04 October 2007

Ganesford

Hello again. I see that it’s been a good long while since I wrapped up the tale of what transpired at the Broken Temple of Karg. It’s time to move on and recount what occurred over the next few days.

Today’s subject is the town of Ganesford. Ganesford is pretty much a one-horse whistle stop whose only reason for existence is the fact that it’s located at the easiest place to cross the Sweetvale River, one of the major tributaries of the Stjerneflåde. The Sweetvale is cold, fast and in most places deep, but it shallows out where it has to cross the granite escarpment that parallels the great river and the Nordvej. There’s no bridge here and no need for one; the Sweetvale never gets above two feet deep even during the spring thaws, and while the bones tend to chill in the crossing, there are warm fires and cold ale to be had on both sides.

You’ll recall that, on 12 Lastreap, the newcomers (Bjorn and Lyra) joined the rump of the original Party (Breygon, Gwen, Joraz and Greywind) at the site of the earthquake, near the broken temple of Karg. They also met Ankallys of Vejborg, who was busily scrabbling in the detritus for signs of her master and colleagues. The follow day they entered the temple, and scared up some of its denizens; and Ankallys provoked a major crisis by breaking into the tomb of the former high priest, resulting in a wave of Allips that was only resolved when Bjorn agreed to be possessed by the Ghost of Ekruhalagar.


Well, as you know, the Party survived, but seeing as how there was a town only a mile or so up the road, they didn’t feel like spending the night sleeping in tents. They mounted up, rode for Ganesford, and reached the south bank of the Sweetvale by mid-afternoon. They took rooms at the Traveler’s Rest Inn (see below) and slept the night. The following morning, 14 Lastreap, they crossed the Sweetvale and entered the town proper, and began looking around, trying to find out where their designated contact, Malryn Olgin, lived. Gwen and Joraz dropped in on Eldred Wainstik, the leatherworker, while Breygon, Lyra and Greywind visited Telchin Manor – only to discover that Sieur Telchin had a Half-Orc door-warden, an inauspicious occurrence given Breygon’s choice of favoured enemies.

Bjorn took the wagon, with the comatose Ankallys aboard, to find the Temple of the Hand, and made the acquaintance of Gyle Fanwaith, Priest of the Healing Hand, and his acolyte, Eloan Wood. They advised Bjorn, much to their regret, that they did not have the skill or power to restore Ankallys’ mind, but they further informed him that the Fist of the Allfather in Bymill stood high in his church’s hierarchy, and could no doubt perform the necessary rites. In the meantime, they agreed to take Ankallys under their care while the Party was in Ganesford.


By this time, Gwen and Joraz had figured out where Olgin lived. The Party met at the town square, then sauntered over to his house and banged on the door. They were admitted by his housekeepers and greeted by the Master himself, both sides repeating the Draconic incantation to prove their bona fides. Bjorn was invited to take a seat in an antechamber, with apologies for the necessary secrecy, while the Brothers met to discuss the way ahead.

Olgin then gave the rest of the Party a tour of the Chapter House – a modest affair, but one that contained all of the requisite areas and amenities for such a small place as Ganesford. He then sat them down in the kitchen for tea and cakes, and gave them their mission.

“Take a look at this map I’ve had drawn up for you,” he said. “I apologize for the garish colours; the only scribe in town here is excellent, but he’s an Elf, and you can’t part him from his paint-pots.
“Here’s what I want you to do. Travel west, up the valley, until you get to Bymill. There’s a horse trader there, name of Varlgant, and pay him for two stallions he’s holding for me. They’re a gift from the Brotherhood for a noblewoman in Ellohyin, north of here a ways. She’s done us a service and we always pay our debts.

“Before you come back with them, though, there’s something else I’d like you to look into. I’ve been hearing rumours about problems at a mine a little further up the valley, north of a town called Lucky Lode. Nothing specific, just some odd injuries. Check it out. Before you leave Ganesford, you might want to look up Rauf Toldner; he’s the guild captain of the miners here in town, and he might have heard more than me. You can trust him; he’s a good man.

