Treva
Treva is the wealthiest state on the Golden Coast and by its own history the least prepared to hold it. It broke from Aescalapea during the chaos of the Fourth Succession War and has settled into an uneasy shape ever since: a generation ago, a wealthy merchant family bought its way into the hereditary rank of Principe at Modegna while the true weight of power runs through the wool halls and counting-houses of the towns bound beneath him. Modegna leads the compact of Trevan towns in name and commerce alike, its finished cloth and lines of credit reaching farther than any Trevan sword could. Northern Trevans watch the militaristic Milosians across the Taddo with unease, an anxiety made stranger by how heavily Milosia leans on Trevan wool and grain to feed and clothe its own legions. Treva commands a different kind of respect too: Monte Ordito, deep in its western mountains, has been sacred ground since long before the Old Empire existed, and its resident oracle now shares the mountain with the Imperial Ecclesia Pontifex of Church of Paelemona, an honor no other Aurean state can claim.
Geography
Broad, fertile lowland runs the length of Treva between the Antasian Mountains in the west and the Aurean Sea. Three rivers define the terrain: the Taddo marks the northern border with Milosia, the Morela marks the western border with Vistria, and the Selvano rises further south along the same range and cuts through the heart of the country down to the sea at Modegna. Treva's mountainous regions are rugged and thinly settled but for a scatter of shepherd holdings and, at the Selvano's own headwaters, the ancient sanctuary of Monte Ordito. The old Imperial road called the Via Augustus runs the coast's length north to south, passing through Modegna on its way from Berugia in Milosia to Dracar in Aescalapea, a reminder that Trevan land was an Imperial thoroughfare long before it was a sovereign nation.
Terrain
The western highlands where the Taddo, Morela, and Selvano rivers rise are genuinely mountainous rather than merely hilly, home to little beyond shepherd holdings, the small shrine-town that serves the pilgrims climbing to Monte Ordito at the Selvano's own headwaters, and Vallenza's shearing-fairs lower down the slopes in the hills of the Antasian piedmont. East of the highlands the land opens into broad, well-watered lowland, Treva's true wealth: mile upon mile of fields of grain and flax alongside the pasture that feeds Modegna's looms.
Waterways
Three rivers, all born at different points in the western mountains, define Treva's shape. The Taddo forms the northern border with Milosia and carries barge-trade down to Guadenza, the river-market town where Trevan grain and wool cross into Milosian hands. The Morela forms the western border with Vistria, quieter and less traveled than its siblings. The Selvano rises from a spring at the peak of Monte Ordito itself and runs through the central plains of the country, watering the plains that feed Modegna's looms before reaching the Aurean Sea at the capital, where its mouth forms Modegna's own working harbor, smaller and calmer than Portosalvo's but old enough to have grown the city around it. Portosalvo remains Treva's largest seaport; the coast beyond both harbors has a few calm and shallow places, well suited to the coastal trade that moves between them and fishing that supports the coastal villages along the Golden Coast.
Society & Culture
Most Trevans measure their world by the loom, the ledger, or the shepherd's crook, rarely mixing the three within a single family for more than a generation. The principality is overwhelmingly human, though a modest dwarven population works the foothill quarries and produces Modegna's finer metalwork. Modegna's weavers, dyers, and bankers form a close urban class that thinks of itself as Treva's true nobility, however loudly the old baronial houses might disagree. Life outside the capital moves at a slower, harder pace: Vallenza's shepherds and shearers supply the wool that Modegna turns into fortune and see little of that fortune in return, while Guadenza's grain-factors and river-bargemen live and die by the rivers' moods and Milosia's appetite. Pilgrims bound for Monte Ordito pass through nearly every Trevan town on their way to the western peaks, a slow trickle of outsiders who bring news, and sometimes coin, from every corner of Aurea.
The gap between the guild patriciate and the labor that feeds it is a persistent tension in the young nation. Wool-carders and dye-house apprentices in Modegna work long hours for wages set by the same guild councils that sit on the Concilio delle Città, and grumbling in the dye-quarter is common enough that the Consuli keep half an ear turned toward it. The old nobility is a smaller and stranger presence than in most Aurean states: baroni and contesse without a seat on the Concilio or a stake in a Banco are treated with polite indifference rather than deference, a courtesy extended to the bloodline and withheld from the purse. Casa Ozzo has spent as much effort buying its way into the old world as ruling the new one. Ozzo daughters have married into several of the surviving baronial houses, most of whom accepted the match and the dowry that came with it; Contessa Ilaria Vezzano's refusal to do the same is precisely what keeps her grudge alive. Ozzo sons, meanwhile, increasingly marry outward into foreign banking families, turning marriage into another instrument of trade.
Notable Locations
- Guadenza, the river-market town on the Taddo, where Trevan grain and wool cross into Milosian hands under the eyes of both nations' toll-factors.
- Modegna, the capital and seat of Casa Ozzo, its newly marble-faced palazzo wing sitting a little uneasily among the older stone of the dye-quarter and counting-houses that are the true engine of Trevan wealth; also a working river-port where the Selvano meets the sea, smaller and calmer than Portosalvo's harbor but old enough to have grown the city around it.
- Monte Ordito, the remote peak at the Selvano's headwaters crowned by Il Santuario della Vedente, sacred ground since long before Treva, or even the Empire, existed, and now also the seat of the Pontifex of the whole Church of Paelemona.
- Portosalvo, Treva's largest seaport, though not its only one, home to its modest escort fleet and the factors who carry Trevan cloth abroad.
- Vallenza, a highland market town in the Antasian foothills, its shearing-fairs the source of the raw wool everything else in Treva depends on.
Important Persons
- Contessa Ilaria Vezzano, the most prominent of the old baronial line, holding a manor near Vallenza and a grudge against Casa Ozzo she is too proud, or too poor, to act on.
- La Vedente Ismea, the current oracle-priestess of Il Santuario della Vedente atop Monte Ordito, who speaks for Paelemona the Spinner to the pilgrims who make the climb.
- Padre Guglielmo Rasi, high priest of La Sala della Spinatrice of Paelemona the Spinner in Modegna, who leads the guild oaths and blesses the wool-year each spring.
- Peron Vasca, a dye-house foreman in Modegna whose voice among the wool-carders and their Confraternita dei Lanaioli grows louder each season.
- Pontifex Adriana Sestri, elevated from Monte Ordito's own priesthood to lead the whole Church of Paelemona under the Imperial Ecclesia, the highest-ranking cleric Treva has ever produced.
- Ser Renzo Calvi, master of the Portosalvo escort fleet, the closest thing Treva has to an admiral.
- Ser Vincenzo Aldi, Maestro Bancario of Casa Ozzo's own Banco, and by most reckonings the second most powerful man in Treva after the Principe himself.
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| This article is part of the Player's Guide to Aurea | |
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Introduction · Economics and Trade · Legends and History · Religion · Regions and Realms | |
| Regions and Realms on Aurea | |
