The Province of Arodil
More than half of all the produce sold or traded in Atla is grown in the province of Arodil. Because of the diversity of the landscape, with mountain ranges running both north/south and east/west near the borders, many growing niches have been established allowing the province to supply not only the greatest quantity of anywhere on Atla, but also the greatest variety.
It isn’t so much the shape of the province, but its boundary locations that are immediately awkward when looking at a map. So, with the northern portion of the Bedrin mountain range acting as the provinces center, it would be impossible to tell of Arodil’s past without understanding the history of the other provinces as well.
Long before the Provincial Empire was established, the lands of Arodil were used as they are today–for growing a variety of crops. However, before any shipping and distribution infrastructure had been implemented on Atla each community grew for its own population. Trade between the cities was limited to relatively close communities usually during annual festivals. The land at the edge of the provinces current borders was actually part of other major cities including Bedrin, Floran and more. The awkward border of the province was formed when the Provincial Council separated the ‘fingers’ of the province from their former cities. The land gained by the ‘fingers of Arodil’ totals around fifty percent the areas original size.
When the Provincial Empire began its rule and the borders of each province were being established, little resistance was made to designate the fields which once belonged to separate cities into a singly governed land. Resistance was light due in part to their distance from the cities that had control of them before. Bedrin was the first city to agree, as the land proved more trouble than it was worth (it was separated from the city by many kilometers and a mountain range). When the provinces were formed, Arodil’s fingers were extended to include the more select and unique growing areas. Today, Arodil is not only known as the breadbasket of the world, but to many, the berry and rice capital of the world too.
Some have said that Arodil suffers from an identity crisis, that it has no real history of its own. But ask any of the locals who have lived near Arodil city for more than a few years and it becomes obvious almost immediately that this land has more to it than fields of corn and cotton.
One of the most recent events to be written in all the history books is that of a famine which threatened thousands of lives across Atla. What makes it more unique and tragic is the fact that it could have easily been avoided. The cause of the tragedy? A family feud and profits war.
It all started 125 years ago, with the provinces firmly in place, when the people of Arodil had already settled into their routine. Just north of Arodil city the two largest farms of the time were run by a Mr. Pocono and Mr. Dutch. Both men ran farms over 10,000 square acres and employed hundreds of workers to help maintain their prospering fields. What initially started as a mistake during a typical day quickly grew into a war of sabotage and bidding for the rest of Atla’s mig.
Mr. Dutch and Mr. Pocono had been successfully selling more produce than any other farms on Atla (with a quiet rivalry between the two men starting as far back as their youth during the time their fathers were rivals). For decades it seemed each farm was equally successful at turning a profit. But this was a time when, though the Provincial Council had been in place for over 100 years, the buying and distribution organizations of today were nonexistent. At the time, it was up to individual sellers (usually owners of large scale grocery market chains) to make their own arrangements. The Provincial Council only had a set of suggestions and guidelines for the buyers and sellers to be aware of (with only minor fines and punishment for breaking). In fact, it wasn’t usually until a harvest drew near that the farmers had any idea of to whom they would be selling their goods. It took the Provincial Council over 100 years before they realized (and even then it was only because of the public demand for something more organized) something needed to be done.
The Association of Atla Buyers and Distributers, or the AABD was formed in 122EM to begin the reformation of Atla’s production and distribution infrastructure. A woman representing the AABD was sent on the organization’s first order of business to set up the first contract. Her job was to formalize a buying and distributing plan for FreePort (the first area to enter into the multi-province trade deal along with the AABD’s creation). She was to meet with Mr. Pocono and draw up a contract for a five year period to supply FreePort and surrounding areas.
After a long journey from the AABD’s headquarters which at the time was located in Feldorse, the woman reached Arodil weary and exhausted (This being many years before any quick transportation, not just the railcart, had been created). After a short rest she made the journey north of Arodil city to the farmlands where Pocono’s farm was located. Traveling alone, she was forced to use the assistance of the locals to get around the vast city. Under the guidance of a local on his way north, a man who owned and ran the city’s largest mill, she was dropped off in the middle of an endless dirt road with infinite rows of grain on either side of her. The man she rode with is said to have told her only ‘this is the spot’ then quickly set off with his team of horses. Looking around the fields she found two farmhouses, one on either end of the road. Luckily for her, they were both marked by large signs near the homes. The west sign said “Pocono Ranches” and the east sign “Dutch Acres”. A short distance ahead a man was crossing from the Dutch side towards the Pocono farm. Figuring the man to be Mr. Pocono, she approached him.
