Drusmere, the Home of Song
Downriver from the bridge-fortress of Andronis, where the dry chaparral gives way to deep seasonal forest, stands a city the rest of the frontier regards with something between affection and envy. Drusmere began as a logging camp — a temporary outpost thrown up to cut the great timbers for a bridge downstream — but the forest proved too rich, the river too kind, and the music too sweet to leave. Loggers brought families, craftsmen followed, a joy-loving priesthood gathered the festivals, and the camp crystallized into the timber capital of the southeast and the one place on the continent where music is taught as a craft. To the soldiers of Andronis, Drusmere is where you go when the war is done, to remember what life tastes like.
Where the Forest Sings
Drusmere is the opposite of its stern elder sibling in every way that shows. Its markets are loud with color and sound; its air carries woodsmoke, roasted nuts, steamed sap-bread, and resin incense. The river is the city's spine, wide and powerful, crossed by the long wooden-and-stone Drusmere Bridge with its carved posts and tollhouses built in the shape of giant instruments. Upstream lie the Log Fields — acres of floating timber in holding ponds, fed into great sawmills — for this is the unmatched source of oak and beech and maple, of resin and pitch and charcoal, and of the rare specialty woods prized for instruments and bows. The Drusmer treat responsible harvest as a civic duty; the forest that feeds them is not to be squandered.
The College of Music
Drusmere's true secret weapon is not its timber but its song. Here stands the College of Music — the only formal music academy on the continent, its halls arranged like the frame of a great harp, ringed by open-air theatres and sound-gardens where the wind itself plays hidden chimes. It draws bards, court performers, wandering storytellers, ritual musicians, and instrument-makers from every corner of the world, and sends its graduates out to be courted by every major city for their festivals and their diplomacy. The College lifts Drusmere's name far beyond what a town of its size could ever earn.
Dreamers and Drummers
The Drusmer answer to two fond nicknames, and embrace them both. They are dreamers — artistic, wandering, a little absent-minded — and they are drummers, for rhythmic work-songs and the beat of portable frame-drums echo through the logging forests from dawn to dusk. Beneath the whimsy runs a current of honest labor, deep craft-pride, and a spiritual bond with the woods. Their faith is the Ruby worn as Charakyra, the Joymaiden — bright, musical, and emotionally open, a worship of joy and creation and rhythm in which music itself is devotion.
The Gentle Counterweight
For all its softness, Drusmere is not defenceless. It cannot field armies like Daskilon or Andronis, but its militia of woodsmen archers — bearing longbows of their own exceptional lumber — are shockingly effective: masters of ambush, high-ground shooting, and the fighting retreat through underbrush, valued by Andronis as scouts and marksmen on campaign. In return for that protection, and for the senior Andros officer who sits as arbiter of its disputes, Drusmere gives timber, instruments, and a calmer, more joyful identity — the gentle counterweight to Andronite discipline. Loyal the Drusmer are; but cowed, never. They guard their music as fiercely as Andronis guards its bridge.
