I am active on the RPG Pub, my gaming forum of choice. There's a topic about usable gaming content in blogs, and I figured I'd take up the challenge and work something up. So here 'tis!
The Village of St. Chanan's
HISTORY
St. Chanan’s is a sometime-castle, situated in a border hill country. In the most recent war, it was invested by a force far greater than its lord and the inadequate garrison could withstand. The attacking general ordered an immediate escalade, which was badly botched, and while successful sustained far too many casualties. In any other war, between any two other nations, the ensuing massacre would have been a tale of horror on the lips of minstrels continent-wide; in this war, it was one of all too many.
Intending to render the fortification unusable, the raiders murdered almost everyone they could catch, pulled down the donjon, turned the villages in the valley into smoking ruin, and was about to start on the walls when they were recalled, leaving an empty shell save for the (however much looted) church in the courtyard. The war has been over for three years now. The castle was not reclaimed, what with the lord’s heirs carrying on a pitiless war of their own in the courts, over its possession.
TODAY
No one’s sure who made the suggestion, but the several dozen villagers who remained moved in within the walls, to what they now call St. Chanan’s, after the church to the Moon God that still – miraculously – stands. The outer wall remains in usable condition, and the villagers live inside the towers. Every day the villagers head out to tend their fields and herd the goats to pasture; every night they come back within the somewhat-dubious safety of the walls. The fortification is not terribly defensible as it stands, but the towers themselves are fairly secure. Should PCs find themselves inside, the dwellings within are furnished catch-as-catch-can, with furniture and goods either salvaged from the depredations in the area, or from the donjon itself – it’s by no means unlikely to find a rich, embroidered tapestry serving as a family’s quilt.
The border country was exhausted in the war, and with nearby towns razed and pillaged, St. Chanan’s has become a trading post. Cross-border traders are treated with nothing beyond bare civility, but without trade St. Chanan’s dies, and they are not targeted. The area marked with asterisks is where peddlers set up stalls or wagons. A cut of all sales goes to the villagers, but they are more interested in goods useful to them than in coin, and are downright resistant towards gold, preferring to be paid in silver – gold is too easy to steal, they feel. They are not very interested in things they cannot use, and offering them jewels, weapons or magical items in trade will fall flat (“Pretty necklace. Can I eat it? Will it plow a straight furrow?”), believing that they cannot resell such items without being cheated or robbed.
Beyond that, St. Chanan’s doesn’t produce much beyond local crafts, goats’ wool and goat cheese. These are of good quality, and cheese is available in bulk – typically aged in caves, those weren’t pillaged by the invaders. The local goat cheese is a white cheese similar to feta, and aged in large balls about 6" wide. (They have thick rinds and will travel well.)
St. Chanan’s has no leader, and the villagers govern by consensus, meeting as needed. They are otherwise a sober lot, and aren’t wont to chatter with outsiders without a good reason to do so – law and order has broken down throughout this stretch of the border, and strangers who aren’t obviously traders are suspected of being bandits until proven otherwise.
The fortress is built on a leveled-off hill. It isn’t all that high – though it has good sightlines for the region around – nor all that steep, save for the bluff just north of the walls. It has the one well, large and delved by a sorcerer in days gone by. Travelers are welcome to camp inside the walls, in the center of the compound between the ruins of the donjon and the garden at #9. The grass is cropped short enough to be unsuitable to feed mounts, however, although one can obtain hay from the villagers for about double the going rate.
CUSTOMS
The builders were pious, and sigils of the Moon God – a chevron of seven different phases of a moon – are over every stone doorway and the gatehouse. The inner door of every tower has a niche with a devotional statue in it (only a few were desecrated), and locals touch their foreheads and lips to the statues when passing by. It is an inviolable custom to have oil lamps burning below each statue, but also the source of much contention: a large sum of money dedicated in better days as an “oil fund” is administered by the priestesses of the Moon God, and felt by them to be beyond touching ... no matter how many villagers think there are far better uses for the money than to keep lamps burning beneath eighteen statues.
