Torskland

The Grand-Duchy of Torskland is Hartland's more reserved and dull older brother. In the early days of recorded history Torsklanders were renowned as great sea-farers, traders and conquerors. After being thoroughly beaten and subjugated by the great Unlander empire however, their influence began to wane. Emerging out of the empire's collapse, the Grand Dukes then swore allegiance to the Iranic Palace for protection, though they would eventually drift apart when the Grand Dukes court supported the losing side in a bloody succession war over the Arvanthan throne which led to famous siege of Støylen, during which almost the entire population of the city perished of famine because of the Arvanthan blockade.

Since then the Dukedom has eschewed international politics for a policy of non-interference, instead concentrating on its 2 main industries, fishing and shipping. The only major exception to this in the recent past has been the Hartlander war of independence. Though the Ducal government decided openly recognising the breakaway state too soon might embroil them into the war, the Foreign Office and the Seksjon E-14 of the General Staff very quickly organised undercover channels for the mass smuggling of arms and weaponry into the rebel state. A land route out of Osterness was established and merchant vessels flying unfamiliar flags with holds full of guns regularly moored on Hartlander docks.

As a recognition gift once the war had ended, the Torsklander government gifted its southern counterpart with 3 coastal frigates, the newly renamed HNN Hyupps, HNN Harkon and HNN Hettera which were previously headed to the scrapyard but were quickly modernised with a high power crystal battery each.

This operation also had its muddier underbelly. Seksjon E-14 also sent its equipment, agents and observers to collaborate with the Hartlander logging conglomerates detective agencies both in brutally suppressing radical union activity in Hartland and learning counter-insurgency and infiltration techniques to prevent any such events from happening in Torskland.

The fishing industry, mainly based on small fishing ports like Strekkmerker, Kopper and Tykktarm keeps the nation well fed. A large surplus is funnelled towards the sprawling cannery works in Hestfolda and Ryggmargen which then export the now famous Torsklander sardines, cod and crab all over the industrialised world. The exporting itself is usually done on locally built merchant ships which are built in vast numbers in the enormous shipyards of Wikhulla. The raw materials are mostly sourced from local iron and mischmetal mines, though lumber is (obviously) of Hartlander provenance and several more finely machined components have to be imported from the ULA. There are 2 large steel mills in the country, one in Wikhulla and one in Støylen.

Despite such an impressing sounding resume, the Dukedom is not as developed as it may appear. The Southern counties centered on Beskjørhet remain almost fully rural and agrarian, their main exports remaining buckwheat and reactionary career officers in the Land Army. The entire eastern coast is made up of sharp cliffs and stormy winds prevent the development of anything bigger than fishing towns. The large wind-swept plains south of Osterness remain hardly developed with a very sparse population and less than 20km of railroad track. Though economically integrated the northern islands offer a pretty bleak existence of constant storms and cold as well and young men leave their small villages en masse to move to the great southern cities.

Politically the Dukedom carries many of the trappings of a democracy, even if it is far from one in reality. The Ducal court relies on a powerful network of local "leagues", organisations halfway between a gentlemen's club and a paramilitary organisation composed of the landed classes, military personnel and government officials. In the south of the country these leagues tend to be controlled by rural noble families with a history of military service and are markedly more independent than elsewhere in the country, where the local leagues are little more than rubber stamps. Additionally the Duke can count on the support of the military-industrial complex, particularly the navy which the government generously patronizes with expansions every few years. A traditionally pliable opposition of liberal parties made up of the urban entrepreneurs and middle classes has also recently seen fit to join its cause to HG's government.

Across the aisle sits the bellicose National Labour Party. Based in the great industrial cities of the west coast the NLP is split into several factions based as much on real ideological differences as petty grudges between various local branches. Though the NLP likes to put on a show of defiance as the official opposition for 9 years running, a careful combination of carrot and stick from the government has so far kept them middlingly content in their status as the opposition party, with seemingly little will to actually contest the Ducal Leagues for the executive office.

An oddity in Ducal politics, the Preserve the Tariffs Society has only recently entered parliament. Hailing from the Northern islands it is a grassroots movement of discontent against government talks to relax the stringent tariffs on seafood imports. Sweeping the entrenched leagues out of their traditionally low-turnout districts, the Society keeps its support of the government on a very tight leash, constantly fearing liberal infiltration of the Ministry of Trade.

The 2 remaining opposition parties are the Workingmen League and the ATNLC. Both branding themselves as he only real opposition, these 2 openly Republican parties have never recieved more than a small margin of the vote, thanks on part to the watchful eyes of the E-14 office. The Workingmen League is directly inspired by the Hartlander labour organisations and represents only the parliamentary wing of a slightly larger compact of trade unions and mutual aid organisations, mainly active in the cities of Ryggmargen and Osterness. The ATNLC on the other hand is even stranger. Deriving inspiration both from the Hartlander experience and a strange land across the great ocean, they propose a radically different approach to the construction of society. Technocrats at their core, they desire to reshape it along Darwinist principles, throwing away all of the useless old traditions and nobility in favour of a government of the fittest and fastest. Great adepts of scientific advancements, their only real presence outside of a small group of demented believers is the Søviknes Free University department of biology.

Much of what we know about Queen Maeve's Land is drawn from inerviews with a young officer from Southern Torskland. The young man absconded from his homeland after a winning a duel, but earning a murder accusation in the process. Before his trial could take place, he disappeared from Torskland along with a company of Dragoons. In the process, he earned accusations of grand theft and the hijacking of an airship, though the reality of the situation is that his father had quietly hired the vessel for him. The young man and his dragoons made their way east, having been spotted in various warzones across the continent, before eventually making his way to Queen Maeve's Land, speaking of rediscovering lost technology. Amazingly, the young man had the utter folly to cross the Great Salient on horse. Of course, this motivated greatly by the Marshalls and Rangers of Aporozia who were following him. In a brief moment of cooperation, both the Confederates and Unionists were able to temporarily set aside their differences, hoping to see him and his men strung up from a gibbet. When he finally arrived in Queen Maeve's Land, his company of Dragoons was nothing more than a handful of soldiers. His support train was the first to go, dozens of them exploding seemingly at random from the mines and shells, others disappearing into the night as they were taken by the wretched mutants of the Isthmus. His horses and men quickly succumbed to starvation and thirst, unable to drink the polluted water there. Starving and half mad, he somehow made it through the final defense line, where he was taken in by a small farming community.

Just like the Hartlanders, they also enjoy a hearty diet with generous portions of bacon, eggs, sausages and smoked fish served up to the mouth-watering Torsklandishness. Their beer is a good deal stronger too, thanks to the traditional grain to water ratio in their brewing