Stonetop

Stonetop is a tight-knit community. Everyone here is expected to pull their weight, but few think badly of those who suffer misfortune. The town pulls together; its community is its strength. Able-bodied men and women are expected to know how to fight and protect the village when needed. Everyone keeps a spear, a round wooden shield, and maybe a bow. Folk rotate through guard duty, manning the three watchtowers each night.

There’s no government, just leaders. Everyone knows who they are: the wise, the cunning, the brave. It’s not a formal thing.

Most buildings are low and squat, built from stones scavenged from the crumbling Old Wall and other half-buried ruins that surround the town about a mile out from the village center. Roofs are mostly thatched with barley straw. Families pass these homes on, two or three generations living in one or two buildings at a time.

Most folk in town are farmers, growing barley, beans, and potatoes, in the surrounding land. The fields stretch out from Stonetop to the edge of the Old Wall. Beyond that, the weedy grasses of the Flats choke out anything the villagers might plant.

There’s no mill in town, not much in the way of bread. Families keep goats for milk and chickens for eggs. At the outset of the campaign, the town owns two horses in common, plus a couple of carts and a wagon acquired in trade from Marshedge.

The village sits on a bluff overlooking the Great Wood. A few brave souls ply its depths for fur and meat, to trade with Stonetop’s neighbors. Trappers bring in most of the wealth, but hunters get more respect. It’s dangerous down there.

By compact with the Forest Folk, the villagers never cut down a living tree. They’re free to gather fallen wood, but if they need timber they send folk north-west to the Foothills. But no one’s laid eyes on the Folk for a decade, and some grumble that there’s plenty of timber down there, in their own back yard.

A stream runs along the base of the bluff, providing a source of fresh water for those willing to haul buckets back and forth. The villagers fear shallow running water less than the deep stuff, but superstitions persist about this place, and the Stream has been known to dry up at the height of summer.

To get though the dry months, the residents of Stonetop store rainwater, snowmelt and water from the Stream as they can in an ancient Cistern.

The Public House is the largest building in the village, where everyone meets after sundown to drink and socialize. It offers floor space in the common room for travelers and a small stable under the same roof. The town’s two horses are kept here.

Next door (on the left) is the Granary where foodstuffs are stored for winter. Everyone contributes, everyone shares.

Stonetop boasts no temple but does have a Pavilion of the Gods, which shelters shrines to Helior (the Daybringer), Danu (the Earth Mother), Aratis (the Lawkeeper), and Tor (Rain-Maker, Thunderhead, Slayer-of-Beasts). Tor is the most popular and associated with the Stone itself, but all four gods are given due respect.