The villagers hold to several other folk customs. Adults bear a small wooden or leather tube on their sashes, inside which is a ribbon embroidered with the words “If the Moon Lord does not keep the watch, in vain do mortal sentries do.” The same phrase is painted over or etched into every lintel. It is also the custom to ring bells in order to drive demons away, and to wear animal masks into religious ceremonies; a great grief to the villagers is that most of the elaborate carved and painted wooden masks they used to have were burned by the invaders. Those who rely on crude workarounds feel an inchoate sense of shame (and no small amount of anger) out of the loss of their heritage.
The villagers frequently burn incense or potpourri in their tower dwellings, even down to sweet grass or foraged herbs if that is all they can get. (They won’t discuss why readily, but in the aftermath of the massacre, the stench was so great that they needed the incense to be able to get a decent night’s sleep, and can’t collectively shake the habit.) New scents are a trade good that interest them highly.
LOCATIONS
1) Blacksmith: Kenesh the smith (Smith-13) runs one of the two interior shops, and lives on the first floor as well. A burly, easygoing man, he is a perfectly competent smith and a good farrier, but has no experience in armoury beyond knifemaking, forging arrowheads, and basic repairs. One quirk of his is that he sings while he works ... constantly. It is always verses from the locals’ epic poem (see #10), and to a tune he makes up on the spot. Kenesh isn’t a bad singer, mind, but the habit does grate on some nerves.
2) Gatehouse: The gatehouse is in good repair save for the gate itself. That was smashed by the invaders, and all repairs managed was to make it able to keep goats from straying out at night; it will not deter a determined assault for more than minutes. The gatehouse remains well stocked with coal, sand (much cheaper and convenient than boiling oil) and weapons that the invaders were unable to cart away. The invaders smashed the fortress’ artillery, but the villagers repaired two ballistae, one for each of the gate towers. Not being siege engineers, the degree to which the reconditioned ballistae are safe to operate is anyone’s guess.
Four mercenaries live in the gatehouse, and serve as the village’s guard, keeping an eye on the traders, loitering around the compound during the day to give the illusion of it being patrolled. The mercs are combat veterans (around 90 pts, on the average), but are either too old or too battered to serve in the line any more. They are what the villagers can afford, and some locals grumble at scraping up the wherewithal for that much. They are at least well-supplied from the stores in the fortress, with good swords and mail. The villagers ignore the detachment as much as possible (the traders, at least, exchange greetings and news), and the mercenaries leave them be. This is a decent retirement gig, and they’re disinclined to jeopardize that.
Pereval is the leader of the unit, who call him “Sergeant,” a term at which he himself sneers. He’s not yet old, and not yet crippled ... he’s just been in too many battles over too many wars, and is past it. Pereval’s method of peacekeeping is intimidation, backed up by his glaring, orange-gold eyes; it is rumored that he has demon blood in him, something he carefully does not gainsay. Of course, he talks a far better game than he can back up these days, but he is veteran enough to gauge the prowess of potential foes, and neither he nor his men fight with any degree of chivalry. They will keep the peace within the walls, but aren't up for pursuing marauders who get away.
3) St. Chanan’s Church: While the invaders thoroughly looted this small temple, they shrank from destroying it. The only remaining decorations are the padded kneeling cushions, overlooked by the invaders, and painted murals depicting the saint, purportedly the bodyguard of the Moon Lord as He walked the land. (In fact, “St. Chanan” is apocryphal, and the organized authority of the moon faith does not recognize his existence.) A tapestry from the old donjon now serves as an altar cloth, and services and ceremonials continue here. It is also the closest the locals have to a community hall, and is used for meetings and gatherings.
