Allemance

The caravan has rolled through pleasant weather for days. Judging by the blue sky and the soft breeze rolling across the hills ahead? Today will be just the same. You can hear distant laughter shouted by a gaggle of wolf pups playing in the field. The noonday sun warms your face, and the smell of pine and clean soil fills your nostrils. 

Welcome to Allemance.

The Lupine Kingdom of Allemance (ALLaymahnse or ALLehmanse) is the Beast World’s green heart. Its plains are framed by mountains: the northern Mantle and the southern Bêtemère. These peaks have blessed the homeland with verdant pastures in a wide river basin. In the northeast, birches and elms cast gentle shade on the region of Glasrún for hundreds of miles. 

Beasts know Allemance for its open vastness. Its domain covers a third of the Beast World, around 360,000 square miles. Arneria’s Beylik and Bat’yan rival it in size, but the reason for the kingdom’s reputation is obvious when one stands at the Louvain Peninsula’s edge and takes in the pastoral expanse of farmland on the horizon. 

The Allemagnian (or “Alley”) north has mild summers and long autumns, while the wineries in the south enjoy warm days well into October. Most towns see snow at least once a season, and occasional squalls drop on Alley northerners. 

Almost 7 and a quarter million people reside in Allemance. Equines favor its open space and find peaceful work on angus farmlands. Bovine farmers live on fields and ranches passed down through countless generations. Canines, and principally wolves, are Allemance’s most common species. A wolf queen sits on its throne in the capital city of Louvain and they also make up most of its nobility.

Fertility of the Green Hills

Under the green grass, black soil teems with nutrients. Forgiving winters and a gentle rainy season have made Allemance the breadbasket of the Beast World. Life is uncomplicated for the Alley people, and feeding the world has won Allemance’s nobility generational wealth. 

The Alley diet is a diverse blend of milk, meat, grain, and vegetables. In the north, Allemagnian wheat fields sway in the breeze from the road’s edge out over the horizon. The barons of the southern hills tend rolling vineyards. Their sweet wine is served at the most distant caravanserai dinner parties. 

Pastoral Homesteads  

Allemance’s farming villages are the gems in Queen Sophia’s crown. Each of these settlements is made up of a few families of equines, bovines, and anyone else looking for a life of crisp air and honest work. Any route through Allemance passes through dozens of tiny circles of farmhouses, each with a stone bethel standing in the center. 

The Alley farm village is an ancient, enduring thing; residents work the same plot of farmland their ancestors did. During the sowing season, visiting equines help till the fields and prepare the crops in exchange for room and board. In autumn, another family traveling through helps with the harvest. The wandering horses are familiar faces year after year, a part of each community to which they lend their work. Life moves at the pace of rising corn stalks. Young lovers become old grandparents. Generations pass with the same families as neighbors. 

A cooperative spirit prevails in rural Allemance, but a rumor spreads and lingers. A broken-hearted teenager or slighted matriarch can ignite a feud that lasts decades. Small town politicians wear humbler clothes, but their web of intrigue is just as intricate as in any royal parlor. 

Villages might be a full day’s ride from their nearest neighbor, but they’re far from isolated. An Alley farmer knows every village thirty miles in any direction, and the names of each family in them. The Dungeon’s monsters and supernatural dangers become more frequent every season, so this web of small town familiarity has become a crucial network of support. 

Children of a Blessed Land

Whether planning a journey or weighing the risks of a decision, Allemagnians typically believe things will work out for the best. More cynical Alleys demonstrate this as pride or self-assured pessimism. However, most are quick to remind another that gloomy weather can’t last forever. 

Allemagnians value relationships above anything else. An ambitious Alley is looking to win friends and lovers, and good company is its own prosperity. This culture is the ideal climate for politics. Barons and farmers alike love to play games of intrigue for friends and favors. 

Polychronic

Allemance is a polychronic culture. Alleys work on several tasks at the same time, fluidly transitioning between them. A polychronic sense of time is based on where someone is and who they’re with. Where someone else might arrange an appointment for 10:30 AM, an Allemagnian proposes meeting “a little after lunch.” If one of them finishes lunch early, they socialize while they wait for the other. A polychronic mindset focuses on moment-to-moment priorities instead of durations, appointments, and schedules. Work, socializing, and family intermingle throughout one’s day. 

