All across the Wenigzustand, and at every level of almost every society, you may encounter someone who is as intriguing as they are worrisome. In virtually all of these encounters, the person with whom you are interacting is going to say “I’m not from around here”, either word-for-word or in some variation that has the same meaning. Slothjemia tends to attract all kinds of people, and they settle in as best they can. But in the little nations of the Wenigzustand, the outsiders somehow manage to end up running the show.

Now, the fact that the natives do not control their countries doesn’t seem to bother them all that much. Centuries of conflict and mayhem have weakened the determination of many people in the little states, and strong-willed outsiders are able to step in and take charge. They might be Forkanzan mercenaries looking for a place to retire, exiles from Geldenreich trying to start over, Lusatian knights setting up a stronger base of operations, or northern warlords trying to carve out their own territories. It can also mean that the person in question isn’t even from this continent. In fact, there are quite a few notable persons that aren’t even from this plane of existence.

How it is that denizens of other planes, especially the lower planes, end up in the Wenigzustand is a mystery. Whether it is the Gray Waste, the Abyss, Baator, the Outlands, Limbo, or some other nightmarish point of origin, fiends flock to the Wenigzustand to create their own domains. It might take some time, but these lands become twisted, horrifying replications of where their dark lords and ladies came from. Not all of these extraplanar emigrants are necessarily evil, or even deplorable, but they do leave an indelible imprint.

The natives of the Wenigzustand continue to muddle on, though. The halflings of the northern coast, gnomes of the western forests, dwarves of the southern alpine regions, and the majority humans scattered all over, all of them keep plugging along. They do whatever it takes to run their dairies, farms, orchards, and any number of industries in cities large enough to sustain them. They tolerate their leaders, or else they pick up and move to a neighboring state. A handful are actually supportive of their rulers, but only because their rulers are unusually thoughtful and have kept the natives under their charge safe from other external forces. It does keep things interesting, though, as the little states rise and fall to tunes not of their own composing.