Learned Elena Macardry is the embittered priestess (Theology-14, various scholarly skills/ Public Speaking-13, Physician-12). Once the respected (and well-supported) chaplain of the castle’s lord, she heavily resents her now-straitened conditions. While the villagers still support her out of piety, they do not love her, for she arrogantly treated them as simple clods who were beneath her before, and their memories are long. No longer young, gone to fat, she is prone to rages and lashing out at everything – the tallow candles which replaced rich beeswax, the humble fare which replaced dainty imported viands, the traders still offering her books she can no longer afford to buy, old grievances both real and imagined ... and, secretly, the god she is sure betrayed her. Only two teenage acolytes still serve her, and that for a roof over their heads and a decent meal – she has driven the others away. The Learned is a lay priestess without supernatural powers, but is a skilled scholar and theologian, a good public speaker (when she doesn't lose it and harangue her congregants for their failings), and a fair physician.
4) Statue Seller: Industriously, Sabek (Merchant-11) salvaged numerous small statues and busts from the ruins, and peddles them as antiquities to credulous buyers. Most are quite fine (barring the occasional chip, scratch or fracture), and a number are made of valuable materials such as porphyry, jadeite, alabaster and the like. He emulates the perceived manner of the itinerant traders, and believes that he is a champion hustler. The traders, in return, treat him with bemused condescension.
This shop, as well as #5 through #8, are exterior stalls, made of scrap wood and felted overhangs and drops. The degree to which they’re open is weather-dependent.
5) Tailor/tentmaker: Melev (Sewing-14) is a young fellow, lean, pious, bespectacled and diligent, sure that if he just works hard and keeps on working hard, he will Get Ahead, and so be allowed to marry the agemate of his dreams. While he sews the simple caftans, vests and peaked hats of the area, and will copy non-local garments if he’s allowed to take them apart for templates, where he really shines is in tentmaking, using felt from the goats. Melev’s pyramid tents are sturdy, warm and shed water admirably – if you don’t mind the weight – and it only takes him a week to make one. (However, the itinerant traders value his tents highly, and one might have to pay a surcharge to bump one in the queue.) He will also add colorful abstract appliques or embroidery to the tents, and indeed works in one set up in this location.
6) Provisioner: Sonsy and middle-aged, Khautyn is the friendliest, most outgoing local the PCs might encounter, short of Kenesh. She prepares sausages (Cooking-13, Merchant-12) from goats, from game the hunters bring in, and from other sources best left unmentioned. The sausages are of good quality for what they are, and keep well on the road – the more sensible traders scoop up as many as she might have available. If she lacks sausages, what she also has available in profusion is Good Advice, which she’ll dole out to patrons asked for or not. Her eldest daughter Indigo is a goatherd, and the light of Melev’s (#5) eye, affections she reciprocates.
7) Leatherworker: Alpa is a slender young woman (Leatherworking-13, Artist/tooling-15), with fierce hawk-like features and an intense manner. Her work is in saddle- and tackmaking, and she readily does repairs of trail gear, which occupies much of her time. She can do other work – and does very nice tooling in abstract patterns – but only slowly, and the other calls on her time interrupt. Apparently deeply affected by the burnings, she’s manifesting an odd syndrome: an inability to draw inferences or conclusions from a statement. For instance, you can tell her, “I’m down to my last dozen silver sinvers,” but she won’t be able to get from there to “... and that means I can’t pay you much for the work.” The other villagers are aware of the issue, and try to look out for her as best as they can; Khautyn the sausage maker especially will keep an eye out.
8) Cartwright: Labrys and his two teenage children (all that survived of his family) are kept busy repairing the wagons of the traders; he is skilled enough and honest that traders will stagger well out of their way to cadge a repair (Carpentry-14). They are also available for general carpentry as needed, but if they’re otherwise idle, they’re busy making a wall-sided wagon, sturdy and sound. (If the PCs need a wagon, the gang is within a day of finishing it, and while Labrys himself has no more use for gold than the average St. Chanan’s local, the traders will willingly take the gold and play middleman, delivering to Labrys such goods as he might find useful.) Not quite to the point of sullenness in dealing with outsiders, the cartwright will only talk about business, and that in little more than monosyllables.
