is widely practiced among their ranks). I also portrayed the Church of St. Cuthbert as being aggressive on the political front and trying to polarize issues by playing on the 'fear and danger' card.
As for the fey, i never really got into that. I played on the Old Faith vs. the New Faith (a.k.a. St. Cuthbert vs. Obad-hai). The New Faith, which represents Law and Good vs. Evil vs. a more holistic and earth-based faith that is represented by Obad-hai and Ehlonna. I happen to be a history major and i have studied ancient religions, so i used that in my portrayals of the factions. To get to the point, i would have portrayed the New Faith as being against any faith in fey and depending on my players i would have ruled that because they do not believe in fairy nonsense followers of the New Faith would not be able to perceive fairies and both parties unable to effect, or affect, one another. Or, i would have ruled that followers of the New Faith would be especially effective against fairies because of the inimical nature of the two outlooks on the world and life (holy fire, holy crusade, that kind of thing).
As for gnomes... i didn't get into that topic at all in my campaign. However, i think that any place in Oerth that would be the first place to start an Industrial Revolution or mass production of any kind, including machined good, Verbobonc would be the place i'd put it. So if you want to go with that kind of theme, go for it.
In the end, i think of Verbobonc as a place egalitarian in nature, where people are treated more, or less, as equals, a place of fierce individuality and independence.
In the end it depends upon how much intrigue and how thick you want your plot to be, those are my ideas, i trust they are of use to you.
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