“A couple of housekeeping details. First, among the Brethren we are all equals, but every mission needs a leader; otherwise you’ll dissolve into a mob at the first sword-stroke and you’ll be lost. Our tradition is that leadership among Brothers falls by lot. Therefore, cast the dice and determine who is to be charged with leadership of the Party in the matter of Varlgnt’s stallions; and who is to be charged with investigating the rumours about Lucky Lode and the mines.


“Second, since you’ll be back this way soon, there’s no need to make your tithes to this Chapter House today, unless of course you have a burning desire to rid yourself of some coin. But I’ll expect an accounting when you return with the horses. And if you’re looking for a worthy charity in town for that part of your obligation, Brother Fanwaith at the house of the Hand is an honest man, and his healers do good work. One of them saved one of that fool wizard’s shovelmen a week or so ago. They aren’t of our order, but they’re worthy, and could use the money.

“I hope that’s all clear. I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I failed to enjoin you to remember your oath and your obligations: loyalty to Brotherhood, courage in battle, and mercy to the helpless. Leave nothing evil or unexplained in your path.

“Before I forget, there’s something happening tonight that I’d like you all to see – a special event for a pisspot little burg like Ganesford. And I’d like to buy you a drink. So come along and join me for the nightmeal at the Tankard at dusk. It’s the big inn just the other side of the Square; you can’t miss the sign. Incidentally, given what I think we’re going to hear tonight, we’ll forego The Tale; but you should all get into your books when you have the chance, and peruse what you find there. You’re all new, and you have much to learn.
“By the way, bring your big friend, the priest; I like the look of him. I’m going to send word to the Hiltmark in Ellohyin; once you get there drop in and see him. He may elect to bring your friend aboard. The Fists of Esu are always welcome among us.

“Speaking of Ellohyin, with any luck, you’ll be there in time for the Solemnity of Harad. It’s the single most important day in the calendar of the Brotherhood, and the Ellohyin Chapter House is a far better place to celebrate than this modest accommodation.”

“Well, that’s enough from me. Make yourselves free of this house; elsewise, I’ll see you at the Tankard at dusk.”

With that, Olgin went back to his study, leaving the Party to their own devices. They split up again and spent the afternoon checking out different parts of the town. They first went back to the Traveler’s Rest, recovered their wagon and horses, and moved them to Olgin’s house – except for Bjorn, who took a room at the Tankard and spent the afternoon soaking in an oak tub full of rosewater.

Gwen went shopping and made the acquaintance of Dannik of Dunholm at his general goods emporium. Intrigued at meeting another Halfling, she spent some time in conversation with Dannik and learned many interesting things about the town and its inhabitants. Most interesting, however, was the fact that Dannik was still owed 200 GP by the wizard Oras Rathorn for a truly bizarre special order: a hundred small silk bags containing a mixture of earth and fine clay. Gwen looked one of these over, but couldn’t figure out what they were for.

Meanwhile, Lyra, Breygon and Joraz ambled over to the Hardin’s Hammer Tavern, looking for Guild Captain Toldner. Being the sort of establishment it was, there was no shortage of patrons even in mid-afternoon, and Lyra wasted no time trying her wiles on the cadre of drunks, endeavouring to charm some information out of them, while Breygon and Joraz hung back nervously, waiting for the inevitable fight to break out. They learned a little bit more about the goings-on at Lucky Lode – about miners being brought out of the deepest pits, babbling about “monsters”, with weird, triangular bite marks on their legs and arms.