The flow of Allemagnian life can be hard for an outsider to understand. The strict orderliness of Causeway Arnerians and Vinyotian focus clash with an Allemagnian’s loose schedule. One might think an Allemagnian is lazy or absentminded, but it’s only a different rhythm—a winding path to the same destination. 

It Takes a Village

Allemagnians share life deeply with those around them. The barriers of exclusive family and partnership seem lonely to most Allemagnians. If raising children is the sole responsibility of their parents, an Alley laments their missed opportunity to learn from living with their neighbors. 

Allemagnians don’t separate their public and private lives. Polyamory runs deep in both rural and urban society; an Alley might be openly romantic with multiple companions at once. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, but it isn’t considered a declaration of love for only one person. The freedom and honesty of loving whoever one chooses is recognized over the security that comes from mutual partnership. 

Most Alley children live in the homes of their parents’ closest friends as much as their own. They are cared for, educated, and disciplined by all of the adults in their lives. Alley delvers returning home are given a homecoming by all of their childhood guardians, whether parents or longtime neighbors. In Allemance, family and community blend together. 

This collective stewardship and polyamorous life is common among all Allemagnians, with a notable exception: the nobility. While the notion of “owning” one’s children and spouse is an alien concept to a commoner, it is crucial to Allemance’s feudal structure. Alley nobles are exclusive to a single spouse, and the union often grants their family some political advantage. 

Art & Music

The Beast World’s tastemakers live and create in Alley cities. Sharp-eyed rabbit and squirrel fashion designers and musicians drink from a well of inspiration provided by foreign traders and travelers. Celerine-designed clothing hangs in street corner boutiques and on every stylish urbanite’s shoulders. The sixth-generation royal tailor Zoé Adler is famous for reminding courtiers, “fashion is an Alley-rabbit alchemy, and research is ongoing.” 

Allemagnian artists often work under the patronage of the nobility, which shapes the subjects and themes of their creations. Promising young talent is often whisked off from a little village to Louvain for years of expensive study in the fine arts. A lord funds the artist’s education and keeps them to later create masterpieces glorifying their domain and raising their status in the court. 

Sculpting haughty old nobles’ faces isn’t the only opportunity for a gifted Allemagnian, though. Aspiring performers set up artist camps alongside trade roads to show off for foreign caravans. Wealthy travelers might “adopt” an artist, bringing them along to see to their needs while they express their gifts. These roadside art communes are grateful for any coin a bypasser tosses their way, as it allows them another precious day to live among their contemporaries. 

The Simmers

When the fields are all sown, Allemance’s people spring to life. In the summer months, equine farmhands set off to roam through vast fields of wildflowers, while young city celerines chatter in large groups in the bright sun. Fathers bring their sons along on journeys to neighboring towns, just for the sake of the walk. The Beast World’s most cherished art and music is composed in loft studios during balmy Alley summers. Every subject of the realm sees these long, hot days as a chance to grow themselves alongside their fields. 

The restlessness of midsummer boils over after dusk. On some summer nights, stars cascade across the sky like glittering silk in the blue expanse. On others, rain clouds billow across Allemance and pull a blanket of rain over the evening. People revel in heat and moonlight regardless of the weather. The music of late-night parties pours out of barn doors and city dance halls alike. 

Many Allemagnians describe the urge to erupt in activity during summer as “the simmers.” Foreigners aren’t excluded either—anyone is liable to be pulled into the whirlwind of summer nightlife. Travelers keen to celebrate take every opportunity when spending July in Allemance. Others pay a premium to sleep safely away from the tyranny of extroverts. 

The Lupine Throne

Allemance is a feudal monarchy with matrilineal primogeniture, meaning the eldest daughter inherits the throne. The current queen is the unmarried Sophia Andolesia VI, who sits on the Lupine Throne in Louvain. Sophia is a popular monarch who earned the love of her people fighting in the Invader War fifteen years ago. Before her coronation, Sophia put her monastic training to use on the front lines of the battlefield. After the war, Allemagnians remembered her personal devotion. Her ascension was met with fanfare throughout her domain. Today she holds the most loyal court in generations. 

Over time, the kingdom has consolidated what was once a complex web of feudal liege lords. Today, only the knights in her service and the barons and baronesses of her domain sit in Sophia’s court. Each baron oversees their own smaller court of mayors, who govern individual towns and villages. Knights appointed by Sophia serve at her direct pleasure and command the military levies raised by barons from their own holdings. 