Word spread quickly through the close-knit farming community that Mr. Dutch had secured an arrangement with the AABD to sell his farming goods, an agreement that would absolutely secure his financial future. When people found out it was meant for Mr. Pocono however, the long time rivalry between the two men turned from a neighborly competition into a full blown feud that quickly enveloped not only the two families, but the friends and farming community and eventually Arodil and all of Atla too.
At first the attacks were harmless, nothing more than shouting matches and name calling between the men. This was nothing new, as name calling and general hostility were common between both families for as long as they had been able to talk. After the deal, Mr. Pocono claimed Mr. Dutch had purposefully manipulated the woman and tricked him out of endless mig. People in the cities and towns soon joined sides in the matter. Where before the arguments were just part of daily life, now the implications and effects behind the arguments involved more than just the two men. Citizens began to enforce bans to keep the ‘unwanted’ of either faction out of the divided areas in Arodil city.
After approximately one year of growing hostilities the cities and towns became completely divided, with walls erected to claim and protect land from the ‘others’. Violence between citizens (the bans the citizens enacted were not violent initially) followed soon after as vandals or even oblivious citizens, were caught on the wrong side of the city at the wrong time.
Sometime in the middle of the year 125EM the first death from the feud was recorded. A man from the Pocono Warriors (as they called themselves) was caught diverting a small irrigation water source from Dutch lands. Young men from the Dutch Brigade found the Pocono man in the middle of the night as he was digging and began beating him. When the dust settled, the Dutch men realized they had killed the man–crushed his skull–and quickly left the body.
After the first death the feud turned into all out war. Death was no longer a final barrier or hurdle that couldn’t be crossed. And local authorities were unable to stop the escalating violence for one major reason: the local authorities were involved with the war just as much as anyone else. When the local authorities took sides in the war, the news spread almost overnight throughout the rest of Atla.
But the occasional murder wasn’t the only thing that had captured the attention of the surrounding provinces. Crop destruction had become the preferred battle plan. The plan was simple: no crops on one side meant all the mig for the other. The AABD’s arrangement meant nothing if Mr. Dutch didn’t have anything to sell. With both sides destroying the crops of his neighbor, neither farm was producing enough to sell.
With both farms of well over 10,000 acres nearly destroyed, a major source of Atla’s food was gone. Two years followed with growing violence and shrinking harvests. The years from 125 PM to 128 PM were known as the grain and corn famine throughout most of Atla. With no right and wrong side for Atlans to choose from, both sides held equal power throughout the Atla. By 127 PM citizens on every street corner were arguing about who they felt to be right. And the citizens weren’t the only ones involved; politicians and government officials appealed to the people, basing their political agendas off of whichever family a given city seemed to stand behind. So while all this was happening, people across Atla were too busy arguing over the crop issues to grow their own food. And those that still were would only sell to those who aligned themselves with the family the grower was aligned with. With so much turmoil and contention covering nearly the whole of Atla the grain and corn output of the entire nation was a meager 15% of the years before the feud. Only the largest cities or the smallest that still grew their own crops entirely were able to stay the effects.
Across the rest of Atla prices quickly soared to 100 times that of just a few years prior. People with stockpiles of corn or oats were able to buy houses for only a bag or two of either good. And small villages that once used only what they grew found the allure of selling their goods for so much mig too enticing to pass by. And soon the smaller cities that sold their grain found they had piles of money but no food.
It took a decade after the worst year of the famine before the war was settled by the Grand Provincial Police and production returned to even 50% of what it was years before. By the war’s end hundreds if not more were dead and both men were placed in prison for the rest of their lives. Since then, and due almost entirely to the results of the war, the AABD has changed its policies dramatically (including its client identification) and now works with numerous smaller organizations to keep the flow of produce as smooth as possible. The Pocono and Dutch farms are still in operation and in the same location. And though they are still major producers, the acreage of each has been cut in half (not as a result of the war) and other large farms across Atla have further decreased their monopolies. In the one hundred plus years since the war ended, the two families have become close friends.
As for the rest of Atla, the reality of the nation’s situation finally registered once the people were starving. Those who quickly jumped into the debates because it was a fashionable thing to do, realized they had no claim to either farm and no way of knowing what had happened other than a distant word of mouth. So when families began to starve the AABD stepped in immediately (at the citizen’s forceful request) and the debate was put aside in order to grow what was needed. However, the destruction to the farmlands even outside of Arodil was so complete that it took those ten years before the farms were actually producing. A branch of the military was even formed during the time to ensure uprisings such as this would not get out of control. The Homeland Agricultural Security Force, a group which now makes up about 5000 soldiers is located in Arodil and responds to any such matters before they get out of control. Since the branches creation they have been called into action three times and every time the ‘farmers revolt’ has been stopped.
