Bjørn´sberg

(a lot of this page is WIP)

Bjørnsberg, or Morcoronor in Aurlûnoren, is a small mountain kingdom in the northwest of Syltör. Its name translates roughly to "bear's mountain" in the Traveler's Tongue. The Bjørnic people make up a majority of the population, mostly concentrated in the capital and largest settlement of Toppmøte. The kingdom is currently a vassal state of the Aurlûnor Velande.

Bjørnic tales and stories here

Early History
The region in Syltör now known as the Bjørnian Mountains was originally populated by the Autochthono-Bjørnsk, a hunter-gatherer human people similar to the more well-known Ghuren to the south. These peoples, whose true name is lost to time, lived in tribal societies for thousands of years. Not much else is known about them other than their archaeological remains, but linguists theorize that their language was used as a substrate that made the Bjørnsk tongue so unique among the other northern peoples.

The Brothian migrations would come to the north of Syltör starting around 2200 years ago. About 1700 years ago, one of the Nortfolk tribes, following the Brothians, would settle in the Bjørnian ranges. The interaction between the Trans-Bjørnsk and Autochthono-Bjørnsk would birth the first true proto-Bjørnic culture within two centuries.

The northern migrations brought agriculture and settled living to the proto-Bjørnic culture, in the form of small villages and towns. They paid minor taxes to Norfthorn or Andorn as the states established themselves, and exchanged control over the land, but the local people kept their own culture.

There were two major tribes Djøn and Yakek, and a difference in their methods of living led them to split. The Djøn settled in small communal towns, often along rivers. The Yakek were a nomadic culture in the region of Bjørnsberg, (name given later), after the huge bears of the region, and these people where dubbed Bjørnians. Up until the founding of Norfthorn nobody invaded them, being very good at defense, but because they retained the nomadic lifestyle of the original Nortfolk migrants it was easy to divide and conquer them. The Bjørnians were not invaded by Andorn until many years after the Bjørn-Elven War. Sometime that is not exactly between the founding of Toppmøte and then they began to settle into towns as them and the Djøn became more similar.(Though small amounts of semi nomadic Bjørnic people continued to exist until today. But because of thier frequent stopping at and exchange with Bjørnic towns, they are a nearly identical people.)

The First Bjørnic Kindgoms
The First Bjørnic Kungdom was in ther area east of Norfthorn. In the year -1200

Bergfüth and the Bjørnic-Elven War
In year -98 of the Aurlûnoren calendar A Bjørnic leader united several tribes and towns just north of the Southern Bjørnian Mountains. He declared himself "King of the Bjørns" or Kung av Bjørnnens in the Bjørnic tongue. He then symbolically hiked the mountains and declared the kingdom of Bergfüth (Mountain-south in travelers tongue) in the mountains and the territory he already controlled. There was little oppostion to this, and the small Bjørnic towns and monasteries in the northern part of the range accepted and celebrated his rule. He eventually began to recruit local architects to build their Capitol Olvænguard as a maze of interconnected castles in towers, and its impressiveness and security in times of tension led it to becoming one of the biggest citys in western Syltör at the time. It was in this city and forests north of it that the cult of Apearlism was started.

Following the founding of Aurlûnor Velande celestial elves started building settlements in the Southern Bjørnian Mountains, leading to tensions between the two. The Velande did not want to ouright invade knowing soliders of the Dragon Army had little experiance in the mountains and, though they would probaly be able to secure the land eventualy it would be long and brutal. In this time a group of Apearilists and Extremist Bjørnians atemped to asasinate the King. This plot failed, but due to poor intelligence that may have been derived from Apearilist propagana, Aurlunor Velande thought the Kindom was in a state of turmoil and atemped to conquer It.

A local mercenary guild by the name of the Flaskors (Those whom lurk like that of a frog) gained power and became a semi oligarchy in the Bergfüth Kungdom's government in the years befor the war, and would serve by the King in the war. They would cut out their pupils to amplify their understanding of sound using some sort of magic, to the extent where the could be silent to even the sharpest ear and even mute the screams of those the killed, but let out a shreik that could sometimes even permanetaly deafen somebody without the proper equitment to defend themselves. They mainly tried to asasanation elven military leaders and helped in ambushes within the mountain passes.

At the beging of the war the velande marched an army to try and siege Olvænguard and win quickly, but they had troble maintaing supply lines. Eventualy the commanders decided to return rather than risk being stranded and flanked by the army that was being raised to relive the siege. On the way back they were nearly ambushed, but they managed to fight it off. They next started taking the southern parts of bergfüth and slowly advancing north. But as they got farther, they had trouble keeping the territory behind them. They did not know of all of the small mountain passes or most of the cave tunnels. Smaller Bjørnic forces moved through them and took back towns in the southern moutains with help of locals resisting the Velande.

