Wintermark economic interests

Winterfolk import staple goods and concentrate on producing and exporting the goods that are their specialities. The most common exports are fine Wintermark weapons and armour, but anything produced by a Wintermark smith commands a good price anywhere in the Empire, especially if it is marked with a well-known maker's runes. The Imperial road network provides convenient travel for both merchants and armies. Trade with other Imperial Nations brings many exotic goods into Wintermark, but one of the greatest benefits of the road network is the import of cheap food from lands where farming is easier.

Particularly good relations exist between Wintermark and their southern neighbours in the Marches. Each has come to the other’s assistance on numerous occasions, and the grain, barley and salted meat that flows north in exchange for beautifully crafted and enchanted goods ensures that since the foundation of the Empire the Wintermark has never suffered a great famine of the kind that was common before.

Merchants are important in Wintermark, but they are often regarded with caution. A merchant who uses trade to enrich themselves at the expense of their Thane and Hall will be given short shrift, but a merchant who uses wisdom and cunning to bring wealth and prosperity to their Hall and the warriors it supports will be held up as an example to all.

Those who use their skills to enrich themselves are often called Scrabblers. Scrabbler is Wintermark slang for a looter on a battlefield. Before the Empire, Scrabblers who were caught were summarily executed, as Thanes expected to divide the loot from the field between their warband. That tradition is now rarely used except when Wintermark warriors are taking the field alone. Since the adoption of Imperial Law, a looter can only be convicted if they are stealing from the body of an Imperial citizen, not from an enemy. However the epithet remains a powerful Wintermark insult, applied to greedy merchants and camp followers. Ultimately anyone who makes profit from battle without taking the field themselves risks being called a Scrabbler and will be despised.

The most prestigious role for Winterfolk merchants is to act as a Mediator, negotiating weregilds. A fair weregild is considered one that matches the severity of the crime and satisfies the victim but is accepted by the perpetrator. The Winterfolk tradition of weregilds has passed into Imperial law and they are officially set by magistrates who took over the responsibility from the Thanes. However Wintermark magistrates habitually employ a Mediator to negotiate with both parties to find the right weregild. Such negotiations must often be done in haste, so that all can see that justice has been done. Identifying the right weregild and convincing both parties to settle for it is considered an exceptional skill and talented Mediators are in high demand and well regarded. By tradition they are expected to be paid in equal amounts by both parties.

Professional storytellers and performers, called Scops, are common in Wintermark and unlike merchants they are not expected to work for the benefit of their Thane's Hall. Scops are often travellers, moving from Hall to Hall performing and looking for new material. Many are poets using rhyming structures common throughout the Empire or else using the traditional Wintermark alliterative verse, but some Steinr scops master an instrument instead. The Suaq sagafolk prefer to give formal recitations of epic tales, having learned by rote the sagas of their people and the Winterfolk. In contrast the Kallavesi shamans prefer to work with a small audience, telling symbolic stories with complex imagery that are adapted to reflect their audience's situation; the best are designed to help their listeners make auspicious decisions and the shaman may be richly rewarded if a decision proves fortuitous.

As a student of magic, I was excited to see the completion of a Steinr sword. I watched entranced for hours as the smith painstaking hammered the blade flat, then used a fine chisel to enscribe a rune on each side. I was told they meant life and death, and would make the edge more capable of changing one to the other. When this was complete she would fold the blade in two and then begin the process again. This went on for hour after hour until eventually she attached it to the hilt and quenched it in several large pails of differently coloured water.

We then sat down to eat a meal prepared by the smith’s husband consisting of filleted fish and a mixture of leaves and grasses, all artfully arranged in a manner most pleasing to the eye. It was the greatest meal I have ever tasted; the fish so perfectly cooked and full of unexpected flavours, and the salty grasses complemented it perfectly. As I profusely thanked him he explained that he had been awake since the early hours in order to spear the fish from the nearby brook, and to pick the salty marsh-grass by the light of the rising sun. He’d gutted and filleted the fish with a knife smithed especially for the purpose, seasoned it with spices imported from the Brass Coast, and pickled the grasses in seven different vinegars purchased from a League merchant. It turned out that the smith’s husband in fact regularly cooked great banquets for the Hall and was something of a local hero.

I was allowed to test the completed sword and though it was heavier than those of Highguard, its edge seemed to sing as I swung it at the heavily stuffed straw doll and it cut through it like it wasn’t even there. And so it was that on that night in Wintermark I saw not one but two masters of their craft, and I would not like to say which was the greater.