Mann Islands

Mann Islands


= Mann Islands = Population: 20,000 farming people and dwarves plus unknown number of savage people.

'''Language: '''Illian

Ruler: Governor Davros Lynn – dwarf miner, chief of the Thralgren-Firth Mining Company

'''Industries: '''Minerals, ore, fish.

Mann is the smallest (by population) and youngest of Xian-Tau’s generally recognized nations. It is located some 200 miles north west of the city of Venac across open sea. Whilst small dwarf run mines have existed on the archipelago for centuries it wasn’t until just over 100 years ago that the place developed into anything that could be considered civilized and attained nationhood.

A more organized colony was founded by the Thralgren-Firth Mining Company some 150 years ago. The company is a rare joint venture between dwarves and farming people that combines the dwarves’ skills with rocks with the other races skills with maritime matters, trade, farming and everything else needed to survive. It wasn’t long after this that Venac realized how much money was coming from the islands and attempted to claim them as part of its territory – the company responded by declaring the islands a sovereign nation and after a few years of tussles Venac and the rest of Xian-Tau came to accept the claim.

Initially the islands were run as part of Thrlagren-Firth’s private business empire but over time the company’s activities outside the islands withered away as so much of the focus was taken up here and now it and the government of the islands are one indistinguishable unit. The Governor of the islands has always also been the company head, a position that has been held for the last 25 years by Davros Lynne, who is a somewhat benevolent dictator.

The islands are mountainous and covered in jungle. Despite 150 years of civilization most of the landscape is still wild; mines sink into the ground wherever ore can be found and small areas of farmland are clustered around the mouths of the larger island’s rivers but the rest of the landscape is wild, inaccessible jungle. The only roads are those that lead from mines in the interior to the towns on the coast, all other travel is done by ship.

The ‘civilised’ humanoids live in 9 medium sized towns and a few dozen smaller ones (few mainland folk would consider Mann City as a genuine city) scattered around the coasts of 8 of the large islands. Tribes of lizardfolk, orcs and goblinoids live within the jungles and mostly stay away from the civilized folk. Small amounts of trade go on, but so do raids, and whilst Lynne has an official policy of maintaining peaceful relations with the local savages profit takes precedence over peace in cases were the two can’t exist together.

The nation’s kobold garrison is more isolated from the humanoid populace than most, occupying long abandoned mineshafts on the otherwise uninhabited island of O’Flar. These were some of the oldest mines to be established in the archipelago and the company abandoned them decades ago after they became exhausted, yet the kobolds still seem to be mining something there, shipping it off to their cities on the mainland for unknown purposes. The dragon overseer of the islands is a green who lives an isolated life on Outer South East (for some reason the four uninhabited outer islands have never been given proper names).

Mann doesn’t train its own defense force and instead relies on a navy of contracted mercenaries. Lynne has no qualms employing pirates in this regard as long as their loyalty and discipline can be maintained. The many uninhabited stretches of coastline and heavy shipping traffic also make the area popular with pirates who use it as an isolated place to hide not far from one of the main shipping routes between Xian-Tau and Athos. Attacks on ships are rare in local waters as pirates don’t want to draw too much attention to themselves here and risk their sanctuary.

Dangers include local tribes of sahuaguin that sometimes make a nuisance of themselves when the navy is otherwise occupied and various monsters that lurk in the jungles and the seas. Every year or two a cyclone hits and every decade or so a volcano on one of the islands erupts. People can can flee from cyclones in the jungle and mine shafts and flee from volcanoes on the sea, but towns can’t, so aside from Mann City (which is built from hefty stone and on the one large island whose volcanoes are all extinct) the other towns are relatively ephemeral affairs, composed of wooden and thatch structures that no one expects to last a lifetime.