The Tallhart's descent from the First Men but have never been first men kings and as such are held in lower esteam then some other northern houses. In fact the house is only considerd a masterly house whitch is viewed as lower than a lordly one. All noble houses under them can also only be mastlerly and are viewed as lower than their lordly lesser noble equivelent. The family claims decent from the first men but were never kings indead they were raised into nobilty by the Starks for their rebellion against the Ironborn. They were apperently taken as slaves by the ironborn and ferried to the then still ironborn Bear Isle where they lead a rebellion that ended when the Stark king beat the ironborn lord in a fight and tock the isle for the Mormonts. House Tallhart was raised to masterly status for their rebellion but as they hadn't proved themselves to be truly loyal to the Starks they have received an lordship closer to Winterfell than Bear Isle. Since then they have served loyally and with vigor even if they have proven themselv to be rather poor administartors over the centuries. For their loyalty they were raised to be a princable bannermen of the Starks and throughout the ages remained as such.
Living as slaves has lead the family to truly despise the ironborn in more ways than you can imagine. Many members of the house learn sailing just so they can one day attack the ironborn on see if the need for that should ever be. The house kept their collars and some of the wips from their days in slavery and proudly desplay them in their castle to show their defiance to their slavers and their archivement that raised them in status. All weapons they take from skirmashes with ironborn are shown alonside the chains until they start rusting and are exchanged agains newer ones to show their ever present hate for them. All of this leads to the house owning a small fleet of 8 ships with sailors trained for naval warfare under their control. They are one of the few houses in the north that has members capable of commanding ships in battle.
Their arms show three sentinal trees in all green on a brown background.
Familie Words: "Proud and Free"
The word obviously reflect the time the family was forced to spend in slavery under the ironborn. After all you should be proud of yourself after you started and lead a succesfull uprising agains your oppressors that end with your rise into nobility and freedom as well as the loss of the territory of your former slavers under which you had to work. In the end the word perfectly reflect the state of mind one would have after such an ordeal and making them your houses words leads to your descendants continued hate for your eternal enemies and their obvious follow up in policies.
But not only do the words reflect the past of their family. A member of this family is always expected to bahave in a manner befitting of him so that he may be able to hold his head high with pride for his actions. He is also expected to behave in such a manner that he shall be free or free others that suffered the same as them in the past. They will always free slaves when the posibility shows itself to them. Often such freed slaves will settle in their lands afterwards.
Hold/Keep:
Torrhen's Square is the families keep and was named after the lord Stark that financed their families castle. It was build by one of the norths largest lakes whose river empties into the Salt Spear. The castle was build in this place to further protect the inland area of the Wolfswood from ironborn raiders coming inland thanks to the river. As such the Starks emptied their pockets and financed the building of a rather large stone castle by the lake on a tong of land that stretches a bit into the lake. Legends say that when the lord of house Tallhart asked for help to finance their keep he said that he would finance anything they hadn't yet managed to build. When the Starks arrived there just lay a square of stones where the keep shall be build. The lord was rather amused by this and financed the full keep and to honour him it was named after him and the square that he found when he arrived.
As Torrhen's Square was build from sollid stone unlike other castles of the north it is considered one of the better castles in case you need to defend it. After all a stone fired from a catapult does less damage towards stone then wood. As it was build from stone there has been near no need to repair or further strengthen the main keep. Instead the lords have decided to rather build a wall in the small village constucted by the castle that supports the castle itself.
The small village was strengthened by building a wall with towers and gates surrounding it. A few of the field were decided to stay inside the castle walls so that those may be protected from anything wishing to weaken the defence. In the center of the village there lies a square for trading in the village. You can also see all of the three officially recocnised roads that go through Tallhart land. Only those three roads have any sort of continues repairs that keep fallen trees of it and fill in holes. Even then these three roads are still not that great to use as they still turn into a muddy mess after some strong rain. By the lake they also build an additional three docks. To the left of the keep there lies the largest of the three with a direct way into the trading square and the most places to dock ships. To the right of the castle there lies a smaler dock that is used only when the larger of the two is currently already filled with ships. It is a rather rare occurance but can happen on expecially buissy days where food from the south comes together with ships holding steel from Dustin lands and other shippments just so happen to arrive as well. The last of the three docks is a privat one to the Tallhart's and holds ships that have guest to the family, goods expecially ordered by the lord or the few warships that the family calls their own. A path from there leads directly to one of the two gates through whitch one can enter the main castle grounds and then the castle itself. Outside of this walled section there still are further fields and houses with some more docks for fishermen. Thought most fishermen do not have the luxury of a dock but rather pull up the ship to shore and then further in land. The castle usually takes it water from the pond in front the main gate but has a well in case of siege as well.
