The Shriekwind Exiles

The Shriekwind Exiles is a secretive colony of Marhumans located on North Shriekwind Island in Breaca. Estimates on the local population range from 2,100 Marhumans to over 3,000, though most estimates fall around a count of 2,400 individuals. Separated from the greater Breaca mainland by the Baleful Bay, the Shriekwind Islands are nearly completely isolated from the Breacan mainland: On the best of days, navigating the Baleful Bay's stormy surface is borderline tolerable. At worst, even the best Marhuman swimmers have died close to home from being carried by surface- and deep-sea currents, and smashed into surface & subsurface obstructions. Procedures for backing out of a Baleful Bay excursion should be prepared and followed as needed.

The Exiles' burrow, settlement, or whatever outsiders might call it lacks an official name. Instead, the locals refer to a specific building, the White Lodge, in describing the government while references to the settlement itself are simply "the burrow" in common discourse. Located within the confines of the Great North Shriekwind Island Seacave, the burrow serves as a residence for the vast majority ( ~96%) of the Marhuman population. The White Lodge proper occupies the central part of a plaza and houses the Elder themself; surrounding the plaza are other residences, two taverns, and a minimalist yet immaculate prayer shrine where momentous occasions are held throughout the year.

The Long Swim
In the first few weeks after the Shadow's disappearance, things were going poorly for the early inhabitants of Pale Wood in Noreia. The sudden collapse of a genocidal Demonic authority, however liberating it might have been for the people of Meridia, also brought about a collapse in already thinned food supplies as Demonic sources of food dried up. In particular, the Demons' recent creations- the Marhumans- fought bitterly with the unaltered human inhabitants, and lost, though not before the retreating Marhumans brought with them some of the ancient Demons' equipment that might serve useful in stabilizing civilization during exile. Some twenty-thousand Marhumans managed to swim or paddle aboard makeshift boats into the Shrieking Sea, but their troubles had only just begun.

A famine began early in the voyage as stocks of provisioned food ran dry, and limited fishing supplies severely reduced the Marhumans' capability to feed their population despite their aquatic modifications. Without hunting spears, poles, or nets, the Marhumans could not meet their caloric requirements during the Long Swim, and the results were disastrous: More than ten thousand of the twenty thousand survivors died within six months, and their calcified skeletons still litter the seabed of the Shrieking Sea. After one year of survival, only five thousand remained despite slight improvements in fishing equipment stocks, and this population would dwindle steadily as they approached Breaca's Freja Island. At their time of arrival, the now 1,000-strong group discovered that the northern taiga shores of Freja Island were stalked by predators, and thus they kept swimming west.

The Marhuman exiles lost another three hundred or so of its own before they found a glimmer of hope: On the southern tip of Freja's neighbor- North Shriekwind Island- was a small cove containing a shallow bay and something much more massive: The Great North Shriekwind Island Seacave invited the refugees to stay with its shallow pools of water, easy access to sea resources, and expansive deposits of iron ready for immediate extraction. The founder's name is lost to history as of now, but they did manage to lead the first expedition into the cave where the future foundation of the White Lodge would be laid. In time, the cave's occupants adopted a new name for themselves as a living reminder of their heritage: The Shriekwind Exiles had founded their new burrow.

Lost Years : Before 1E 1062
Lesser, milder famines continued to strike the fledgling population for a decade until 1E 1030 when the population stabilized between 500 and 600 Marhuman occupants. The first named Elder, Lamret Unbeb, came to power in 1046 and began a campaign of aquaculture expansion, giving rise to the huge aquaculture ponds near the front of the Seacave which continue to feed the Marhuman population in the Second Era. Other developments during Unbeb's tenure have been lost, however, as few written records on other infrastructure and societal projects have survived. It is known that a power struggle existed between Unbeb and the colony's first naturalist, Ariila Irrar, culminating in Unbeb's arrest and confinement in 1E 1062 during a palace coup.

Life in the burrow during this time period remained fragile even after the aquaculture ponds were opened to the public. An insufficient population to handle all aspects of colony-building forced most Marhumans to take on multiple roles as fishers, farmers, and metalworkers as they were sought fit by Unbeb. That said, several things contributed to preventing the group's collapse: First, mechanization of common mining operations was already underway by 1E 1050 once the Exiles managed to arrange the salvaged mining equipment from their own home. A metalworking shop powered by mechanical power from a cluster of two Demonic generators eased the personnel burden by providing a lathe, mill, casting basin, and even a Bessemer converter for improved productivity. Secondly, Unbeb's authoritarian leadership promoted rationing of basic goods and enforced basic means of resource preservation and recycling; worn tools were stripped of their wooden handles before being melted down into steel and recast into replacement parts for other tools. Meats and other perishable goods were salted & stored in the colder parts of the Seacave network where few monsters lurked, decreasing the spoilage rate of fish, rice, and the occasional medicine batch whenever an apothecary managed to brew another salve or ointment. Finally, the absolute absence of foreign powers, while making trade impossible, also made the threat of an external invasion irrelevant and thereby reduced the demand for a militia beyond basic policing.

