The Dales

The Dales are the most recent territorial acquisition of the crown of Andover, in a quest to find more raw materials for the kingdom's growing urban industry, particularly new sources of granite, rocksalt, and above all firestone, the fuel that keeps the factories burning and the trains running.

The people of Andover have had a more direct acquaintance with the Dales, however, after the Great Salt Storm of 864 that brought crowds of Dalefolk down from their mountain villages to the Seven Towns and other human settlements. The Dalefolk who had not been scoured by the Salt were begrudgingly welcomed, and proved to be a useful labour source in the new northern mine complexes and as dockworkers, though they have been otherwise excluded from Dover society. Many expected they would return back north after the Salt receded up to Mercy again, but in the years since the storm it has lain heavily over the northern Dales, and every year a new village succumbs to the drifting affliction as it continues its southward tide.

Dalefolk have lived since time immemorial in the Dales, but their contact with Dovers has been almost nonexistent besides brief contacts with loggers and rangers making camp in the wilderness. They are viewed with suspicion by people from Andover, seen as not fully human because of their contact with the Salt and their animal-like traits. Some tolerate or like the Dalefolk, but by and large they are an impoverished social group, new to the towns and cities of Andover and with no background in the area; as a result they have trouble finding work, and are seen, perhaps paradoxically, as a kind of invasive group that is plaguing Andover.

Despite the encroaching Salt, many Dalefolk villages remain, given new common names in Andoverish such as Knighton, Kington, Snowy Well, Maddox-on-Wye, and Ironbridge. Knighton is the most southerly of these with the most connections to Andover since the conquest of Dalefolk land, while Snowy Well is the most northerly and isolated. The northern half of the Dales is mountainous and, as the name of the town suggests, prone to long, deep winters. In some parts of the Dales the trees are said to grow nearly as tall as the mountains, creating their own weather systems and with villages built in and around them.

Owing to its wealth of natural resources, there is no doubt Dover influence over the Dales will grow, at the same time the Salt creeps farther and farther south; inevitably, the Dalefolk will be faced with even harder choices in order to survive in a rapidly changing world.