Geography:
The lands of the house are pretty much incased by the large lake on whitch their keep lies the rivers that flow into it to the south. To the east their boundary follows the twinn lakes and its rivers to the spring of the rivers that least to the most northern point. From there it follows the edge of the Wolfswood thought at the start it hold a thinn track of land inside the forest itself aswell. To their west they are bordered by the Slate's and their land. From there go south till they meet the slowly forming town under their neighbours controll. Coincedentally one of the three "good" roads lead to this town while the other two go to Deepwood Motte and the bridge that connects over the river that binds together the twin lakes in the east. Through this there developed four different territories under their influence.
For one there is the river and lake regions. These encompass everyone that lives on the many rivers and lakes under their controll. Especially the lake on whitch their keep was build and its rivers makes for a prime area to settle because the control over those is exclusevly under their house and as such all the fish, eels and crabs theirs to use. Unfurtunately only parts of the lands by the rivers and lakes to the east belong in this categorie. By not beeing the only one with control over them the people living on these bodies of water are less wealthy and well off but their livestile is still the same as their more fortunate brothers. These lands have one thing in common. The rivers and lakes are all completely shippable and have large fishing grounds that can easily support a population even several times larger than the one currently there. The fish here are fat and found in large number and even some sweetwater crabs can be found in more shallow areas of the riverbeds. The men and women here place a great deal of worth in fishing and make it their main source of food even. The families here have nearly no animals instead because of this. The land surrounding the river while fertile is often ignored in favour of fishing but those that do produce focus on cash crobs like vegtables because those can be traded along the river to the Slates for normal foods.
The second area is located by the mountains under their controll. These mountains hold a great deal of iron and other minerals such as rock salt that are mostly ignored by the people. This area is severely underpopulated and under developed instead their need for minerals and salt is meet by the production of house Dustin. These mountain dwellers are as such often not miners or smiths but rather men and women that chose to rather live in the securety of the mountains where no ironborn raid for it is known for its poverty. The only saving grace for this area is that there is one mountain pass through where the road to the east goes and as such the people along it can sell what they, if they are clever enough to do so, mine in the montains. Just between us here … these mountains hold some thick veins of gold that have not yet been found and probably never will be thanks to the houses disinterest in developing the area.
The smalest area is the small strip of the Wolfswood that reaches into their land. Unlike the other people living from the forest under other lords the men here do not hunt wild game or gather wild fruit to support their diet. Instead they collect the sap of the sentinal trees that then gets shipped along the rivers to distrebute among the harbours to help make the ships more resistant to water. Thanks to the rather bad road situation these people often live in poverty when their shippments take longer thanks to damages in the trample paths. Thought thanks to the abundance of wood that shelteres them from snow and can be burned for warmth there are no people here that freeze to death. Hunger meanwhile can easily kill the people here in a stronger winter.
The last area are the plains that do not lie by a river and as such force the people to actually farm the land more then their riverdwelling neighbours. To be truthfull most people rather live by the river to fish and the few villages that can be found in this inlad area are located along the three roads because of the traders that then pass them. The land is fertile enough to live of their produce such as beans and preserved fruit as well as corn. These let most people here through winter but they make for a rather sad picture with their small and often rather run down looking villages. Their saving grace is that the riverdwellers often buy some crobs from them before the Slates if only a small amount compared to what they then again do buy from elsewhere.
Lesser Lords:
The lands under Tallhart control are unlike any other until now. In other lordships you could find families of renown in any of the different territories that would be worth mentioning. This does not applly here because all families living by the rivers are wastly wore wealthy then their counterparts in the land. In fact the noble families lording over land in the mountains, the plains or by the forest are sometimes worse of then the traders passing on the river to other northern lordships. Most families living in the plains are often condidered more farmers than lords in their own right. The same could be said over those living in the mountains and only the ones by the forest can be considered to be somewhat of repute when their lords or masters know how to gowern at least a bit.
Hous Hadel is as most houses worth mentioning living by the bifurcation of the river going south whre the border follows west. From this position the house managed to be rather close to the lords across the river in the mountains. They are a favourit trading partner and one of several providers of river produce to the ones in the mountain. The house has a number of small carrying vessels that ship the goods to the Slates or further down the river. They have even managed to affort some bigger ships with more storeroom in the recent history of their house with the Slates building a town where more produce is needed.
