Willowdale - A Starting Village in Progress - Feedback and ideas welcome!

[Wasp]

Willowdale

Nestled in a quiet valley, Willowdale is a quaint village with a rich history. Located at the foot of the winding Greywater River, the village is home to a vibrant community of farmers and fishermen. The fields surrounding the village are filled with maize, beans, and squash. In the river, the villagers fish for the abundant fish and crayfish and harvest wild rice from its banks. In the nearby hills, the villagers cultivate foxgrapes, which are used to make a popular and sweet-tasting wine.

Despite its peaceful appearance, Willowdale has not always been a tranquil place. According to legend, the village was once the site of a great battle between two powerful armies. Today, the only reminders of this ancient conflict are the pillars of what must have been a gigantic stone bridge crossing the Greywater, and the ghost willows that stand along the river, their drooping branches and twisted trunks said to mark the thin veil between the world of the living and the beyond.

Despite its troubled ancient past, Willowdale once was an important hub of trade. In the past, the village was located on a busy road that connected it to the Mountain Kingdoms, allowing the villagers to trade their crops for goods from far and wide. But that was before the Mountain Kings closed the Halls Below to foreigners and trade with the Dwarves pretty much vanished.

Today, Willowdale has lost most of its importance but is still a thriving community, with a small temple, a lively market and a bustling inn where travelers and pilgrims can rest their weary heads.

Festival of the Burning Water - NEW

The Festival of the Burning Water celebrates the coming of spring and the renewal of life in the Dales. At the climax of the festival, the villagers of Willowdale gather at night along the banks of the Greywater and release candles and other lights into the water, creating a stunning display of light and color. The festival is a time of joy and celebration, filled with music, dancing, and feasting. Everyone in the village comes together to participate in the festival and to give thanks for the blessings of the new season.

The Moon and Fox Inn

The Moon and Fox Inn is a cozy little establishment located in the heart of Willowdale. A wooden sign, showing a white fox with three tails gazing up at the full moon, hangs above the entrance.

The guest rooms are warm and inviting, the perfect place to rest after a long day of pilgrimage and the kitchen offers a hearty meal for little coin to any weary traveller. But the villagers also love to come to the Inn and listen to Eliana, the innkeeper, singing in the tavern room. The half-elven woman with silver-blonde hair loves to sing songs about the mythical Fox, that gave the Inn its name.

But there's more to the Inn than meets the eye. Some claim that strange and magical occurrences happen within the inn's walls and there are rumors of secret card games in the cellars, where people have lost more than just house and home on a bet they shouldn't have made.

Whatever the truth may be, one thing is certain: a stay at the Moon and Fox Inn is always an unforgettable and potentially adventure-filled experience.

The Legend of the Fox and the Moon

The White Fox was a trickster known for its great cunning and intelligence. It could easily change its shape and appear as everything it desired, be it human, dwarf or elf. One night, as the large moon shone brightly in the sky it realized it could faintly hear Moon singing and it was the most beautiful thing it ever heard. The White Fox felt a burning desire to be closer to this divine melody and to become one with it. Using its powers of transformation, the fox became a beam of light and soared up into the sky, flying towards it and eventually merging with the Moon itself. From that day on, the two were one and the Moon was said to hold a special magic, imbued with the Fox' playful and mischievous spirit.

- The Story of The Trickster Moon, as told in the Dales

Eliana, the Innkeeper - NEW IMAGE

Elianana appears as a half-elven woman of indistinct age with long silver hair and bright eyes, slender and often with a knowing, roguish smile on her lips. But she is not a half-elf at all, unbeknownst to the village, Eliana is a Changeling, a being with a connection to the divine trickster and the fox' ability to change shape. She regards herself as a priestess of the Fox and worships the spirit through her many secret exploits.

Menu of the Moon and Fox Inn

Red Pepper and Bean Stew
Wild Rice Soup with Turkey
Crawfish Boil with Corn and Sweet Potato
Maize Frybead
Cured Venison
Maize Flatbread
Refried beans
Potato and Pumpkin Hash
Pancakes with Maple Syrup
Sweet Wine
Honey Wine and Mead
Moon Brandy

The Grove - the "temple" of growth and decay

The Boneyard - way older than the Settlement itself! Crypts!!!

