The Yore Valley Barony was a feudal state in the [[Eastern Dusts]], arising as a regional power when most of the nearby lords pledged fealty to the baron of High Yore from 2713-2727 AE, [[Water Lords|in return for access to the newly built irrigation system]]. Under this system, agricultural productivity increased greatly, decreasing food prices in the Eastern Dusts. At its zenith in the last quarter of the 29th Century, the Yore Valley Barony was second only to Springvale in exports of staple grains. 

The downfall of the Yore Valley Barony came after the aquifer failed in 2921. For several years previously, the wells had been deepened annually, but in 2921 the deepening operation unexpectedly failed, exposing the impermeable stratum underlying the fossil aquifer in the valley. The Baronial hydrologist, who had assured the cabinet of at least twenty more years of water at current usage in 2918, was banished for malpractice, having made insufficient and poorly placed test wells. 

Emergency horizontal tunneling (supported by a massive and unpopular corvee, which was plagued by widespread accidents involving unskilled peasants) bought a few years of marginally sufficient water supply. Agricultural output declined precipitously in 2921-2922, but the horizontal tunneling project was successfully completed and the crisis appeared to have passed by the beginning of the 2930s. Shortly thereafter, though, rates of crystal forest growth near the Valley increased rapidly. By the end of the decade, it was clear that the growth of the crystal forest had increased to such an extent that it was displacing farmers from productive agricultural land. In 2944, the aquifer was totally depleted, and attempts at further horizontal drilling and developing new wells met with no success. 

Food prices in the Eastern Dusts, increasing since the 2920s, [[Great Famine|spiked astronomically in the 2950s]], as the crystal forest began to overrun the parched farmlands of the Yore Valley barony. A horrible scandal arose in which it emerged that the incumbent baroness and her cabinet had known that the aquifer had no more than five years left in 2940, and had secretly stockpiled food and water for themselves. The baronial castle in High Yore was sacked by a mob, and the baroness was abducted by rebel palace guards and delivered to the mob in exchange for safe passage for themselves.

The Great Famine fueled migration to the Western Dusts and other areas, and was a cause of significant strife and suffering in the 30th century. Development of other agricultural areas, population loss and transfer, and developments in well-drilling technology, cloud-herding, and hedge magic ended the subsistence crisis by the 2960s, but the Yore Valley Barony itself was broken. The few areas of its former territory that were spared from crystal forest overgrowth survived as independent domains.