Trelalee

Trelalee is a bedroom hamlet to Brigantia sporting maybe 6,000 people.

It’s located in a fen, a swamp, and was once the ancestral home of goblinkind. Man liked the area’s natural resources and eventually went to war with the goblins, ousting them from the territory. All of this came to a head in Crestfall: a goblinoid/human war that took place sixteen years prior to the current time where most of my stories take place.

Trelalee is a protectorate of Brigantia. That just means that Trelalee doesn’t have a standing military of its own - just local town guards - and relies on Brigantia for protection; kind of a big deal if irate goblinkind are always nipping at your heels. It’s a nice arrangement for Brigantia as Brigantia can exert political and commercial influence over Trelalee, but not everyone thinks that’s an ideal arrangement.

In Aevalorn Tales, there’s a scene in the 14th episode where I write about Isaiah, Gammond’s handler with the Thieves Guild, looking at a painting depicting Trelalee’s rescue at Crestfall by Brigantian forces. The subtext of the scene is that Isaiah, like most in Trelalee, resents being under Brigantia’s boot and that Brigantia wields far too much influence and meddles in their affairs. Foreshadowing here, but one day, that relationship is going to come to a head.

Trelalee is the home of Fenwater Abbey and the Sisters of Siena, the Watermaidens. It’s also home to the Iron Cages - a terrible prison.

I depict Trelalee as a rainy, wet, mosquito-infested, water-logged slough, and it really is, but its surrounding farmland and topsoil are extremely important to Brigantia; Trelalee is like Brigantia’s breadbasket. You have to feed 40,000 people somehow, and they depend on the farmers of Trelalee.

My first stories took place there with Bartram, Gammond, and Jore. I like the idea of this setting and I’ll frequently return to it when I want to write about thieves, goblins, the goblin wars, or Brigantia’s political strife.