A Haven refers to the numerous scattered Greenwealder settlements throughout the Baronies. Anything smaller than the notable towns is generally referred to as a haven but most of them tend to be hamlets and villages of a few hundred individuals at most. Havens are tight knit communities that include a wide variety of folk bound together by the daily struggle that is life in the Weald. By this same nature, Havens tend to be insular and strange, each one warped and bent by its own superstitions, threats and history. It would be entirely valid for two Havens from different sides of the same Barony to have different accents, attitudes and even understandings of the Spheres.
As a band, a Haven reflects the local leaders who have travelled to the Summit to represent their own piece of the Weald, to ensure that their concerns are listened to and to seek out any advantage for their besieged settlement. Bands accept any Greenweald character style or archetype and represent a group joined by shared struggle and investment in a shared people rather than professional acumen.
The core of a Haven concept is built around the ideas of place, threat, superstition and hope. These are all elements that will help you fully understand your home but also how it fits into the Weald as a whole both being a part of creation and play of your characters and band.
- Place refers to the idea that your Haven is most of your life, these people are your friends, neighbours, rivals and comrades. It is likely that you spend much of your off-screen time with them if not near them. Building a strong sense of what that life is like and bringing it to play will make the bond all the stronger.
- Threat refers to the dangers that the Weald puts against your Haven. These could be subversive and passive (a curse that rests upon your town or a sickness) or active and threatening (a common monster or dangerous human threat). Havens exist as places of protection as much as they are places of community and knowing these threats can colour your backstory and character as well as how they act at Summit and beyond.
- Superstition refers to the unique local customs that form in out-of-the-way places. These may be as simple as eating a pinch of salt each morning for good health through all the way to complex seasonal rituals that border on heretical. Regardless these superstitions should be active and present in your play to bind you back to your Haven and bind your Haven together.
- Hope refers to both an active sense of aspiration and the passive endurance of the Haven. Perhaps your Haven is just trying to make it through until the Winter Festival of the Rain and each year is a trial to that point, or perhaps your Haven has the hope to become truly known for a great structure. A Havens hope and how it shows that pushes them forward and holds them together.
Creating a Haven
Out-of-Character
When you create a Haven there are three primary decisions that need to be made, the rest of the concept will hang off these ideas. All of which also go to support the four pillars of place, threat, superstition and hope.
Where is your Haven based?
More so than a Guilder, the location of a Haven is very important. The primary thing that binds your members together is that they all reside in the same Haven, so being able to point to the map and say ‘we’re here, on the outskirts of Wolstad’ is very important. This also goes hand-in-hand with an understanding of what your Haven is. Is it barely fifty hunters in a fortified camp in the Ravensreach? Is it a large farming community of two hundred souls harvesting Hartswood? Working out what your players' investments are and working them into your understanding of the Haven can bring this image to functional-life.
What is the history of your Haven?
Like any good character backstory, you want the most important elements. Why is your Haven where it is, doing what it does? What notable tragedies and victories have befallen your Haven? How have all these elements left a mark on your Haven and its people? All of these questions go together to help understand your Haven’s threats, hopes and superstitions.
What marks people of your Haven from other Havens?
Due to a Haven’s nature as a community, it can often be hard to tell at a glance what binds a group together. But collective aesthetics and actions are essential for feeling connected with other characters and elevates a group from theoretical to impactful. Having a symbol for your Haven worn on everyone's clothes, perhaps a particular style of clothes or a particular colour, or even something as extreme as matching scars or tattoos can bind you together. Active superstitions support this as well. Is there a traditional greeting for your people? A traditional hearth blessing? Or even a fighting style? These active elements can help ground your character in their Haven and show it off to others.
You may submit your Haven through the Band submission link found Here. Your Haven may both be a Band and a Sect. A Haven requires a minimum of three founding members to complete the Bless the Warhost Ceremony to be recognised by both the event and to be a functional Haven in-world.
In-Character
There are no requirements for a Haven to come into being from an In-Character perspective. People are free to settle wherever they can within the Baronies. But it is worthy to introduce yourselves to your Baron.
Joining a Haven
The main requirement for a character to join a Haven is that they live there. The best way to represent this is through their personal investment, having it be based in or around the Haven and be directly related to the function of the settlements (a business as the Haven Smith, a military investment that is the village Militia and so on). It is common for Haven’s to have their own superstitions around membership and perhaps they may have secret rites or knowledge to be imparted, but these will vary from Haven to Haven. Characters joining a Haven in play should spend appropriate funds to move their investment to the Haven.
Havens tend to take all characters into their midst, provided they support the Haven, its goals and unique circumstances. It is worth noting that there can be too much of a good thing. If your Haven is represented by five people, four of which are Huntsmarshalls, you don’t have a Haven, you have a weird Guilder. Importantly, Havens are the people of the Weald, so it is very fitting to have plenty, if not a majority of your characters be non-archetype. Your characters should be the leaders of that Haven (so it makes sense that many of them would be Archetypes) but non-archetypes are very valid.
It is important to note that Havens are still private groups for players to create and manage. If you want to join a Haven in play you should always discuss this with the players (not characters) of that Haven. Simply creating a character with an investment in that Haven and being from the Haven without discussing that with the players of the Haven is not allowed.
Leadership in a Haven
Havens elect a single autocratic leader, known as a ‘Hargrave’. Hargraves is the head of the settlement, ruling on disputes, calling councils, being the final decision on new entrants and representing the Haven when circumstances require it. Hargraves by their nature are often very political and respected figures and the nature of the Hargrave often says much about the Haven itself. For example, a Haven where warriors are typically elected may reflect a Haven that is constantly under threat or sees its warriors as a great export.
Hargraves rule until they die or step down in most cases, a relic from the old system of Barons. It is not unheard of for a Hargrave to be pressured to step down but this is rare. The title is not inherited but to be the child of a Hargrave is a great method to gain experience of the position. Hargrave elections are conducted in a similar method as a Greenweald ‘dark vote’ that determines the Baron, but with only the members of the Haven taking part.
Finally, in most Havens, it is common practice that a Hargrave not be a member of the five guilds. It is generally thought that the work of a Houndspriest, Huntsmarshall, Ritter or Krow Doktor is essential to the good function of a Haven, their work will either drag them away from the responsibilities of a Hargrave or the reverse, which endangers everyone. In times of danger it is not unheard of for one of these archetypes to take up the role temporarily, but only for short periods of time after the unfortunate death of a Hargrave.