Evenualy they secured some parts of southern Bergfüth to use as a base of opperations and were slowly carving out a chain of mountain passes and strategic points leading up towards Olvænguard. Slowly they were able to make and effective advance that the Bjørnic army was not able to confront. This did enevitably happen when the battle of Olvænguard began. The dragon army party because of luck partialy because of tactics was able to capture many of the sothern peaks, gatehouse, and forts in Olvænguard. There was no siege because supplies were sent through passes and caves under Bjørnic controll. Instead, there was firce fighting street by street and gatehouse by gatehouse, but at great cost the main Bjørnic forces were destroyed and the palace was captured. In the final days at the last major clash in the city the Rienging King of Bergfüth and many other warriors charged directly at draggon forces and were able take many out with them befor being killed. The new monarch of Bergfüth and her sibblings, being young with no heir, were executed.(except one who was brought back to Lhûmar and raised thier as a prise of war) The Kungdom av Bjørns, or modernly called The Bergfüth Kungdom collapsed, although the war was not entirely won.

Many Bjørnians, though devistated at the loss of thier leader, didn't care and kept fighting. They began to fight this Bjørnic resistance in a gurrila war, but after the dragon army general saw that this showed little signs of stopping, that incraseing reports of gathering forces around Olvænguard, and that one of the passes in thier secured supply chain became inexcessible in the comming winter, he ordered another retreat. The amount of casualties and sucess of this retreat is dispited, with Velande scources claiming that it was incredibly low and Bjørnic bard's tales claiming that large amounts of the army died some were not able to get through the pass before winter.(In reality it is probaly someware inbetween.) But to prevent recapture and try and scare the Bjørnians the city of Olvænguard was burned. This did cause some surrender, but some continued to fight. A diffrent leader was put in charge of the dragon army and they began a final effort to concur the area once and for all.

The War continued and one month into srping after consolidating the surendering parts of the country they controlled 1/3 of bergfüth. They still had large amounts of troble taking peaks and some harder to reach parts of the mountains. The next move they made was sending a few smaller armies around and through controlled parts of the mountains to the parts of bergfüth north of the mountain. Highly fertile soil here made it possible for the mountains to support higher populations. They were much harder to defend than the mountains and by mid winter it along with about half of the mountains were under the Velande's controll. There was never a solid point where it stoped, but evenualy the resistance died down over a great number of years. All this fighting caused a mass exodose of Bjørnians in that area, although in the higher parts (espically those close to the Norfthorn border) Bjørnians are an ethnic majority, but near the lower parts elves dominate the other ethnic groups.

The Varland trade cities
One place many of thesse refugees settled was a Bjørnic region by the nearby inland sea. It gained an especially large population boost due to its nearness to Bergfüth. The small towns in this place had were often run by a form of direct democracy. They began to work together and began trading along the many rivers in the area and eventually across the inaland sea most of them flowed into. Because of this thier culture had more maritime values.

This culture would intergrate with Ryzani culture quickly and is veiwed as a culture seperate from Bjørnic or Ryzani, and these cities would historically come into contact with Ryzanis and Andornis, and annexed into the larger land mass that was Norfthorn.

Everenualy it would be concored by outside powers and has very few Bjørnic people today.

The founding of the Modern Bjørnic state
In the year 929 (late may), a group of builders went to the Northern Bjørnian mountians (Toppmøte) and evicted the Apearlist cult their, and started building their city. The had a meeting to discuss the laws of the people, this is where the town got their name meaning a place of meeting, as it was built to be a hub and diplomatic center for the Bjørnic culture and peoples.

Kung Haggly of Norfthorn did not respect the claim, but did not want to evict the settlers of this town. Around this time Asries Flaskor, a half ryzani of Bjørnic desecent spoke with haggly. The kung had told him of his fauther being brainwashed by the apearlist cult and killing his entire mercenary guild, before going around the world to spread apearlism. Asries helped negotiate terms between the architects in Toppmøte and Kung Haggly, where he would purchase the land. There was no offical leader of the town and instead had meetings in the concil room to decide town matters, this freedom and local power led to the nationalism and community found in modern Bjørnsberg.

