[Anguirel]

I compared the settlement earlier to early mediaeval London; that's overegging it, but I think that, say, Saxon Nottingham, Oxford or Guilford wouldn't be far out...a more eastern feel I suppose, perhaps a bit like Buda, Hungary, or something similar.

Cobbled streets give way to mud. Older houses and huts give way to groups of tents, large and small. Like Edoras, the settlement's centre is the Hall of the Chieftain.

Many more Ulfings would live in the country than the settlement; perhaps a few thousand would be "urban" (not the right adjective) as opposed to agrarian farmers.

I'm uncertain in my mind myself and would appreciate the opinions of the rest of you...

Now, an NPC who will be needed for a nasty little subplot...

NAME: Torguar, father of Tora

AGE: Believes himself to be about fifty, but is uncertain

RACE: Human, Ulfing.

GENDER: Male.

WEAPONS: Torguar has lived the life of a farmer, not a fighter, but his people were nomadic marauders not so long ago, and if pressed he could handle an axe sufficiently.

APPEARANCE: Torguar stands about four inches above five feet, medium height among the Ulfings. His body is wiry, muscled and burnt by the sun; his face wrinkling and hair greying prematurely due to his hard outdoor life. His voice is deep and slow. He wears simple garments woven from flax, or a white robe if more formal attire is demanded.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Torguar is a very shrewd businessman, and has got a reputation as a man who should not be double-crossed; but he is aware of this, which sometimes makes him bigheaded. He is proud of his children, especially of his fine sons and his grandsons, twin children of his oldest boy; his daughter is slightly overlooked. His wife is extremely quiet, and Torguar probably likes it that way. He is talkative himself, inclined to tell long, inexorable stories which his audience has usually heard before.

HISTORY: Torguar’s father was among the first wave of settlers in the west under Ulfang, but his son, born late in his father’s life, remembers little of him. Nothing much has changed in Torguar’s life, and he probably doesn’t expect that it ever will. He sees the world as a slow, upward struggle, and suspects that although great things will not come to him, they are destined to fall to his descendants, whether grand-children or great-grand-children. With this slow-burning ambition comes piety, and Torguar makes regular offerings of grain to a small ancestor-shrine commemorating his father, and by extension the fathers before him.