Banned
Treblea
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A music-loving oligarchy of free-spirited people who don't wish to be constrained by anything more than notes on parchment.
Formation: Democratic oligarchy from a bunch of farmers who fled a tyrant's realm.
Population: TBD
Currency: Notes (little bronze music notes denoting different amounts per kind of note)
Anthem: Highland Spirit
Demographics:
- Main Cities:
- City - Note (the capitol)
- City - Soprano
- City - Mezzo
- City - Alto
- City - Capriccio
- City - Castrato
- City - Etude
- City - Rococo
- Ethnicity:
- Race - Human
- Race - TBD (depends who their neighbors are and what demographics venture into Treblea most often)
- Language:
- Language - Common (As they are fairly centrally located, singing would be done in the most predominant language typically.) If there isn't a common language for their region, then it would just be a modified variant of whatever tyrannical empire, kingdom, etc. that the original Treblean farmer founders spoke.
- Language - Sheet music / Music (instrumental music is their chief language)
- Religion:
- Religion - Music is the purest expression of the essence of the divine and supernatural.
- Religion - TBD (from neighbors)
- Religion - TBD (from neighbors)
- Health: Being that this society would hold some similarities in general hygiene with Woodstock in the real world, the overall health and nutrition on average is decent, but may not win any awards among other nations. It is not uncommon for people to bathe along with their instruments in the name of finding inspiration. This of course works best if the instrument they are bathing with is not damaged by the water. For example, this is a popular tactic among Treblean drummers who find it helps them find new beats if water is in turn 'beating', swishing, or rushing over them.
- Education: Unless it's music, with a small growing community of people devoting themselves to the arts, education is rare here. Parents don't so much teach their kids as let them have free reign. Roughhousing among children is encouraged, even sexual exploration, although the ruling Council of Genre issued one of their few decrees that no one may have children until the age of seventeen years (or until both participants' bodies have reached their full height).
Politics:
- Foreign Relations: Likely allied with the Republic or the dwarves. Would dislike any autocratic or tyrannical orders that attempted to impose their will through sanctions and/or conquering (can't remember the medieval version of the word sanction. Decree doesn't seem quite right. Just "taxes" then?)
- Military: The people of Treblea don't use weapons in the conventional sense as of yet, although that is a major point of contention in the present day Council of Note and Councils of Genre meetings right now. Up to this point, even as technology has begun to evolve little by painstaking little, internal crime and border disputes have been virtually nonexistent. There has been no real governing body for other nations to dispute! The nation wants no trouble from outsiders, but sometimes wishing to be left alone when you are centrally located with goods and services people want, not to mention natural resources and land, that is usually quite improbable.
If ever a Treblean citizen had to defend their homes, it was likely from a wild animal, magical or otherwise, and they did it with various bronze or wooden tools, or just various objects. Sometimes an instrument was used, or even broken over, an animal or crazy person's head. Given peoples' love of music in Treblea, hurting an instrument was akin to cutting off someone's limb. If you used your instrument to hurt another human being, you often times ended up feeling more emotionally hurt than the other person whom you had just tried to physically harm.
Suffice it to say, Treblean military is in a state of basic development to put it gracefully. While they have no organized military, they have a peaceful people who are willing to use their brains and their limbs to defend their homes and peaceful livelihood. Is it a utopia? Not exactly. Does music serve as a way to communicate, not only promoting but maintaining unity? Absolutely!
Geography: Mostly grassy plains surrounding a natural, almost-perfectly round circle of seven rolling hills. In the large, seven mile wide depression in the epicenter of the seven hills lays their sprawling capital city of Note. The citizens enthusiastically refer to themselves as Noteans, and as such their currency came to be known as Notes and distributed throughout the nation as it grew. All Trebleans at least aspire to make a pilgrimage to Note once in their life from their home villages on one of the seven outlying hills. Each of the seven rolling hills are named, and they are about two to three miles in diameter. A dense forest surrounds the entirety of the seven hills and all that's in between. The folks in the center of Note rely on the Trebleans living in the outlying villages for lumber, which the Trebleans naturally also find a way to do musically.
- Land Mass -
- Terrain - Flat grassy plains, gently rolling hills that stretch for miles (also usually grassy, flowery, etc.), and surrounded by forests. Animal population is most densely located in the surrounding forests, but herbivores are relatively plentiful out on the prairies. There are two lakes, one large and one small, between Note and the outlying hills, and each lake is roughly opposite the other. The larger lake looks a bit like a shoe or a boot, and the citizens call it Lake Grazioso for its graceful waves and mild weather. The smaller lake is known fondly by fishermen as Lake Capriccio, a small, spirited body of water known to be home to several species of equally spirited, not to mention noisy, avian creatures (a.k.a birds).
- Climate - Temperate
Currency Symbols: Musical notes made of copper/bronze that are shaped like a Whole Note, Half Note, Quarter Note, Eighth Note, and Sixteenth Note respectively. The more intricate the design (the more notations) means the more that piece of currency, or Note, is worth (since it would have taken longer to forge and just looks more intricate).
