The Definitive Country Almanac: The Southern Holds — Part 2#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 18 September 2026 • Sections 5–8 (Sections 1–4 are in Part 1)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval: proposal throughout, except what Part 1 marks as already in the almanac.

Section 5: Government, Law & Politics#

Constitutional Framework#

The Holds have no constitution, on purpose. They have three things instead:

"The Compact has little authority of its own" (Chapter II). It cannot tax. It cannot command a Hold. What it can do is listed below, and it guards that list jealously.

From the Moot to the Compact#

About 58,000 Holds cannot each send someone to Eldhaven. So they climb:

The Imperial Holds are barred from the Compact by the Imperium, which has forbidden its charter Holds to join since 1856. Eight silent speakers, one from each Imperial district, attend anyway and stand at the back. They have no vote, and everyone listens to them.

What the Compact may do:

• Vote the Wolfsmonth (Chapter IV), which sets tax dates, charter rents and festivals.
• Settle water disputes between Reaches (Chapter III).
• Issue Compact notes for Compact business (Chapter VI).
• Speak for the Holds at the Homeworld Assembly (since 2290).
• Call the Compact Muster, by a two-thirds vote, when Holds are attacked.
• Run the Ember Watch and the Sharing House.
• Negotiate charters and charter debt on behalf of any Hold that asks it to.

The Speaker holds the moot-staff for two years. In AL 2314 that is Wynne of the Hesket line, of Kettleby (Northshore), a Rewriter, whose term ends at the Thaw Moon sitting.

The factions, AL 2314#

The Wolfsmonth question. The last Wolfsmonth was in 2301, and the calendar has drifted about 26 days. The Rewriters want it inserted this year; the Breakers want it delayed a year, which would push every charter rent in the Crown Holds back by a moon, into the harvest. Neither side will say that is the reason.

The Six Reaches (administrative divisions)#

The Adaeze line claims descent from Adaeze Morrow, captain of the Patience*, one of the Three Captains (Chapter IV). So does half the Highland Reach.*

Places in each Reach#

The chartered Holds#

They are Hold-folk too, and they are kin. They are not free.

See the Caldren Crown almanac and the Vardane Imperium almanac.

The Judiciary#

• Moot-justice (Chapter II): the whole Hold hears the case. Most cases end in repair: labour, goods, or a season's extra Hedge duty.
• Between Holds: the Ring, then the Reach-moot, then the Compact.
• Banishment into the Wild is the ultimate penalty, and "in practice it is often a death sentence" (Chapter II).
• Execution is left to the Moots; "most have given it up" (Chapter II). A few hundred Holds in the Southmark and the Bowl still allow it for murder.
• Hospitality is absolute in an ember storm: anyone who reaches the Hold-house must be sheltered, "including an enemy or a charter-warden" (Chapter V).
• No blasphemy law (Chapter V).

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Membership#

• The Homeworld Assembly, since 2290 (Chapter II).
• The Holds keep the Frame Accord and the Quiet Sky Accord.

Relations#

Defence#

The Holds have no army. They have every adult.

Defence spending: about Cr 11 billion a year, raised Hold by Hold. No Hold will pay for another's soldiers, which is why there are almost none.

The Holds' fears (Who's Who): northern rent, northern soldiers, ember storms.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

"Largely self-sufficient farming Holds, plus export of rare earths, grain in good years, and dray-hides. They are heavily indebted to Crown and Imperial banks through seeding charters" (Chapter VI).

Working. 120.8 million × Cr 11,500 = Cr 1.39 trillion. Cr 1.1 trillion ÷ Cr 1.39 trillion = 79%.

Key Industries#

Finance & Banking#

• No central bank. "The Holds Compact issues Compact notes only for Compact business. Everyday money on the frontier is crowns, Imperial marks and credit" (Chapter VI).
• Rovessa Letters are, for many Holds, the only bank there is.
• Seeding-charter futures are traded on the Aletheia Exchange; the Holds say they make frontier farmland "a capital gamble" (Crown almanac).
• The Hold share: each Hold gives the Compact one day's harvest a year. That is the Compact's whole income.

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Eldhaven Ember: "the Holds' leading paper", in Southspeech and moon-dated (Crown almanac).
• Cellular coverage is about 44% of the free Holds (61% in the Crown Holds).
• Hedge signal fires still carry an ember warning faster than any network.

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Dates are in the Hold Reckoning (Chapter IV).

Culinary Traditions#

• Wild bread, processed native food through the Wild-press. It marks poverty in the capital (Chapter II); on the frontier it is simply bread.
• The redmeal, eaten late on red nights (Chapter III); four meals in a 26-hour working day (Chapter I).
• Dray jerky, rift-spring trout, emberscrub honey (from Earthkin bees in the fire gardens), and very little beef.
• Duskberry wine, which "only the Gift-strong can drink" (Crown almanac). On the frontier nearly everyone is Gift-strong.

Arts & Literature#

• Gift-line door marks, painted anew at every Hearth-joining.
• Ember-cloak work: embroidered linings, handed down.
• The Long Run and other call-and-answer songs.
• The Wolf-Rider tales, in many versions (Chapter IV).
• The Eldhaven Ember's serials.
• Literature:
  • The Walk-out, the first frontier novel (AL 1911);
  • Eleven Days, a survivor's account of the Great Burn of 1987;
  • Charter, a play performed at every Thaw Moot, in which a charter-warden seeks shelter in an ember storm.

Sports & Recreation#

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• Ask about the mother. "Kinship, land and the Gift all run through her" (Chapter II).
• Never refuse shelter in an ember storm. To anyone (Chapter V).
• Doors are unlocked within the Hold, and barred against the Wild (Chapter III).
• Every adult may correct any child (Chapter II).
• Say Kethra, Sól, Surtr. Saying Selenne marks you as from the Stair.
• Date by the moon. "The 14th of Sowing Moon, 2314 AL" (Chapter IV).
• Greeting: "Dark sky to thee." Reply: "And to thine."

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Gazetteer#

Every place below is in the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of the Southern Holds gives coordinates.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• The Compact of 1856, with the Peace of Ember Crossing
• The Eldhaven Ember (moon-dated, continuous since 1874)
• The Walk-out (AL 1911)
• Eleven Days (AL 1990)
• Rolls of the Compact: every sitting since 1856

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Introduction · Chapter I · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter V · Chapter VI
• The Caldren Crown almanac and the Vardane Imperium almanac for the chartered Holds
• 10 - Who's Who
• The Southern Holds are an original grouping, so the relationship register has no entry for them.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• A Hold character says Kethra, Sól and Surtr, dates by the moon, and asks about your mother first.
• Free-folk or charter-folk? It is the first fact about any Hold character, and the Gift-line is the second.
• Rewriter or Breaker? Every adult on the frontier has a view on the Charter Reform Bill, and it usually follows their Reach and their debts.
• The frontier is young. A third of the people are children. Everyone expects the future to be theirs.
• The Stair is the north: the Crown, its banks and its charter-wardens. "The Stair wants its rent" means trouble.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).