9) Several small canvas-and-scrap stalls are arrayed from here to the gatehouse, and reserved for villagers who have anything to sell: mostly produce, in season, but also cheeses, handcrafts, gathered herb bundles, and the like. For anything that would be sold in bulk, the villagers negotiate directly with the traders.
10) The Moon and Goat: The settlement’s tavern has a crudely painted sign depicting a goat taking a bite out of a moon. Its interior is a jackdaw’s mix of furnishings from the old donjon and crudely fashioned tables and chairs from scrap wood; the bar itself is the high table from the old Great Hall, of wrought mahogany and baroquely carved. It would be worth a great sum if it hadn’t been cut in half, lengthwise, for the purpose, and the usual reaction of traders seeing it for the first time is a pained groan. (They groan a fair bit harder upon hearing that the rest of the table was chopped up for firewood and table legs.) The Goat is a relatively convivial place, where the traders take their meals and swap tales of the road. Any villagers patronizing it of an evening are likely to have a looser tongue than usual.
The story above is divided into living quarters for the proprietor’s family, as well as four small private rooms for rental. Only two have windows – arrow slits, really – and all are equipped with rope-frame beds with mattresses stuffed with goat’s wool, nightstands, water jugs and chamberpots. Simple locks (+2 to pick) were salvaged from elsewhere within the fortification. There is a small copper bathtub, but hauling and heating water takes some doing, and baths are pricey.
The fare is relatively simple: goat cheeses, goat stews with root vegetables, sausages, barley flatbreads. The one leavening in the mix is that the hill country produces culinary herbs in profusion, so the stews are well-seasoned, and they can be seasoned to taste if the tavernkeeper is warned in advance. Barley beer and herbal teas make up the great majority of the drinks; wines and spirits must be brought in, and at a stiff premium. Stews are served in stoneware bowls salvaged from the donjon, and eaten with the flatbreads – the bowls were once valuable, with fine glazes and decorative scenes – but are chipped and cracked from constant tavern use. (If magically repaired, they could fetch a fine price.)
A couple times a week, locals provide entertainment. Instrumentalists include goat-skin hand drums, wooden flutes, and a fretless five-stringed instrument resembling a guitar. Otherwise, there is an epic poem revolving around the heroic deeds of the locals’ forebears. Most villagers have memorized some of the poem, and a couple pride themselves on knowing all of it: there are over ten thousand verses, and getting through it all would take months.
Beyaza is the tavernkeeper (Innkeeper-13), a quiet middle-aged woman with a talent for unobtrusiveness and blending into the background. She will tend to a customer’s needs with little comment, and respond laconically and evasively to questions. Her family are cooks and servers, and in case of any trouble, the one closest to the door will slip out and – in order – roust the mercenaries in the gatehouse, the blacksmith, and any other villagers available.
Talo has rented one of the rooms for a couple months now. He dresses simply, openly carries long knives (Knife-15), and is a short, wiry fellow with abrupt, jittery mannerisms. Talo doesn’t have any visible profession, isn’t interested in work, but pays his tab every week in good silver ... or else goes out to the traders’ row and buys something the tavern could use in lieu of the same. He’ll engage in jocular, neutral conversation, but reacts angrily to any personal questions, including when he’ll move on (“None of your damn business”) or whether he intends to stay indefinitely (“You hear me the first time, pal?”).
11) Ruined Donjon: What’s left of the donjon is a stub, consisting of the first story – the rest of the rubble was sold off as building stone and carted away. The practical villagers use the ruin to pen up their goat herds during the night, toss them garbage generated within the compound to eat, and use the droppings to manure their fields. The goats are used for dairy and their wool, and excess kids are slaughtered for meat.
