Free Earldoms of the Tusseheim Peninsula

There is no accurate account of how many free earldoms there are. Found mainly in the coastal areas and lowlands of the Tusseheim peninsula, the independent earldoms and chiefdoms of the Naamlands number several dozen, perhaps a hundred.

The Tusseheim Peninsula is a cold, mountainous land, weathered and broken, with countless fjords and valleys. What is not bare rock is taken up by heath, mire and dense, low forest (birch and conifers, mainly). While cold and empty, the land has a beauty of its own.

The larger native animals include elk, deer and roedeer; reindeer and moscus oxen in the highest and coldest areas, predators include foxes, wolves, brown bears, lynx and wolverines.

The mountains seem to teem with cave goblins, but there are also a few, rather desperate, dwarven strongholds. Gnomes are also found, living with the dwarves and on human farms.

The coastal settlements of the free earldoms subsist on fishing, whaling, trade and piracy. They export most of their surplus to Ljuvmark, few foreign traders find their way to the remote and quaint villages of the Tusseheim Peninsula.

Inland, farming, shepherding and hunting are the main livelihoods. There is also a little silver mining going on, but generally the humans have found it easier to let the cave goblins keep the mines and take care of t he mining, and buy the silver from them.

The earls and chieftains engage frequently in minor wars and raids against each other, and states are continually united and split apart. They also raid and are raided by the cave goblins living in the highlands and mountains. Mostly, the conflict is kept relatively chivalrous, with limited causalties on either side and amicable ransoming, but blood feuds have a way of breaking out all the same.

These mini-states are also theatened by the ambitions of the three Naamlandic kingdoms, most of all by Ljuvmark's ambitions. When a kingdom threatens to invade, the earls and chieftains usually unite against their common enemy. The tendency of the three kingdoms to fight over possession of the peninsula also keeps any one of them from establishing a true dominion over it. Some times, most of the peninsula has been held by the three kingdoms, but rivalry between them and native rebellion has always broken this kingly rule. As it stands, the three kings fight over the right to tax the peninsula, and the earls pay tax to whichever king's navy is in the harbour - in truth this taxation borders on piracy. The free earls in their turn are more than happy to raid the shipping and coastal settlements of the kingdoms.