The Lands of Warlderia

The Greenbough Vales / The Hobbit Hills

he Greenbough Vales lie among the rolling hills south of Udrakadesh, forming a rough triangle between the roads to Polymera and Easternway. From a distance the region appears almost idyllic: green slopes, scattered copses, thick bracken, small farming hamlets, bubbling streams and narrow tracks winding through the hills. Many travellers have looked upon the Vales and thought them a pleasant shortcut between Udrakadesh and Easternway. Many have regretted that decision. Closer inspection reveals a far more dangerous land. The Vales are broken by hidden gullies, treacherous bogs, sudden swamps, thorny copses and steep-sided hollows where sound carries strangely and escape routes vanish. Even those who know the roads are wary of leaving them. The Old Kingdom authorities nominally claim the region, but in truth they avoid it unless travelling with a large military escort. Most of the hamlets of the Greenbough Vales are halfling settlements, but they are not typical of halfling-kind. In most lands halflings are known as practical, neighbourly, peaceable folk who prefer good soil, good food and strong community over war and conquest. The Greenbough clans are different. They are an old, isolated branch of halfling society, shaped by centuries of contact, rivalry and intermarriage with nearby goblin and orc tribes. Their customs have hardened under that influence, becoming more suspicious, more clannish and far more violent than the halfling norm.

The first halfling settlers of the Vales are said to have arrived as refugees, farmers and herders seeking quiet land beyond the reach of greater powers. They found instead a region already contested by goblin warrens, orc hunting bands and older powers bound to hill, mire and thorn. At first the halflings hid, bargained and endured. Over generations, however, they learned from their neighbours. From the goblins they took ambush-craft, trap-making, night raids, hostage bargaining and the ruthless defence of hidden paths. From the orcs they took blood-feud, warrior prestige, strength trials and the belief that a clan survives only by proving it is too dangerous to prey upon. The result is a society that many other halflings regard with shame, fear or disbelief. The Greenbough clans still farm, brew, feast, sing and prize kinship as halflings do elsewhere, but those gentler traditions now sit beside raiding, oath-vengeance, slave-taking and ritual violence. They consider lowland halflings soft, over-civilised and half-swallowed by human ways. In return, most settled halfling communities speak of the Greenbough Vales only in lowered voices, if they speak of them at all.

Each hamlet is the seat of a clan. Most are mainly halfling, though some include humans, goblins, half-orcs, orcs and other outcasts accepted by blood oath, marriage or long service. These clans are fiercely protective of their land and their hidden boundaries. Most survive through farming, hunting, herding and raiding their neighbours. Captives taken in clan feuds are usually held for ransom, traded back through intermediaries, or forced to labour in the fields until a debt is judged paid. Raids between clans are brutal, but not always intended to exterminate. A rival may be beaten, humiliated, robbed or scarred, yet still be worth more alive than dead. Outsiders are another matter. The people of the Greenbough Vales have long memories, and many foreign merchants, priests, tax collectors and soldiers have tried to turn one clan against another. Few such meddlers are ever seen again. Rumours claim that trespassers vanish into cooking pots, bog graves or the roots of sacred trees. The clans do little to deny these tales. Fear is a useful border marker.

Many clans are led, advised or restrained by shamans and druids of the old gods. These are not the kindly hearth gods known in more settled halfling lands, but older powers of blood, harvest, storm, mire, fang and thorn. Some rites are harmless enough: offerings of ale, bone, bread and first fruits. Others are darker. Prisoners, oath-breakers and trespassers may be given to the old gods in sacrifice, especially during feud seasons, failed harvests or times when monsters stalk too close to the hamlets. Those few who have escaped captivity in the Vales tell wild and contradictory stories: black magic beneath moonlit trees, friends dragged screaming to standing stones, captives branded with clan marks, goblin chants echoing from burrows, orcish war-drums beating in halfling halls, and feasts where no guest dared ask what meat was served. Some accounts are certainly exaggerated. Some are probably not.

Attempts by outside priests to bring the gods of the Old Empire into the Greenbough Vales have ended poorly. A few priests fled after realising they were tolerated only as curiosities. Others disappeared after insulting the old gods or the clan ancestors. The Greenbough clans do not object to foreign gods because they are foreign; they object to any faith that tells them their own ways are wicked, backward or in need of correction. Among the larger and better-known clans are the Darkheather, Swampwalker, Greenleaf, Hilltop and Longclaws. Each has its own customs, taboos and grudges. Some are barely more than extended families with a fortified hamlet. Others command hidden outlying farms, goblin-dug tunnels, watch-posts, beast pens and secret tracks through the bracken. The region’s dangers are not limited to its people. The Vales are home to wolves, great cats, giant lizards and stranger creatures that thrive in the broken terrain. Some clans hunt these beasts. Others capture, breed or venerate them. Large cats, wolves and lizards are prized as war mounts by the boldest riders, while the capture of a griffin or wyvern can transform a warrior into a living clan legend. Such creatures are not merely tools of war; they are omens, status symbols and, in some clans, sacred companions of the old gods.

Despite their reputation, the Greenbough clans are not mindless savages. They value courage, wit, loyalty, music, strong drink, clever bargains and a well-told tale. Traders may be welcomed if they bring goods the clans cannot easily make themselves: worked metal, salt, fine cloth, medicine, rare spices, tools, weapons and news from beyond the hills. Bards, singers, storytellers and entertainers are also prized, for the clans love feasts, boasts, riddles and songs of impossible deeds. Such guests are watched carefully until they prove themselves. A careless word, a broken bargain or a mocked custom can turn hospitality into danger with alarming speed. But those who earn a clan’s friendship may find it fierce and enduring. A friend of the hearth is remembered. A guest who shared danger, kept faith and honoured the old ways may be welcomed back for the rest of their life.

There is one warning every traveller should heed. Outsiders often call the region the Hobbit Hills, and some even use the word “hobbit” for the people who live there. The clans hate the term. To them it is an insult born of lowland mockery, reducing ancient bloodlines, hard-won survival and sacred clan law to a rustic joke. A merchant may survive a bad bargain. A bard may be forgiven a poor song. A traveller who calls the Greenbough folk “hobbits” may never be heard from again.

Created by R. Williams & Tez McArt