Lydias Castle is a plantation within a recently clear-cut tract of the Lumerian Greenwood. It is rich, productive farmland recently reclaimed from an old growth section of the primordial forest, Greenwood the Great. Greenwood the Great is bound together by a nature-bound druidic forces.
Lydias Castle is formally under the command of a local Marcher Baron Ara Lydias, who is a vassal of the Marcher House Lydias (of a more senior branch). Baron Ara Lydias lives in the nearest fortified village, which serves as a staging point and logistical hub for the clearcutting, settlement and plantation efforts being undertaking under the direction of the the Marcher House Lydias to expand and improve its marcher grant from the Ocean Throne. Baron Ara Lydias is also responsible for the recruitment and settlement of pioneers from the Lumerian heartland. Pioneers are granted a cottager status and tract of land to clear. Upon clearing and three seasons of successfully harvesting, they are granted yeoman status. Cottagers owe a labor tax to the Baron two days a month to assist with clear-cutting, building roads, bridges, drainage and irrigation canals and other works to improve the plantation's infrastructure and economy. Yeoman are granted exemptions from these obligations, but are still required to muster monthly for drills and serve in the militia that protects Lydias Castle.
Pioneers are largely recruited from the Head Count of Lume and the second sons of freeholders and lesser baronry of the Lumerian Hinterlands looking to make their fortune, gain an inheritance or dowerage or start a new life. They also are recruited from amongst those exiled by various Lumerian feudal courts (a favorite punishment in lieu of a wergild or inability to pay a fine).
For the task of recruitment, Baron Ara has partnered with a local priest from the Order of Pardoners. The Pardoners have been granted a charter by the Ocean Throne to offer pardons throughout the Lumerian Empire to those exiled by feudal courts. The Order of Pardoners offers terms of indenture, whereby