After a few near misses fight-wise, the three left the Hammer, returning to the town square, where they met up with Gwen and headed for the Tankard, joining up with Bjorn at the vast – and already very busy – dining hall.
Olgin joined them there as the sun was going down, and the six dined in companionable silence. Breygon and Lyra both found themselves noticing an odd occupant of one of the busy tables: a dark-skinned, white-haired woman of obvious Shadelven origins, surrounded by a coterie of ladies-in-waiting and hulking bodyguards. Their attention was diverted, however, when a half-dozen elderly dwarves shambled out of the shadows, led by an extraordinarily ancient and decrepit dwarf bearing a traditional iron tambour.

The tale of what happened next is recounted in one of the synopses given the Party after the event.
* * * * *
Harweac

Night comes early in the Bjerglands in autumn. Breadan drops behind the western peaks, and the weary farmer homeward wends his way, picking his steps carefully across the furrows, heading unerringly for the welcoming firelight in the doorway, a simple meal, and a mug of something cheering. The chill of evening settles into the branches, browning leaves and hearts with trepidation at the nearness of another mountain winter.

Evening in town comes, by contrast, with more light, more cheer, and considerably more noise. As the party tucked into the hearty fare bearing down their trenchers (and banked the fires of spice with foaming mugs of local ale, happy to have left the cider of Bornhavn behind them), they eyed the teeming humanity roundabouts: miners with black dust of their trade ground into the creases under their eyes stumbling over shit-smelling farmhands eager to spend a week’s wages on a night’s debauchery; drovers jostling against caravan teamsters, sizing each other up for the fight that would be inevitable once both sides were sufficiently lubricated; a gaudy merchant and his equally gaudy whores seated next to, and contrasting wildly with, a trio of solemn Servants of Vara, the Healing Hand black against robes of grey; and all around and among them, the flotsam and jetsam of Erutrei. Scores of the local people provided the backdrop against which more unusual characters were unusually obvious. A Gnomish tinker, fiddling with some unidentifiable gadget; three men of the Watch tossing dice in a corner and throwing back outsized piggins of some sort of locally-distilled horror; a richly-attired, dark-skinned Shadelven maiden of extraordinary beauty, surrounded by a host of grim-faced, heavily-armed attendants; a fanged, bewhiskered caravan guard with more than a jot of the Uruk in his lineage, who gnawed absently on a partially-cooked leg of something-or-other; two gentlemen adventurers of the Holbytlan persuasion, attracting more than their fair share of attention by arguing over ownership of a purse that obviously belonged to neither of them; and various and sundry other denizens of Anuru, that wash up nightly on the shores of the Great Road.

Tenscore faces, tenscore stories; but that night, they all had one thing in common: they had come to hear Harwéac, the venerable and world-renowned Dwarven chanter. Word had gone around that the old fellow was on his last pilgrimage from the Deeprealm to Vejborg, to visit Leif Ironfist, his old comrade-in-arms, upon his deathbed. It was said that he had sworn that on this, his last journey, he would sing of nothing but the deeds of his friend, and of their blood-brothers long dead, and their many triumphs and sorrows. Such was the rumour of Harwéac’s skill that those who came to listen were content to hear whatever tale he might choose to tell.
A door opened at the rear of the tavern, and the roar of conversation faded into chatter, and then to a low murmur. The old dwarf appeared from one of the inn’s guest rooms and shuffled into the firelight, accompanied and assisted by a trio of apprentices – each of them a virtuoso in his own right who could have made his fortune in the wider world, had he been willing to leave the side of the Master. At the front of the room, near the hearth, Harwéac settled his old bones slowly into a tailor’s seat on a simple chaff-filled cushion laid on bare stones, while his assistants formed a standing semi-circle behind him. The instruments they held were strange to most of the onlookers: a set of iron bars riveted to a heavy metal frame, and played with tiny bronze hammers; thin-walled stone bowls with covers of animal skin stretched and tightened with thongs; a long, narrow horn that wound around and around the player’s neck, gradually forming into a gleaming, hammered bell, engraved with intertwined serpents and dragons. Harwéac himself bore nothing more than a simple tambor of hide stretched on an unadorned wood and metal frame, and a broad bronze striking paddle, worn smooth and gleaming by long use.
Silence fell; a respectful silence formed in equal parts of anticipation and curiosity. None of those in the tavern that night had ever heard Harwéac’s voice before; nor was there any who had failed to hear his name. Into the well of that silence, the ancient dwarf, without a word of explanation or introduction, plunged like a spelunker bent on exploring caverns and subterranean vistas never before seen. With short, arrhythmic strokes of his bronze rod on the taut skin of the tambor, he evoked a slow, deep rumble, as of long ages spent beneath the Earth. Almost imperceptibly, he joined his heavy voice to the song of the drum, layering words onto the rhythm like the tumble of stones against the deep heartbeat of a mountain.

