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Larm: The Lay of the Land

From the previous post we know that the authors of Labyrinth Lord gave us very little to work with in the published description of our beloved Larm.  We know that it is a farming and mining community.  We know that it is a river community.  And we know that it has a 100-man militia.  This information is enough to get us started, for it implies certain things about our frontier community.


First, being some 140 miles (14 hexes) from the grand city of Dolmvay, we know that Larm must be largely self-sufficient.  To feed and support the 1,000 residents, Larm's farmers must be raising both crops and livestock.  Looking at the general terrain, we see that Larm is located in hill country to the east, and river valley to the west.  It is likely that Larm's farmers tend flocks of sheep and cattle, harvesting the wool and leather in addition to the meat of the animals.  In addition, the access to the river suggests that Larm has no shortage of fishermen.

Second, from the map we can see a small, forested area near the village.  This will offer a hint about why the original settlers chose this location to build their community.  The trees of the forests of Larm contain unusual properties.  The "Iron Pine" is remarkably strong and durable, and early explorers found that the strange wood resisted decay and withstood the elements longer than normal timber.  Larm is know for the remarkable timber harvested from these woods, but jealously protects its claim over the wooded lands from outsiders.

This leads us into the third issue - given the fact that Larm has a relatively large standing militia, we can assume that there are legitimate threats to the village from the surrounding lands.  Yes, it is true that Larm claims the forest lands and some of the militia patrols the stands of Iron Pine, but there are also other threats in the hills.  Although just a seed of an idea now, I suspect that the presence of Dwarves in the nearby mountains has contributed to the need for Larm's militia.

More about the Dwarves in another post.  

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