Overview
The Duchy of Cornwall is situated in the southwest corner of Albion, with Cymrija at its western border. Cornwall’s name comes from the Imperial “Cornovii”, meaning hill dwellers, and “Waelas”, meaning strangers.
Cornwall’s landscape consists of rugged granite moorlands that roll across the countryside, majestic cliffs that rise up out of the harsh seas and small villages in amongst the small, secretive coves scattered along its coastline.
The soil is relatively poor and as a consequence the people have always looked to the seas for the majority of their food. The Cornish people even use some of the local seaweed in their cooking. Cornwall is famous for harbouring significant metal and clay deposits which, not surprisingly, lead to a thriving mining industry in the Duchy.
The Cornish people are fiercely independent and some see their loyalty to Cornwall first and to Albion second. They are wary of outsiders – whether they are foreign or from Albion’s other duchies – and this has lead to tension between the Crown and the Cornish in the past.
Life In Cornwall
Farming
The crops are based on the diet of the area. Wheat, grains, apples etc. Many farms have close links with the sea for example as a type of Fertiliser they use seaweed and sand and sometimes fishbone. Livestock is as anywhere.. Sheep, Cows and domesticated Boar… But Cornwalls most famous export is their famous products is cider and ale!
Mines
Cornwall has many mines, from which we extract tin. They’re not deep – maybe 10 yards underground – so they don’t go anywhere near the depths of the Underdark.
They use caves mainly by the sea, and the bulk of our mining is panning and collecting rock ore from beaches, cliffs etc. One of Cornwalls best known mines inland is at South Crofty, ten miles from the Land’s End. It’s twelve metres long and seven metres under the ground.”
The Faerie Folk
The knockers are spirits of the mining caves; a lively bunch who are more naughty than bad. Despite their mischief they appreciate generosity and if pleased by tributes left for them mayl reward miner with good luck and a full bucket at the end of the day. Woe betide those miners who anger the knockers however, for they are seldom seen again.
Above ground, the wilds of Cornwall are plagued by the spriggan. These mischievous sprites try to avoid human company unless it is to play cruel practical jokes on unsuspecting passers by. Although normally only a few inches tall, it is within their power to grow to six foot in height and strike with enormous strength. Recently the spriggans have been acting out of character and it is thought that the Greenman is controlling them.
The Wrecker Villages
On any tempestuous coastline, there will be those who make their living by salvage from what they find day to day washed up. Flotsam and jetsam provide them with saleable goods, or sometimes, there will be a major storm, and a whole ship will be washed ashore and before the local lord’s man gets there, parts of its cargo will disappear.
Some people don’t like the uncertainty of waiting for a violent enough storm to cause a ship to beach itself, so they help the procedure along by lighting beacon fires in the wrong place, extinguishing correct beacons and so on. After all, if you are a ship’s captain, and you know that the Pendrinn light means that there are shallows out for an awfully long distance, you’ll sail well clear of it. If you know that the Marazion Light signifies when you’re far enough past the rocks to turn in to the port, you’ll bring your ship around … and if the Marazion Light is extinguished, and another one lit a mile down the coast, you might well turn too early and stove in your sides on the rocks of the headland. And then the wreckers come.
The villages of the wreckers don’t differentiate between the worship of the ancestors and worship of the elements. When the wind blows hard, and the sea rides high, and the false beacon burns on the treacherous rocks, the wreckers know that bounty is coming … so they worship the fire, the earth, the air and the water; seeing them personified in Wrecker heroes.
Ancestral Influences
Cornwall is a land suspended between the sea and the sky. The whole landscape is one of borders … and there are no borders with straight lines here! Standing on the windswept cliffs the power and majesty of the elements – The Elements – is plain to behold, and it should come to no surprise that the spirits of sea and cliff and storm are much worshiped. The names of Mannanan and Taranis command much power here. Like the geography, the borders between the elements and the spirits are not straight either … and the division between mage and incantor is perhaps less clear in Cornwall than anywhere else in Albion.
In ascendance over the spirits of the wilds however is worship of Igraine; who some name as mother to the Pendragon. She is seen as a guardian of Cornwall and a protector of its people; and is as much as symbol of freedom and she is an ancestor. To the Cornish Igraine is at once healer, fierce protector and guardian of the spirits of those who pass over.