Ic áwrecan ymbe æðeling;
æðeling isengrǽg, ísenheard
Isenfýst, carlmann, gástberend, gumþegen,
Isenfýst, ceorlmann, guma Ekhanni
I-Esu yrfeweard, I-Esu gástsunu,
Isenfýst, gígantmæcg,
ǽgðer fréond, gebróðra mé.

Ic áwrecan æscþracu, níðweorc, gárgewinn;
Ic áwrecan æsctír, gúðsweord átǽsan...

(Editor’s Note: This is the song Léoð ymbe Isenfýst, “The Lay of Ironfist”, which may be found in the Tales of the Wyrm, and has been published elsewhere on this blog.)

Those in the audience familiar with the speech of the Deeprealm heard the words, and understood them; those who did not merely listened, spellbound, captivated by the rhythm. No one attempted to render the words into the Common Tongue, for any translation could only cheapen the Master Chanter’s incomparable composition.

Thus it ran, and the audience was captivated by every word, locked into an involuntary, inescapable embrace by the Master’s rumbling eloquence. Such was the power of his song that none noticed when his accompanists joined in with horn, drums and bells; these remained far in the background, the merest hint of honey-glaze layered imperceptibly upon the incomparable confection of Harwéac’s masterpiece. In his words, they saw the incomparable beauty of the precious gemwork of the Underfolk; felt rivers of gold flowing through their fingers; and heard the slow, unbearably heavy heartbeat of the Mountain.

One of the farmhands, a dolt named Dellrimple, who passed his days shovelling horseshit for one of Varlgant’s overseers, had never learned a single letter of the complex Dwarven tongue; and yet the next day, the stablemaster overheard him muttering the exact words of Harwéac’s ballad under his breath; in a tuneless baritone, perhaps, but with an accent that would have marked him instantly as a denizen of the Deeprealm. And yet he had no idea what he was singing. Such was the especial magic of Harwéac Hargóin, Gamolfeax-láruw, the Great Teacher, Master Chanter of Nondelvin.

None knew how long the song lasted; they only knew when it was over, because Harwéac was sitting still and silent, his hoary head bowed nearly to his breast, the plaits of his long, silvery beard lying coiled on his knees. The muted thunder of the tambor had faded, and the hall held its collective breath. No one moved; all were hoping that it was merely a pause, but they knew that it was not, for they could see that Harwéac had spent himself for them. For the briefest of moments, each man and woman in the audience felt as though the Lantern had been extinguished forever, and all would henceforth be doomed to live in eternal darkness; and at the same time, none feared any darkness that could produce such a singer as this.

A vast sigh gathered, and from more than one eye, tears fell like silent rain. Two of the Servants of Vara were praying, eyes cast down, their lips moving soundlessly; the hobbit adventurers stood spellbound, the purloined purse forgotten on the floor between them; and even the regal Shaldelven maiden sat motionless, a stunned but appreciative smile fixed upon her glistening lips, while her retainers blinked owlishly, as if emerging from a deep slumber.