The effect of the Allium-Coalition War on Bjørnsberg
Asries Flaskor allied with Ryzan, and after there Annexation he tried to claim a larger portion of Andorn(then apart of Bardonia) them, but he obviously lost and was executed, his son Frognog Flaskor was not killed but Exiled, he then was taken to Duragrad where he would make Cheese until he was 15. The Bardonian empire did not attempt to integrate the nation but merely sacked the single city of Toppmøte, causing most people to flee to villages villages throughout the nearby area.

The Rebuilding, Commonwealth, and The Helhiem Coup
In early august, shortly after the Allium-Coalition war, Frognog Flaskor sent a letter to Kung Haggly of Norfthorn and Lucuis von Savras of Andorn asking for his return to Toppmøte. Many other Bjørnians returned at this time, it being an unclaimed ungoverned land after the sacking and abbondonment of the town by the hands. Many Bjørnians weeped and mourned for their fallen city, and afterward they decided to have an election.

Frognog Flaskor started running inside his own Commonwealth party, which many people where sceptical of at first. But when they saw the plans he worked up in only a few days for the city it swayed many peoples opinions, along with his economic ideas similar to that of old Bjørnsberg. Another popular canidate was Bjørn Helheim, who had more reasonable goals, but Frognog's charisma let him win barely.

The Commonwealth idea was an idea where each town would have their own economic independence and would trade with each other, but people in the towns would share goods, and the system acting more as a governmental bardering system than a free market system, though people where allowed to sell their goods and buy goods on their own outside Bjørn'sberg, to create some sort of a free market. The Bjørnic Commonwealth would be established after the election of Frognog Flaskor.

After establishment of laws Frognog Flaskors first actions where to establish a concil of Bjørn Helheim, Gribbits DuBois, and himself to decidde government actions. They then decided to start the rebuilding of Toppmøte, where the civilians would gather resources while the government (which was entirely composed of architecturely skilled people) would build the city. They where able to build housing, a storage system, and a local market and blacksmith in a short period of time.

2 days after his election (a third of a year in lore), Frognog Flaskor was found plotting against the Velande after discussing plots with his friend, Bjørn Helheim. Helheim decided to go to the Velerath and contact her, not wanting to risk conflict with them. During the turmoil after a scandal where Forgnog flaskor gambled with state funds, Helheim took power in an Aurlûnor Velande backed coup. However, he did not expect that the nation would be made into a theocratic monarchy and direct vassal of the velande.

The Helheim Duchy
The helheim goverment made much early progress, implementing a legal code and school system as well as begining the overall construction of the city of Toppmøte. However, do to there being little farmland there was troble mantaining food supply, so there were large sections of field within the city. This led to Hejure(Duke) Børn Helhiem contacting many small vilages and towns in the surounding nations of Andorn and Norfthorn. These vilages and towns were ethnicly Bjørnic and were willing to trade grain for goods produced in Toppmøte. "The rurals" as they were refered to euphemistically soon became important to Bjørnsbergs economy. Problems began to arise agian after Frognog Flaskor began to try and take back Bjørnsberg. He biuld a fort near Toppmøte and was started ocasionaly ambushed carts along the poorly developed dirt roads between Toppmøte and settlements in "The rurals" (OOC:He wasn't able to get new players and up until the coup there were only 3 citizens, so there were two after. Much of the architecture and lore was designed in this point but overall it was slow from lack of players. Also the fort's existance was begining to scare Helheim)

The Reunification Summit
On October 23rd 2021, a conference was held where it was agreed upon That Børn Helheim(the monarch appointed by Aurlûnor Velande) and the previous leader Frognog Flaskor (who was planning to take back his position by force) would rule with equal power, appointing a high commander to lead the military and serve as a tiebreaker vote. (Full constitution here) Ever since the new nation officaly named just "Bjørnsberg" has been able to develop more and is generaly on an upward trajectory. The nation pays a small monthy tribute to Aurlûnor Velande and is still a vassal but has local atonomy.

Religion
The nation follows Twin Dragon but with also with regional variations, mostly honoring Bjørnic folk heros and belief in the spirts that were the focus of the native religion. They are from 7 cities that most Bjørnians believed were physically on the edge of the world before education of the greater world of Rathnir was common. (Nowadays the official doctrine places them somewhere within the cosmos of the Twin dragon religion, but some believe them as hidden in their own realms on the edge of the Syltor continent) In each of these cities there is a spirit king that rules them. The existence of the world/bjørnsberg is said to be the result of the spirits coming together in one region. Each has a festival day, but not all are celebrated commonly. Note well spirits of a type tend to be a certain way, this is not universal.