Sophia is a benevolent ruler, but the lords of Allemance are unpredictable. Conniving lords used the work from a brethren population explosion to line their own pockets. They hide their overworked serfs from the eyes of the Crown, as well as the discerning gaze of the goddess Dramphine’s justice. The Queen’s popularity and some barons’ cruelty provoke a friction in the lower class that grows by the day 

Royal Coffers

Nobles own almost everything. Families live on the same land for centuries, with lineage and traditions older than the throne itself. Yet, they have only tilled the earth throughout this history when the lord renting the land to them permits it. The barons of Allemance centralize wealth within their domains, and the queen centralizes it into the royal coffers. Allemance is the richest domain in the Beast World, thus Sophia is the richest beast. 

Throughout Allemance’s history, the nobility has performed an ongoing balancing act for commoners. They keep taxes low, and a relaxed workload placates the peasants. In return, the serfdom stays willfully ignorant to their machinations. Life in Allemance is easy, so there’s no need to worry about power for now. 

The Delve in Allemance

There is absolutely no understating it: Allemagnians love the Delve. They love the clothes. They love the stories. They love the danger. Alley commoners are fascinated by the idea of self-made warriors wandering the countryside, helping those in need. When the Dungeon appears near a city, you might pick Alleys out of the crowd by looking for anyone trying to look concerned while hiding an excited smile. 

Unfortunately, the Dungeon is also common in the homeland. Allemance has everything it needs to flourish: towns large enough to spread the word, but not so large that it means an all-out monster war. It appears in Bêtemère mountain caves, in soil burrows in the hills, and underneath the homes of unlucky urban Alleys. 

Ruins from the Mantle War are scattered throughout northern Allemance. The Dungeon often transforms collapsed fortresses and old lookout posts into sprawling underground mazes made of the same masonry. The other proper “dungeons” are those carefully attracted by vampires, who seem to benefit somehow from having a labyrinth underneath their forgotten castles. Perhaps these demonic servants know something about the Dungeon that others don’t. 

Pirhouanism in Allemance

The Alley bethel is always open for someone seeking a friend’s company. A bethel is the largest building in a small town, and it serves as a religious center, hospital, community gathering place, and emergency shelter. The structure itself is also often a windmill or communal oven. Urban bethels demarcate a neighborhood for taxes and serve as a government building as well. 

The bethel is where children learn reading and mathematics, and where elders play raucous parlor games (when they aren’t gossiping about anyone who isn’t present). The bethelkeeper oversees all this, offering guidance, laughter, and support. 

In Allemance, Pirhoua is the goddess of life, love, and the harvest. Alley clerics are the gentlest of any sect, serving as a bedrock of peace in a delving crew. They take playful advantage of their chaste, stuffy-clothed reputation. They play pranks and love to laugh at shocked reactions to a bawdy joke or cheeky gesture. Alley Pirhouans believe that gratitude for the gift of willfulness is best paid by living a big, joyful, colorful life. 

The First Divine Charge: Family

Allemagnians grow their communities by rearing lots of kids. In fact, much of Pirhouanism in the homeland is related to children. The farmhouse of an Alley Pirhouan bursts with them—children who live there, and those from anywhere within walking distance. 

City Pirhouans are just the same. Louvain’s most aristocratic celerine fashion-queens do their design work before a gallery of rambunctious pups and kittens bounding in and out of the studio. Every Alley city is a playground for goofy gangs of juveniles. They hang around their local bethel or anywhere else willing to let them loiter around. 

The Second Divine Charge: Love

The Alley sect gives a simple command: “express the love you feel.” By demonstrating it, the Beast Mother’s merciful nature shines through a person. They express this love in familial bonds, romantic and sexual love, and in charity toward a stranger. 

Devout Pirhouans of other sects are sometimes surprised by how flirty and permissive Alley visitors are; this even causes friction with some more chaste Vinyotian bethelkeepers. They wonder how an Alley can keep focused on Pirhoua and three romantic partners at once. The very question confuses the Allemagnian—doesn’t one focus empower the other? 

The Third Divine Charge: Indulgence

Pirhouans teach Allemance to indulge in the blessings and pleasures of life. Countryside towns throw raucous parties for every occasion or no occasion at all. Alley Pirhouans don’t need the finest wine, so long as there is plenty enough for everyone. 

Allemagnians are often flighty and frivolous by reputation. To the typical Alley, the most important thing is keeping the road easy and everyone smiling. If the field work takes an extra few hours, but everyone gets to eat cinnamon rolls while they’re still warm… cinnamon rolls are the plan.