So sat they all – until the Master Chanter’s spell was broken by a sudden, deep-throated cheering and thunderous, one-man applause. The half-Orc caravan guard was an ardent aficionado of all things musical, and liked a good tune, especially one with martial overtones. Harwéac’s song was, in his educated opinion, the finest thing ever written or performed since the dawn of time. Never one to refrain from physical expressions of approval, in a moment he was capering and clapping wildly, his matted hair swirling around his scabrous head, and saliva flying from his fangs as he swung his half-eaten lamb shank in glorious tribute, forgetting his badly-accented Common in his excitement, and yelling, “Multe, multe, mai multă!” in his barbarous mother tongue.

Harwéac raised his head and smiled at this heartfelt tribute from such an unexpected quarter. He nodded acknowledgement and thanks at Krumlich’s frantic gestures and grunts of approval. The half-Orc’s antics quickly lifted the awed paralysis gripping the crowd, leading first to laughter, and then to cheers and applause. One of the old dwarf’s assistants leaned down and whispered in his ear; Harwéac shook his head slowly and motioned to be helped to his feet. The horn player took the old dwarf’s other arm, and the trio began to shuffle slowly back to the guest room.

The third assistant, bearing his rack of bells, waved for silence, and the crowd, and even Krumlich, gradually subsided. “Many apologies,” the dwarf said, his deep voice thickly accented, “but that is all for tonight. The Master is very tired, and tomorrow we must resume our travels. He thanks you for your most kind welcome, and has asked that I wish you, as we say in our tongue, hléowne ysen, ælceald ýð – ‘hot iron and cold mead on the morrow’.” With that, the fourth dwarf bowed and followed the other three to the back of the inn, pursued by thunderous applause.

* * * * *

After the Dwarves had left the dining hall, Olgin bid the Party good evening and left. Lyra, hoping to find out more about the mysterious dark spectator, approached the Shadelven woman, smiling her way past the bodyguards. Before she could speak, however, the dark elf fixed her with her gaze and stopped her in her tracks; and Lyra simply stood, dumbly fascinated, while the Shadelf gathered up her entourage and returned to her suite.

While this was going on, Gwen slipped out of the crowd, snagged a look at the registry behind the front desk, and located the room that had been rented out to Oras Rathorn. The lock on the door was no match for her nimble fingers, and she was inside in two shakes of a manticore’s tail. Some hurried rummaging yielded a few maps, several books and Rathorn’s cloak, then she slipped back out in silence and returned to the Party.

They spent the night at the Chapter House under Olgin’s eye – all except for Bjorn, who luxuriated beneath a down-stuffed tick, and fell asleep looking forward to the traditional Zaran fried breakfast, and another decadent rosewater bath, on the morrow.

* * * * *

The Town of Ganesford

1. Sweetvale Tavern (Link Weathers: Average, Cheap)
Very pleasant fellow, caters mostly to farmers and travellers. Average quality, low cost. Remembers Oras Rathorn and party; they turned their noses up at his accommodations.

2. Traveller’s Rest Inn (Mance Mandrill: Good, Expensive)
Supercilious, officious, very busy; greedy. Very nice accommodations but three times normal cost. Remembers Oras as a reliable paying customer with a large party (Wizard, Apprentice, Factor, three geographers). Still has a lot of Rathorn’s dunnage locked up but won’t release it until back-lease is paid on rooms and supplies provided to the party (225 gp).

3. Smithy (Elgor Nale)
Taciturn but not unpleasant. Mostly does tools. Not good with weapons or armour, but covers up inability by being gruff. Wife is Selma Nale, very attractive; haunts the town’s bars and flirts with anything male (inevitably results in conflict with husband). He remembers Oras Rathorn; provided him with a dozen picks, mattocks and shovels, and two wheeled carts.

4. Tollhouse (Liam Trotter)
Enormously fat and cheerful; talkative but forgetful. Doesn’t remember anything. For a bribe, will forego recording names and crossing dates, as is his duty.

5. The Ford and Bridge
Ford is 2’ deep, easy for horses and wagons, not too hard for pedestrians, hard for small creatures like hobbits. If it is raining, difficulty level rises. There are nets spread 20’ downstream to catch anyone who loses their footing.