Bergfüth are the spirits of the mountain. They are said to be wise, humble, and solitary. Out of all the spirits they are the most respected, but the hardest to reach. They can provide wisdom to those who are brave enough to journey to and hike the mountains and are the reason that monasteries of bjørnic faith are overwhelmingly built in the mountains.

Regnverglede are the spirits of the rivers and are said to be joyous, playful, and youthful. They are a favorite of common folk and are said to have discovered how to brew alcohol. The festival to honor them is still held in any area with bjørnic people and is often attended by outsiders who wish to experience bjørnic culture.

Roligtre are tree spirits who are said to be mostly tranquill, but are the least consistent in their behavior. They can often provide minor advice to those who develop a connection with the forest, but not to the scale of the Berghüths’ wisdom. They often are associated with and live in lighter forests rather than the dark and deep parts where Mørk-edderkoppdemon tend to dwell.

Lillafulth are trickster spirits. There is no specific place that they live. They are often associated with the color purple. They are responsible for a large amount of mischief in tales of Bjornic folklore. Unlike other spirits, it is unheard of for an individual to worship Lillafuth exclusively. Ironically they are the type of spirit that most consistently fit their common description. (trickster)

Snø-enslige are said to reside in their city for most of the year, only coming out in winter. They are the spirits of snow and winter. Like the Lillafuth, the common perception of them is not as positive as the Roligtre, Regnveglede, and Berghüth and thus worship of them has been discouraged after the rise of the twin dragon house of Helheim. They are sometimes portrayed as sad and longing. Their close worshipers often partake in a winter fast during their holiday.

Oransjeødelegger are the spirits of fire and greatly feared for the destruction they can cause. There are thought to be far fewer of them around the world than other types of spirits, but they can cause great destruction when they work together.(A forest fire)  However there are said to be far far more of them than any other total. The explanation of this is that in mythological times the other spirits raged a war on them after nearly everything in the world at the time burned down. The Oransjeødelegger and their city were cast into a realm known as Neth after they lost.

Mørk-edderkoppdemon : The word Mørk-edderkoppdemon translates in the traveler's tongue to: “Dark spider demon” However, they are not always in the form of spiders. They can take many forms, but none can protect them from the pain they feel when in sunlight. They are said to be responsible for all that lurks in the dark forest at night and are the most feared of the spirits. Parents often tell children that the Mørk-edderkopp demon will come and bring them into a spider cave if they do not behave.

A more full description is being written the Bjørnic lore document.

Government
It is a vassal of Aurlûnor Velande with co rule between a Monarch and a representative appointed by the Bjørnsberg deep party

Diplomacy
It is a vassal of the Aurlûnor Velande, and has good relations with Norfthorn, its "sister nation" and Bardonia.

Endemic Wildlife
The Grey Northern Bjørn (Ursus griseus borealis) is the largest bear in Rathnir, with males being able to stand 14 feet tall, weighing a ton on average. (2x the height of the average Bjørnian male) These bears are fairly passive omnivores but are some of the strongest animals in Rathnir.

The Andorn Lindworm and Syltörese Tiger are historically known to have lived in the mountains, occupying separate niches from the bears. However, these two predators have been driven effectively extinct locally, with the only modern members of these species crossing the border from Norfthorn or Andorn.

Culture norms and Taboo subjects
The culture of Bjørnsberg is a warlord nationalist culture, that is open minded and peacefull but will do anything for their own people, and values them above all. 5 main ethnic groups inhabit the culture regions of Norfthorn and Bjørnsberg. Helian, Norfst, Bjørnian, Goblin, and Fornois. Helian and Fornois being the least noteable of these, Fornois just being human settelers from the velande that tempoarly controlled the Southern Bjørnian mountians after the founding of the velande left the area unclaimed, and helian being a group of norfst monks who spread out over the area after the collapse of the Bardonian Empire.

Respecting elves is taboo in the culture, as their is some religious tensions between followers of the standerd Twin-Dragon religion and Bjørnian Orthadox.

Ethnic Geography
The fornois valley and city of chopper town are the only places where their respective ethnic groups are an ethnic majority, while the silver seas coast and the bjørnian mountians are inhabited mainly by Bjørnians. The rurals is an mixed cultural region that is Bjørnian and Norfst, depending on its proximity to Toppmøte, while the southern andorni tundra has some Norfst settlers but is primarly goblin and andorni.

Slurs
Knivører (Knife Ears) Used to call elves generaly Celestial Elves theives and uruspers(for thier ocupation of Bjørnsberg), as well as a general slur.

Drakgies (Dragon Fuckers) Derogitory term for followers of the Twin Dragon Relegion used most commonly by heretics and blasfomers in Bjørnsberg