Rule of Irrar, Ariila : 1E 1062 - 1E 1133
Though Unbeb had secured his reputation as an effective planner and statesperson, his rule towards the end of the 1050s was marked by lethargy, paranoia, and- in his last year of leadership- corruption that would later be exposed and led to his downfall. On New Year's Eve of 1061, Ariila Irrar, a female member of the militia, seized initiative and organized the militia outside the White Lodge; by the following morning, Unbeb faced house arrest and was later transferred to the Stone Lodge, the burrow's unofficial detainment cells. Unbeb would die from septic shock at sixty-seven years of age as a forgotten citizen: Irrar, meanwhile, began the arduous process of securing her position as Elder by quietly rotating out older, more politically-inclined militia members into positions of moderate prestige as her advisors.

Cave Exploration
From the first day of Irrar's regime, efforts were organized to explore the deeper sections of the Great North Shriekwind Island Cave network. These initial efforts led to the second workshop's establishment in a spacious alcove as well as the construction and carving-out of additional living spaces, a dining hall or two, and the Lucky Eel Taphouse which continues to serve patrons in the present day. Fish catches continued to improve, allowing for the opportunity to catch and retain bioluminescent jellyfish among other such creatures; soft blue bioluminescent lamps soon gave the Marhuman inhabitants (If not other daylight-dwelling sapients..) a source of light to supplement their nocturnal vision and bring a little bit of the sea closer to home. New hand-cranked rock grinders in the workshops produced cobblestone in great quantity for the first time, and the cavern's smooth slippery-in-some-places surface was soon paved over in areas with more foot traffic.

Elsewhere in the cave network, Irrar's militia dispatches encountered problems as they ventured deeper into the cavern: The first major physical obstacle was a chasm that blocked passage to one particular route that seemed to promise higher-grade ores from preliminary prospecting in the area; crossing the chasm required the militia to stockpile its own source of steel and wood for a bridge construction site, and what has since become known as Irrar's Pass was finished in 1E 1065 after a year of planning and building. The findings were a considerably enriching success that gave miners access to fresh iron, coal, and tungsten reserves for a time, but an even bigger surprise awaited those who reached the other side of the chasm: A massive waterfall fed into a medium lake which maintained a constant water level by draining into another chasm. Later known as Jero's Tears, this waterfall would become the colony's first, and as of now only, source of electrical power in the not-too-distant future.

Maritime Developments
In contrast to Irrar's emphasis on cave exploration and exploitation, development along the coast remained extremely limited to temporary structures used in sea fishing and other activities. Marhuman fishers continued to swim out into the Baleful Bay only to retrieve and lay new cage traps, and small teams of spearfishers remained committed to catching their bounties just off the southern coastline of North Shriekwind Island without giving a second glance at the seas. The militia was already tied up in clearing the Seacave's unexplored sections which left few surplus resources available for shipbuilding, and South Shriekwind Island had yet to be discovered by Marhuman naturalists. Consequently, the development of seafaring and coastal structures beyond the safety of the Seacave and its protective Cove remained limited during Irrar's tenure.

Basic Firearms and Machine Tools
Developments in weaponry and other defensive technologies became one of Irrar's secondary concerns. An unnamed blacksmith perfected the first muzzle-loader in tandem with an apothecary's discovery of black powder in 1E 1081, but initial underwater tests of the devices in the Cove showed poor results. The wet black powder would clump together and refuse to ignite in such wet conditions, and the muzzle-loader was highly inaccurate compared to a traditional Marhuman crossbow.

Despite the first firearm design failing in production, several discoveries were made which triggered the Exiles' Scientific Revolution by the following. First, it became immediately apparent to the apothecaries- and, later, educated naturalists- that something present above water allowed blackpowder to ignite much more easily than when the individual granules were surrounded by stagnant water. Another unnamed apothecary even performed a basic experiment in which black powder was deposited in a chamber of water before allowing the water to drain through a filtered port into a basin. She let the remaining powder dry overnight before attempting to ignite the caked mixture: It would not ignite nearly as quickly to the point that underwater use of early Marhuman firearms was ruled out. This basic experiment convinced Irrar and the militia to restrict their muzzle-loader usage to nonaquatic environments and would later spark occasional developments in early cartridge technology to improve underwater firearm performance.