The Fishermen's Shrine to the embodiment of the Greywater

The Ruins - NEW
The Ruins are the blackened remains of a fieldstone tower and keep on the other side of the Greywater, overgrown by ghost willows and half sunken into the marshland. The people of Willowdale say the ruins are haunted, talking about a ghostly apparation appearing in the ruins on several occasions.

There are two known paths to the cellars, a stairwell from the tower and a well opening in the courtyard. Maps of the flooded lower levels can be purchased at the Fox and Moon Inn, but the quality is unknown.

DM: The structure was a wizard's tower before it was razed and destroyed at the beginning of the Great Battle. There may still be treasures in the flooded basements, but getting to them will be a challenge for low level adventurers.

The apparition is a spectre which appears more often than it is seen. Every new moon the wizard who died in defence of his tower fights the battle over and over, unable to find rest until he can bestow some last, vital information to someone about the attackers ...

The Pillars - NEW
The Pillars are ancient stonework of unknown origin, 4 of the 7 pillar pairs stand in the oxbow of the Greywater the others away from Willowdale on the Western shore. The white stone of the pillars has pale blue streaks, making them appear grey in the distanat, but mysteriously rock like this cannot be found anywhere else in the Dales. The locals never managed to salvage any of the stone and so the Pillars still stand untouched and intimidating!

DM: The bridge presumed to have been built across the river is, in fact, nowhere near the ancient river beds. The current oxbow of the river just happens to bisect the Eastern edge of the structure today.

But it was, once, a bridge, although the waters it crossed weren't a river but the Astral Sea. When enemies from the Wilds Beyond invaded the Mortal Realm over the bridge, razing the Wizard Tower and attacking the Dales, the Defenders sought to close this gateway, cutting off the invaders from reinforcements. The Battle at the Bridge was fierce and ended when the bridge was burned in magical fire and disconnected from the material plane, stranding some of the invading forces and scattering them far and wide.

The pillars still form an anchor though, linking the material plane to the wild realms, allowing passage between the worlds when the conditions are right. If the stones of the pillars are ever returned to the fae realm, the veil would, over time, strengthen again.

On the other hand, the bridge could also be reconnected though magic powerful enough. And in fact, dark forces on both sides seek to reopen the bridge...

The New Market - is there an old one?

Grommok Ironfist, Bugbear Weaponsmith - NEW

The hulking bugbear has shaggy, now greying fur and a wild, untamed appearance, with a scar above his left eyebrow and yellow eyes that gleam with fierce intelligence. He may come across as gruff and intimidating, but those he considers friends know him to be deeply loyal.

Grommok's reputation as a skilled weaponsmith precedes him, with whispers of him having learned his craft from the elusive dwarves of the Deep Kingdom before their gates were sealed. But his talents don't stop there, as Grommok is also a fierce warrior, ready to defend his village and friends with ferocious determination.

His journey to Willowdale was that of a wanderer, never staying in one place for too long. But when he stumbled upon the village one winter night, it was under attack by a pack of direwolfs driven into the Dales by hunnger (or somnething else?) and the villagers were struggling to defend themselves. Grommok stepped in to help, using his skills to turn the tide of battle.

After the beasts were defeated, the villagers offered an injured Grommok a place to stay. He was touched by the kindness of the villagers and decided to stay and quickly became an important member of the community. Eventually he decided to settle there permanently and became the village's weaponsmith.

The Kitsune: - NEW
A a small tribe of Kitsune lives in the wilds around Willowdale, coming in on market days and - until recently - having an amicable but distant relationship with the townsfolk. But over the last few months or so there has been a series of thefts and many suspect the Kitsune being the perpetrators...

DM: The PCs can find out that the Kitsune are not responsible for the thefts and work with them to bring the real perpetrators to justice. This can begin a friendship and partnership with the Kitsune and stregthen the bond between the fox people and the townsfolk of Willowdale.