Animals: Mostly herbivores, birds, and a multitude of insects. There are some carnivores and potentially magic creatures in the surrounding forests on their circular border. As a nation, Treblea might very well be mostly landlocked (GM's discretion).
Signature
Resource: Musical instruments
Resource: Works of art/commissions for same
Resource: Wheat and sorghum (harvesting with scythes is a form of music AND art AND sport to Trebleans)
Resource: Lumber (need wood to make some instruments)
Resource: Copper (for their currency as well as some tools).
Government (cont'd)
Type: Democratic oligarchy (Note and each of the seven villages is divided by loose agreement into musical genres that serve them as districts of a sort. Each genre in each village elects their own representatives (Note included), and they form the equivalent of a city council. In turn, that city council, which they call a Council of Genres, elects a representative from them - although sometimes it has been a random citizen from a random genre of qualifying age so as to break a deadlock tie - represents their entire village (or Note) at the big council meeting that comes together in times of great need in Note itself to represent every village and Note itself as a united nation of music lovers.
Council of Note Leaders: Rax Coalstonn, Rex Tungsten, Lyrnia Tangstven, Svelte Langstven, Bridley Longstonn (male), Jaykob Lungstren, Alixia Garstven, and Yorny Galstven.
Naming Conventions: The last names of men typically end in -tonn or -tren while female names traditionally end in -stven or -tven.
Current Goal(s): To share their collective love of music with the world. To provide a place of refuge for those who love music and love their freedom. They are viewed like lambs in the eyes of predator countries looking to conquer it. Treblea has the misfortune of being centrally located, with multiple nations able to fabricate de jure claims against it.
As such, the "open nation" of Treblea desperately seeks to keep their freedom from tyranny while also r maiming protected against foreign invaders who see their little circular nation as a pie of resources ready for slicing.
Also, while Treblea's few mines produce ample bronze from their copper (hi hi, hi hi, it's off to work they go!), their country lacks iron or any alloys stronger than copper. This makes them dependent on trade if they want to make even simple advances in tech that enhances lifestyle (such as ovens, pots and pans, anvils, or better instrument frames.
Attitude Toward Magic: Magic near Treblea is mostly concentrated in the forests surrounding the outlying village/towns. Rumors and whispers of fantastical beasts grow with each passing day. Many a citizen is content to pay wise heed to these rumors and stay ensconced with their instruments and tools alike, whiling away the day in pursuit of musical and artistic pleasure. There are a select few people born with the wanderlust, however, and those people typically venture out into the forest as soon as they come of age to do so, sometimes earlier; although the earlier they leave, the less chance they have of surviving the presumably dangerous forest ring to see whatever lies beyond. To some in the outlying seven villages, it's almost a rite of passage marking someone as either incredibly bold and brave, or dumber than a bag of keytar picks.
Most Trebleans cannot use magic in the traditional sense. Their magic shines through in their music and works of art. It is said of outsiders who attend Treblean music festivals and concerts that the music makes the air alive, sometimes it even shimmers and/or does things to peoples' souls on an individual basis. Works of art sold or gifted by Treblean artists, sculptors, and the like are sometimes said to have strange, otherworldly properties. Whether or not these properties were an intention of their creator remains unclear thus far.
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As the nation is visited more by outsiders, magic may be practiced more often within its borders, lending itself to more and more arcane mysteries and the like!
Brief History:
Treblea was born from several honest farming folk who had frankly had enough of a tyrannical ruler. They got fed up enough to mount an escape, stole what provisions they could, including a mule-driven wagon (unfortunately driven by two mules of the same gender), and trekked across the land until finally they happened upon the miles wide depression between the seven hills. Declaring this to be a reasonably protected site, far from their old home, they set up shop - so to speak - on the very arable land that grew beneath their feet. Soon, more and more people fleeing the tyrant's lands, or others altogether, ended up there and the farms gradually got pushed further and further outwards to make room for the burgeoning clump of shacks and hovels that would eventually sprawl over into the more noteworthy capitol of Note.
Being that they came from a system of government that was extremely strict, and even had completely outlawed music, the people of Treblea decided to make music a focal point of their daily lives just to spite their old ruler. It turned out that this fad caught on, and was even lovingly embraced by their descendants. Pretty soon the old ruler was completely forgotten and an entire culture was born, led by a council system so complex that it actually turned out to be straightforward and simplistic.
Someone's brilliant idea to make seven different villages, one for each hill, to stand like sentries over the surrounding forests was met with approval, and the rambling, growing mass of Note quickly dispersed into seven somewhat organized directions to do just that. Their dialect of the most predominantly spoken language took on a musical cadence, as they essentially all taught themselves how to express themselves with musical instruments (singing caught on at first, died out for a while, then came back with a vengeance in present times). As a result of this musical focus, all of their city/town/villages - Note and even the two lakes included - were given names related to music, sometimes even words they had invented on their own.
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