Industrial innovations during Irrar’s rule lagged greatly behind the innovation of gunpowder devices, but there were still a few changes if not improvements to the workshops. The last remaining machine components from the Shadow era were redesigned and forged as Exile components. This caused the Exiles to shake off the influence of Demonic tech and instead develop an industrial design character of their own. Cutting edges and pulverizing heads specifically crafted to handle peculiarities in the Seacave’s iron ores replaced Shadow-era bits which gave the colony a modest boost in available iron supplies. Later, the introduction of hand-cranked automatic lathes and mills greatly improved the precision of incisions, enabling the production of more concise gearwork that would give rise to a new generation of workshop tools after Irrar’s ruling era, under the leadership of Ariila Olaevon

Rule of Olaevon, Ariila : 1E 1133 - 1E 1152
In the spring of 1E 1133, Irrar- the longtime Elder of the Exiles- died from a mysterious fever at one hundred and three years of age. Ariila Olaevon, the sole daughter of Irrar, assumed the role of Elder that summer and maintained Irrar's policies during the first year of her rule. The Seacave's population which had been under 600 some eighty years was now standing at 1,200. The aquaculture basins now provided several times as much rice as they did half a century ago, metalworkers in the workshops began using automatic lathes & mills to produce better performing tools which held their edge longer, and even the path to Jero's Tears was fully paved in cobblestone. The White Lodge continued to enjoy attention as its neighboring structures continued to expand and serve more Marhuman customers.

At the same time, growing pains from during Irrar's tenure became more apparent under Olaevon's: Both workshops in the colony were approaching maximum production capacity despite tool production and modifications. The aquaculture basins were quickly running out of space for additional seafood production, leaving Marhuman fishers on the hook to venture further from the coast to secure food lest they were to deplete the southern coast's entire fishery. More enterprising individuals even took their chances and created the first small-scale kelp farms out near the Baleful Bay to provide food for the aquaculture basins' livestock, putting themselves in the paths of potentially devastating storms that could tear up a season's harvest and set back the following year in hunger.

North Shriekwind Island Exploration
Within months after fully securing her power, Olaevon broke with her mother's plan of risk-averse, inward development: A team of six militia members received authorization to go inland into the island's forest for the first time, and with appropriate backing by the White Lodge as necessary to fend off attacks from various predators and what-not that probably lurked in the depths of North Shriekwind Island's dense bush.

The expedition began in the Winter of 1E 1133 when Jaleka Rempe, a seasoned militia commander with fourteen years of cave clearing experience under her belt, departed from the cave with five fellow militia troops and Orli Ajvi, a Marhuman geological naturalist, and worked their way westward along the southern coast, all while surveying and rewriting new maps that would potentially replace early sketches of the island's features. Camping out underwater just off the coast where they spent each day's activities, Rempe's team spent the first month or two replacing otherwise archaic, inaccurate maps to better reflect changes in the coastline if not to dismiss or event admit geological features. No attacks on the militia were reported during this time period, likely due to the cold wintry weather forcing most bears, taiga lions, and other predatory creatures into hibernation; nor did the forest appear to exude any Demonic-related auras like it did during other times of the year.

At any rate, the first leg of the expedition reached its conclusion during the Winter/Spring transition of 1E 1134, and subsequent analysis by Ajvi yielded the following conclusions: The island proper was roughly the same size as originally predicted, being only slightly larger in area than what previous maps had shown; and certain sections of the coastline showed promise as aquacultural plantations, if only the beach could be kept clear of guests from deep within North Shriekwind Island's forests. Three territorial bears were spotted on the beach one day, as noted by Ajvi, and the militia responded by making short work of the carnivores with their muskets. This kept the expeditionary force safe, but Ajvi predicted that a full-time patrol of potential aquaculture plantations would overextend the Island's meager militia force, leaving the Seacave's population defenseless as the hostile wildlife whittled away at the diffuse defense.

Olaevon chose not to pursue colonization of the remainder of North Shriekwind Island, at least for the time being. Instead, fishers were informed of the western and northern fisheries Rempe's team discovered during the expedition, giving the southern fishery some capacity to recover while the Seacave population distributed exploitation of the seas between the fisheries.

Pevos Devar, the Breech-loaded Musket, and cartridges
Though Marhuman muskets were continuously being experimented with and improved upon, the issues of water contamination and slow reload times limited firearm use to the Seacave militia and the occasional hunter willing to forego protection and leave the cave to hunt a bear. The fisheries along the North Shriekwind Island coast were free from predators, but encounters with massive. . . WIP