However, there is a dark secret about the Kitsune, as they were left behind by the Fae invaders when the Bridge across the Astral Sea was closed. They dont' even know it themselves, or they have forgotten over the centuries, but nevertheless, the Pale could utilize them in their plan to return to the material plane...

--------------------

Edit: Updated - Festival of the Burning Water, Eliana (Picture); The Ruins; The Pillars; The Bugbear Weaponsmith; The Kitsune

[brian 333]

Ruins of The Fort

What it was, back in its prime, is the subject of fireside tales in the depths of winter. What it is now is a pile of fieldstone that suggests a tower and a keep, possibly built to guard a river crossing.
The ruins were, in the not-so-distant past, (recalled by elders in tales passed down from their elders,) on an island. Now the far channel is dammed and marsh plants grow where the river current once surged. The oxbow that encircles the ruins is the channel that the town is now built around. It may be, as some argue, that The Ruins were once on the same side of the river as the town, built to face what is now a white willow-covered isthmus.
Many of the stones of The Ruins have been repurposed by the villagers. There are at least two known paths to the cellars beneath The Ruins: one is a stairwell from what must have been a tower, while the other appears to have been a well opening in the center of the courtyard. The stair itself had to have been dug out and exposed several decades, or even centuries ago. The well opened itself in a flood that caused the roof of the chamber below to cave in about twenty years ago. Several feet below the entrance the water table discourages further exploration, though many have made the attempt.
Maps of the lower levels can be purchased at the Fox and Moon. (The quality of the maps is not known.) The map-seller will also speak of an apparition of an aged elf that has, several times, appeared floating around above the tower ruins..

DM: The structure was a wizard's tower before the battle. It was razed at that time, to be used later as a field hospital which was also destroyed in the battle.
There may be waterproof items down in the flooded basements which could be used, but getting to them will be a challenge for low level adventurers.
The apparition is a spectre which appears more often than it is seen. The wizard who died in the defence of his tower endlessly fights the battle over and over.

[Wintermoot]

Wasp,

did you mean for us to post ideas and add-ons, or were you just using this as a place to post your own ideas for feedback?

I think it sounds like a fun set up. I already imagine that the Gateway somehow bridges the real world to a Fae like realm, Oberon and Titania's kingdom, and that the war was between the Fae and the real world generations ago.

I immediately thought of a small tribe of Kitsune living in the wilds around the village, coming in on market days and having a convivial but distant relationship with the townsfolk.

Lvl 1-3: The PCs are brought to interact with the Kitsune tribe because some locals have accused them of theft or kidnapping local children. The locals dont' know they are kitsune, just thought to be wild outsiders. The PCs find out that the Kitsune are not responsible for the theft or kidnapping and work with the Kitsune champions (druids, rangers, bards) to bring the real perpetrators to justice. This begins a friendship and partnership with the Kitsune.

Lvl 4-6: Several times, the PCs call upon the Kitsune for aid in other quests, or are called upon to help the Kitsune.

Lvl 7-9: This is the point in the campaign where the gateway gets reopened by some evil wizard cabal that wants to get in and plunder the Fae realm. They dont' realize that there was a good reason it was closed. The PCs defeat them but aren't aware that the gate opened JUST long enough to set off some long forgotten traps.

Lvl 10: It turns out the Kitsune are sleepers, left behind by the Fae when the gate was closed. They dont' even know it themselves, or they have forgotten over the ensuing generations. The gate opens long enough for the powers on the other side to reactivate them. Close friends and collegues of the PCs now become murderous enemies, trying to kill the PCs to get the artifacts the cabal was using to open the gate so they can open it themselves. The PCs have to decide how to deal with good friends turned enemies who may or may not be able to be freed from what appears to be mind control.

[Wasp]

Wasp,

did you mean for us to post ideas and add-ons, or were you just using this as a place to post your own ideas for feedback?

Sorry, I meant to write more about this but then I had to leave and just posted everything without adding an intro... Oops...