6. Fish Smokehouse (Llanor of Erdallen)
Exudes stench of smoked fish, but quality is high and it will keep indefinitely. Llanor is an ex-member of the Watch, and will provide any serving member with a week’s worth of dried fish rations free of charge. But boy, does he smell bad. He remembers Oras; sold him 6 barrels of smoked Giltscales a month back.

7. Miner’s Guildhouse (Guild Captain Rauf Toldner)
Rauf Toldner is a retired hard rock miner from Lucky Lode; he still has contacts there and has heard rumours of trouble in the mines. He knows Rathorn quite well; asked for “every experienced miner I could lay my hands on”. Thought Rathorn was a fool; he offered meagre pay and “a share in the profits”

8. Mining Supplies Store (Parag Sakonure)
Parag is a Half-Elf from Celenora, a long way from home. He is reasonably friendly but expects money up front; Rathorn cleaned him out and still owes him more than 500 gold for tools, rope, torches, lumber and so on.

9. Merchant’s Manor (Lars Telchin)
Telchin is a grasping, greedy absentee landlord who normally lives at his castle in Bitterberg. His manor is usually empty and locked; there is only a 20% chance per week that he will drop by. His Seneschal, Yancey Mealerger, comes by a few days in advance to open the place and air it out.

10. General Merchandise (Lars Telchin, owner)
The store is run by Ulgric Bugbane, a half-orc Warrior 6 who keeps this job to remain respectable (nobody messes with one of Telchin’s people) and pay the rent. He lives here, receives shipments of goods from the north, and sells them to all comers. He is rude , uncouth and likes teasing people, but hasn’t had to fight in quite a while. Any violence against him will eventually result in a visit from some far worse people on behalf of Sieur Telchin.

11. Gane’s Tankard Tavern (Alonon Payne: Good, Expensive)
Alonon Payne runs a good, but overpriced, establishment. The gentry come here to impress each other; smarter folk go elsewhere for better food at lower prices. He remembers Rathorn, who had a standing account at the Tavern, and whose tab (for fine brandies and delicacies) stands at 181 gp, 9 sp and 4 pennies. Rathorn's room is at the front of the lower floor, and has not been disturbed (except by the bucket boy) since Rathorn last slept there a week ago. It contains his maps, a large number of journals and books, some cash, and his cloak.

12. Market Hall
A large, open-walled timber structure with a thatched roof and room for two dozen market stands. Open on weekday mornings for food market; Great Market on Sian Barraj. Most common equipment items can be bought on the weekend market day.

13. House of the Hand (Gyle Fanwaith, Cleric 8, Vara)
Gyle Fanwaith is a competent cleric and an expert healer; he has three 2nd-level apprentices. One of them (Eloan Wood) was at Rathorn’s camp last week to treat a worker who had had a large stone crush his foot. Wood thinks that Rathorn is a tyrant and a fool.

14. General Store (Danik of Dunholm, Halfling)
Danik of Dunholm is a clever businessman that sells excellent quality goods and specializes in hard-to-find items. He will report that Rathorn owes him 200 gp for spell components, but will add that “It doesn’t really matter, since I made twice that off him in profit already”. One of the ingredients he provided was a special mixture of earth, sand and loam in small silk bags (Spellcraft DC 15: “Move Earth” components).

15. Malryn Olgin (Retired Fighter 11)
Olgin is a retired fighter who is living off his earnings and enjoying his retirement as a hunter, general problem-solver and local celebrity (he is famous for having killed a giant bear with a tree branch some years ago). He is also the local Superior Brother of the Brotherhood of Wyrms. This is the fellow that the exiled Watchmen are expected to contact. Olgin will treat them as seasoned professionals, explain the codes, rules and benefits, and order them to investigate the rumours that Toldner, Guild Captain of the Miner’s Guild, has heard about in Lucky Lode. They are also ordered to pick up a brace of fine stallions in Bymill and bring them back to Ganesford, before delivering them to the house of a noblewoman and friend of the Order in Ellohyin. But more on that when they return with the horses.