12) Garden: The broad oval space is a tightly landscaped community garden, where the locals grow vegetables and herbs. There is barely enough space to walk between plots, and the villagers are intolerant of outsiders breaking the perimeter (fenced by large stones from the donjon). A couple youths bearing switches are tasked with keeping goats and other draft animals out. The fortification’s well is at the southeast corner.
PERSONALITIES
The villagers generally have a reasonable spread of crafts (generally at skill -12/-13), for PCs who want to avail themselves of the same: basket weavers, tapestry/quiltmakers, charcoalers, cheesemakers, fletchers, brewers. They’re usually willing to hire out for it, as long as it doesn’t impede the work of herding or farming.
Bekova (Area Knowledge/Crossbow-16, Survival/Traps-14) is a representative hunter and trapper, who brings in meat for the locals, and trades hides and furs to the itinerant peddlers. She is lean, quick, good in the field, a crack shot with a crossbow, and mingles as little as possible. All know that she’s the one to speak to as far as knowledge and conditions of a 15-mile diameter area around St. Chanan’s, but pinning her down is hard, and she’s seldom interested in dealing, unless a party has magical aids to hunting they can offer her.
Dastan is the local cunning man, a masterful forager, and the one to go to for medicinal herbs (Magery/1 (ceremonial), Naturalist-14, Herbalist-15). He is a sardonic, sometimes sarcastic aging fellow with little tolerance for fools, but is one of the only villagers willing to take gold or valuables as payment. Dastan also has magical powers on the hedge-witch level, mostly in simple illusions, communing with animals, finding lost items and minor scrying, but doing so takes a lot out of him. The locals hold him in a superstitious awe, for they fear his curses.
A representative trader is “Master” Argelle (Merchant/Intelligence Analysis-14, Fast-Talk-15), who passes herself off as an alchemist, selling a medicinal tonic of her devising. Argelle’s Famous Tonic is touted to help what ails a person (although she doesn’t make specific, explicit claims that might come back to haunt her) and to promote general health and growth. Her sales patter is masterful, entertaining and popular, and her demeanor is warm and caring. Argelle runs a circuit, moving around the region in a loop taking about a season; she stops here at St. Chanan’s to rest up for a week at a time, not being as young as she used to be. The Tonic is bitter herbs and honey with a stiff alcohol content, but her real purpose is as an agent of one of the warring border nations, scouting around the area, and bearing confidential messages for the nation’s intelligence apparat.
ADVENTURE HOOKS
* There are credible rumors that the war is about to resume. Having accepted a few too many of those otherwise unsellable pieces of jewelry, weapons and magical trinkets, the villagers seek to hire the party with them as short-term mercenaries to stiffen the defenses. The value of the goods they offer are roughly twice what the going rate for the mercenary work would be ... if the party survives to cash them in.
* One of the heirs approaches the party. There’s been nothing to indicate that the secret vault beneath the donjon was ever found, either by the invaders or the villagers. The heir is sure there’s portable treasure in there, and is willing to hand over a blueprint of the donjon indicating the right spot for a 50:50 split of whatever’s found. How the party pulls it off is their business. (How they will manage with the fact that the heir doesn't have an undisputed legal right to the goods, and that the other heirs will be on the warpath if they find out, is also their business.)
* The lawsuit’s been settled; the castle has a new legal owner. While the new Lady of the manor wants to get her fief in order and is not unwilling (within her finite means) to help the villagers rebuild, they are all squatters and she wants them out of the fortification. She offers to pay the party well to drive them out and keep them out until she and her entourage arrive. A city-bred agent of the Lady will travel with the party to do the talking, and will prove supercilious and dismissive of “country folk” and their customs.
* A villager is dead certain that one of the party was in the attacking force that torched her home, laughing as her screaming family burned to death inside. She means to make certain the PC is dead ... as cruelly as possible, however she can manage.
* A band of slavers/bandits thinks St. Chanan’s would make a very handy base of operations, and that they can just scoop up traders. They’re either there and in control when the party arrives, or strikes when the party is there.
