Town Locations
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Every major building has a backhouse. I’m not going to describe it and you’re probably not going to RP there, just know they exist and are hopefully maintained. (Hopefully.)The Hammer & Spoke is a ramshackle two-story building just over the bridge into town, with stone walls, a thatched roof, and the soot stains and patchy coloring that suggest it has seen its share of catastrophe.
In contrast, the interior is warm and homey, smelling of food and wood smoke, lit by candles and constantly abuzz with the sounds of idle chatter.
A bar along the left side faces an array of worn but well-loved tables and chairs, usually occupied by weary travelers or locals drinking and playing dice after a long day’s work. Rugs of fur and homespun wool lie about, and decorating the walls are various trinkets and trophies of hunts and gifts from visitors gone by.
Menu items are the usual tavern fare: ale, wine, whiskey when they can get it, and whatever’s been simmering in the stew pot for the day, served with a piece of hard bread.
Upstairs are three guest rooms, humble and small with straw beds and a single window each. A fourth bedroom belongs to the innkeeper.
Outside is a small stable for travelers’ horses, watched over by a fat orange-and-white cat named Lord Sneak and his employee, the stablehand.
Town Hall is situated at the highest point of the village. A wooden building with a belltower for calling meetings, it’s an imposing but familiar-- some might even say beloved-- sight. Within is a large room containing a podium and benches, and a stairway that leads to the Magistrate’s office and record storage on the second floor.
Outside, in the summertime, lines of marigolds bloom along the walkway from its doors to the main road.
The Magistrate’s House sits just down the hill from Town Hall, and although not unreasonably lavish, is still the largest property in town. It was once known to be full to the brim with Magistrate Emery Ward’s many children, but now contains only him, a single housekeeper, and his youngest daughter Philippa on the occasions when she is in the village.
The Chapel is a clean, practical structure comprised of a single room for gathering and prayer. The walls are bedecked with imagery and offering tables for the five gods, with benches in a hexagonal pattern surrounding a similarly-shaped raised platform for a speaker.
It is tended to by the Priesthood of the Path of Light, all of whose members reside in a small vicarage on the other side of the graveyard.
The Vicarage consists of a single room that serves as both dormitory and visiting area for the local priest(s).
A little stone building across the path from Town Hall, the
Constabulary consists of a small office facing a single holding cell with a straw floor and iron bars. A back room serves as the armory and record storage, with a small cordoned-off area that doubles as the Captain’s living space (against all sensible recommendations). Just outside the door is an alarm bell, kept well-oiled and ever at the ready, much to the chagrin of the lower-ranking officers responsible for its upkeep.
The Marketplace spans almost the entirety of the main road. The open-air food market occupies much of the walkable street, flanked by the brick-and-mortar shops that often contain second-floor homes for the wealthier vendors. Although several of the market stalls are owned and decorated by local farmers, most of them are occupied on a first-come, first-serve basis (which can definitely get ugly).
Despite the miniscule size of Northcliff Pass, a surprising number of merchants will make the journey for the opportunity to hawk their wares to the pilgrims passing to and from Cliffside.
Shops include:
The Smithy, first building on the left and closest to the inn. An open workspace yawns in front where there might otherwise be a market stall, and on fair days business is conducted outdoors. Otherwise, past the anvils and racks of swords is a door leading to the office. Upstairs is the living quarters.
The Apothecary and House of Healing, first on the right and closest to the Chapel. A small window by the door opens into a shop counter, where herbal medicines and ingredients can be purchased from the friendly, gap-toothed young man who makes them. Inside and past the shopfront lies the healer's residence, which doubles as an infirmary in times of need.
Ever actually needing the healer is inadvisable; whatever the problem is, walking it off will prove less traumatic.
Marlowe’s, a tidy little carpentry shop with beautifully embellished door and windowframes. The interior is both storefront and workshop, containing furniture made and detailed on commission. Upon entering, one will be greeted either with an amiable smile and a hello, or by a grunt and irritated stare, depending on which of the carpenters is doing the receiving. Either way, the final product will be worth it.
The Northcliff Mine is the oldest part of the village, its path the smoothest and its secrets many. Being cut into the side of the mountain has allowed it to endure centuries of harrowing weather and natural disasters, although that has included several collapses and re-openings over the years. There is iron to be found there, for those willing to live at the mercy of its tunnels and their fickle construction.
Private Residences are available in several places: the more well-to-do erect their freestanding homes on the street behind the Market, down the hill from the Magistrate’s house, and those with lesser means have taken to building their structures right up against the city walls.
Among the Hill Road houses is the Watch Captain’s, although he is never found there these days.
The City Walls emerge from the face of the mountain and are built in a circle around the main stretch of town, with creaky wooden doors that open to the north and south on the Pilgrim’s Path and east into the forest. They are at least a hundred years old, the stone crumbling in some places. At each gate, stone stairs lead to pathways above for the Watch to patrol and for rude kids to spit on people.
Sands Creek is a mountain spring, runoff from the snowy peak of Northcliff. There’s a fair amount of freshwater life therein, but most fishing is done for leisure. The bridge leading out of town and the adjacent banks are good places to spend the day with a rod and reel, but venturing too close to the forest is inadvisable. It’s not especially sandy and thus was likely named for someone long ago, but whomever it was has been lost to the ages.
Northcliff Wood, in the daytime, is as one would expect: tranquil, filled with birdsong, populated by an assortment of both coniferous and deciduous trees, abundant with herbs and flowers and game in the warm months.
But linger after dark, or venture too far into the Deep Forest, and the insect songs turn eerie, shadows moving of their own accord, the moon filtering through skeletal branches when it shines at all.
They say a spirit inhabits the forest, and does with wanderers as she please. Children vanish into the fog, adults speak of strange bones and bodiless footsteps; people go missing and reappear years later, forever changed, with eyes like ghosts.
But the hunting’s pretty good, if you’re up for it.
Town Map:
Island Map:
It’s probable that Maireglenne is the highest point of a larger land mass that was engulfed by the sea at the end of a lengthy ice age. Glaciers carved deep fjords into the northernmost coastal duchies; these waters remain bitterly cold, but offer good fishing and are nurseries for the sea whales and their young calves.
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northcliffpass