16. Leatherworks (Eldred Wainstik, leathercrafter)
Eldred Wainstik is an associate of Sharoom Pardo, the Bornhavn leathercrafter. He contracted with Rathorn for a variety of leather products, and is still awaiting payment on a bill of “several hundred crowns.”

17. Meat Market (Olgar and Olga Thorssen, butchers)
Fair merchants, who have never heard of Oras Rathorn. But they do have kin in Søby, south of Ellohyin, who operate a cattle farm – and last week, a herd of cattle being driven south to Ganesford (and supposed to go on to Bymill) went missing on the Nordvej, somewhere between Steenby and Ganesford. They theorize that a band of Orcs may be running a cattle rustling operation somewhere in the hills.

18. Hardin’s Hammer Tavern (Tug Wylkyn, ex-miner; very rough, very cheap)
Tug Wylkyn is a retired Warrior 4 who served 20 years in the Guards in Ellohyin. He knows the city like the back of his hand, and has contacts in the Elloyhin underworld. He runs a very rough, very cheap place that the local miners like. The rumours about the Phoenix Mine at Lucky Lode have reached this tavern; one or two of the patrons will tell a tale that arrived only this week, about a miner’s corpse being found, bitten in half at the waist.

19. Shrine to Vara (small)
This is a small, one-room shrine built out of the local limestone, with a thatched roof. It is maintained by Fanwaith and his apprentices, and like all shrines to Vara, it contains a large, carved stone vessel of water that is Blessed daily, and that petitioners toss coins into (at any time it will contain 1d100 copper, 1d20 silver and 1d4 gold pieces). It is not policed or patrolled, but during day there is an 8 in 20 chance that someone will be praying here (the chance drops to 1 in 20 after dark). This is a Consecrated location for Vara, her Servants and her Avatars.

20. Leagor of Ellohyin – retired expert historian (K-Hist 22), Reeve of Ganesford
Leagor is an elderly human who lives for books. Once the Chief Librarian to the Count of Ellohyin, he gave up his sinecure a decade ago and built a quiet home here on the banks of the Sweetvale River, filling it with fine furnishings and books. He is compiling a comprehensive history of Zare, and is presently writing Volume 16 (volumes 1 through 15 are available at the Bookbinder’s, for 100 gp per book – each one takes a month to read, and will give the reader +1 Knowledge-History). His knowledge is encyclopaedic, to the point that it is difficult to keep him from diverging into tangents. He knows Oras Rathorn, but dismisses him as “an amateur – a typical wizard, more concerned with twiddlings and twinklings than actually KNOWING anything.” They squabbled over an ancient book in Leagor’s possession (the Varata Ikivanha Maailma, a Draconian text, the “Book of the Ancient World”). Leagor will part with it for 1000 GP (Oras offered him that amount, but promised only 250 gp in advance and the remainder “in a few months”). Studying the book uninterrupted for 1 month will give the reader an inherent bonus on Knowledge(History) checks of +5.

21. Scrivener’s Shop (Iltoeyna Paloyina, Elven Expert Calligrapher 16)
Iltoeyna is an Elvish calligrapher, magnificent with the pen. She hired the copyists to produce Leagor’s magnum opus, and illuminated them herself. She also produced a number of detailed maps of the banks of the Sweetvale between Ganesford and Bornhavn for Oras; he still owes her “more than 100 gold” for the work.

22. Bookbinder’s Shop (Royaur Desfitylna, Elven Expert Bookbinder 14)
Royaur is an associate of Iltoeyna’s, and a solid devotee of Leagor’s writing. He has nothing but praise for the sage, and shares his contempt for Rathorn’s “lack of historical knowledge.”