Faerdor



Faerdor also known as The Cantons of Feotar is a Region in Cardolan.

Faerdor in T.A. 1650

 * Political Organization: Federation of independent villages.
 * Rulers: Bémakind, a retired general who formerly united the Cantons against invading armies from Dol Girithlin and Dol Tinare.
 * Administrative Organization: Each of the seventeen Cantons elects its own officials to organize matters of daily life.Terms are usually only for a matter of months, and all males over the age of twelve can vote. Land is privately owned, but each Canton owns plows and other large and expensive tools collectively.
 * Population: 10.000 Cardolani.
 * Military: A standing force of about 500 Northman professional soldiers is deployed among several strategic homesteads. Given six weeks or so. the villages can raise a militia force of roughly 4,000 Men.
 * Products: Wool, copper, grain.
 * Symbol: None.

After the death of Cardolan's King Ostoher on the Barrow-downs, the powerful nobility of Cardolan claimed nearly absolute power within their own lands. Abuses were common, but none more flagrant or violent than those of Gaertil the Bad, the lord of Feotar and also the Canotar of all of Cardolan. The paranoid Gaertil slew virtually all of his petty nobility before he in turn found death at the hands of his outraged bodyguards. Feotar was left with no nobility, so the common folk decided to rule themselves. They divided Feotar into Free Cantons around the twenty-three villages in the region, a number reduced to seventeen since the Plague. Each village governs its own affairs, electing officials and a council to govern mundane matters. Communication between villages is rare, as each community strives for complete independence and selfsufficiency. Along the Gwathló, the system generally works as imagined, with decisions made in town meetings. Inland, though, wealthier citizens dominate the village affairs, forming a new aristocracy among themselves. Sheep herding forms the largest industry in the Cantons, though the villages rarely trade with the outside world. Those few traders from Dunland and Tharbad with good relations in the Cantons regularly import luxury items in exchange for the villages' surpluses of wool, grain, and the finest wine west of Dorwinion.