The Tief's are known for their position on a small isle in the lake from where they originated. Under the castle made of mostly driftwood there lies a wast netword of naturaly formed caverns that stretch under the lake for several kilometers. Because of the danger of unknowingly opening up the caves to the lake by mining the house has never even thought about doing so instead they found the caves to be exxelent for storing anything far away from water and animals like rats. The caves have a natural beauty to them and some visit just to see these. Many traders actually pay the family a small fee for storing some goods like wood for them there and come back after some time when their ships once again have room to load some more.
By the Twinn Lakes lies the keep of House Darf. To be more specific they made their keep by the pass where the mountain and the lake meet. This keep was once build after a invading army could simply walk into their lands trough this pass. Today a castles bares the entrance to the lands and as such the easiest route supplies could be ferried along. While the castle has not been tested in a long time the lords certainly have not lost their martial attitute. Often members of this house lead the troupes when the Tallharts can't send someone to lead them or advises the ones commanding of the best course to take. No general or commander of renoune has ever been produced by them but they often make for a solid if basic commander.
People:
Nobody that has read this far should wonder about the severe underpopulation in these lands. Alltogether the people here only number 63.000. Most of these men call the rivers and lakes their home.
From the total population around 54.000 live by the rivers and lakes of the lordship. This makes up for the wast amount of the people and as such it is no wonder that other northeneres usually think of the men living in this part of the country as fishfaces or the fishmen. The stereotipe developed because the diet of the people here is overhelmingly in favour of maritime food and in actuallity mostly fish. In other parts of the north the old men say that they are going hunting when they decide to go out and die in winter in these parts the men say they go icefishing. A local custum even developed aound eating raw fish that other people gag at and believe to be disgusting. The people here are often rather poor themselves but can trade for some goods they need along the river. Most of their trade revolves around exchanging fish against other goods like salt and wood as well as the linen needed for nets.
The mountains have a combined number of 2000 smallfolk. Meeting someone in the mountains is considered difficult if you don't know where the villages and small family farms are located. After all in an area that in the south would house a number more than 20 times that present live so few people. The biggest community in the mountains stands at 127 people strong and also has one of the only two mines that one can find in the mountains. The one present here is a salt mine that does sell some of its salt to the rest of the people in the mountains.
Small as the strip of forest is it does hold about 1000 people and as such is more populated than the mountains. After all the number of people may be smaler but the area they live in is several times smaler. While the people here often fear hunger in winter and sometimes even in summer they are one of the few people that need not worry about freezing in winter. Seeing as the main livelyhood of the people is always dependent weather their people manage to deliver their goods in time and come back with foodstuf and the roads are bad the people often suffer and can take large hits in their population.
Lastely are the farmers in the plains numbering 6000. The people here are often miserable because of their rather low yields in addition to the inability to trade what suplusses they do yield for other things such as salt and processed wool. The people here often do freeze in winter and go hungry as well. After particularry harsh winters it is not unusual for some smaler villages to entirely vanish from the face of earth. Well at least the people do while the houses turn into a frozen ghosttown. Many of the smallfolk wear handed down rags of their siblings and often hope for a better live by immegrating into other areas. The ones that stay often only do because they feel that the low taxes the lord grants for people to stay there outweights the benefits elsewhere. Often they beliefe that tales of better farmlands are lies by other lords to gain smallfolk (thanks to their lords).
Army:
The army the family can muster is often considered one of the worst in the lands in the department of equipment, supply and quickness to deploy in full number. While the first two are because of the poverty in the territory and the subsequent inability to give out the required arms the last one is because of the horrid condition of the roads. Even if most of their people live by the river and lake the total number of troupes can not be ferried along the river much less the supply needed.
In the end the lands can contibute about 600 to 700 people in a normal case and in full strenght. If the time is limited the house would only be able to raise the pitifull number of 400 in time. While these numbers seem quite the embarasment the house has found a way to save some face. Between having some of the few warships of the north and a constand dedicated levy of 100 men-at-arms that can be taken along the river quickly the house can deploy these men faster than any other house towards Winterfell. In addition if the fighting is done against the ironborn there are many people in these lands that would fight even underequipt and without pay. In such cases the troupe count from their lands would number in between 2000 and 3000 and many more would be willing to fight if it is needed.
Economy:
These lands live from the rivers and lakes and the scrabs of trade they can get thanks to this. The occasional fish being sold while buying a great deal of other goods means that these lands are bleeding resources and money into other lands while not managing to build up any wealth for themselves. In addition the land is severely underdeveloped thanks to in large part the absence of money that could be used for any large scale developments to better the situation. The newly forming town from the Slates has lead to more traders coming up and down the river and meant that in the last several years more money and goods have found themselv in these lands and the poverty by the water seems to be less severe.