Well... This is my Dungeon23 inspired project I wanted to share here and ask mainly for feedback as well as ideas as I love collaboration in worldbuilding. However, I would want to be able to decide what to include and change things a bit if I have other ideas...

Would that work for you?

Because I really like the ideas brian and you posted. So would it be okay for you two if I integrated some of it in my next post? Just let me know how you feel! If you don't like this way of doing things, I understand!

I think it sounds like a fun set up. I already imagine that the Gateway somehow bridges the real world to a Fae like realm, Oberon and Titania's kingdom, and that the war was between the Fae and the real world generations ago.

Yes, I though about something similar. My first idea was a gateway to a fae realm that's the "court" of the embodiment of the River, like a Fae "Court of the River King" but then I indeed thought it may be more epic if it's tied to the ancient battle. So I really like your idea there.

I immediately thought of a small tribe of Kitsune living in the wilds around the village, coming in on market days and having a convivial but distant relationship with the townsfolk.

I like that idea as well. I have to think about your break-down, but as you may imagine, I was very much intending to build off kitsune here. The break down by level sounds also very good, although I don't know yet if I am a fan of the conclusion with the sleepers...

Ruins of The Fort

I really like this as a traditional dungeon close by - and a partially flooded one at that!!! - and the idea that some kind of a ghost or spectre is fighting a past battle over and over is a really fun classic ghost story set-up. I just don't quite know yet how this could combine with this fae war idea.

[Wintermoot]

Yeah, of course, Anything I post here you can use however you want. I've been meaning to start a D23 project myself. Probably just 10 days too late, lol.

[brian 333]

Please feel free to use, modify, or ignore anything I post.

Because you asked,
I don't know the sides in your fey-wars, but the wizard may have been caught between them, or may have chosen the wrong side and got caught trying to switch sides after it was too late.
Or just a guy whose lab and library happened to be where the battle happened. He fought a brave but futile battle against two sides, both convinced he was working for the other. As each side moved in, it appeared as if the other side was trying to reinforce the fortification. Both sides attacked and demolished the fort, which changed hands several times in the next few days until both sides concentrated forces elsewhere and abandoned the fort altogether.

[Metastachydium]

The New Market - is there an old one?

[DISCLAIMER: Suggestion to be (partly) discarded as desired.]

Yes. Old Market Hill (the spelling varies) is an eroded height with a flat top further down by the road on Willowdale's side of the river, standing somewhat apart from the hills with the vineyards. Although the current name is widely understood to be the end product of folk etymology, it is not misleading. The earthworks of indeterminate age (but probably older yet than the Boneyard's vaults) were used as an enclosure where the cowheards from the Long Grass, headed to the land past the water had stopped to safely camp overnight and trade some of their cattle for various wares supplied by the locals. Ever since the bridge fell, the Old Market has been largely abandoned. Its only inhabitant is a grumpy lizardfolk hermit, mostly known for being unfriendly to visitors (commonly driving them away with a straightened scythe many would swear is forged from cold iron) and lighting a bonfire each night, visible from afar. The lizard never seems to sleep or leave the Old Market (how does the hilltop fire stay supplied with firewood night after night is somewhat poorly understood).

[Wintermoot]

Jean-Guy, the fur-trapper,

Jean-Guy, a massive pug of a man, is an uncouth, solemn fur trapper, known as the fox-hunter. He works traplines in the deep woods and comes into town once a month for supplies. It is known that he and Eliana do NOT get along, and she routinely kicks him out of the Inn for the slightest offense. Jean-Guy is normally a solemn, dour man who wants very little to do with others, but when he gets too much fox-wine in him, he blossoms into a jovial man, singing songs in his native language and eager to tell stories and stay up late at night dancing and carousing. He has black hair with silver streaks and a thick, similarly colored beard. He wears old rusted ring mail, covered with drapes of silver fox fur. He is festoned with a seemlingly limitless number of beartraps, bolos, nets and rucksacks. His main weapon is a man-catcher style polearm that he can use to grapple foes at a 10' range. He has dozens of little geegaws, trinkets, charms and wards tied all over him that are supposed to protect him from evil magic and witchcraft. He routinely chomps down on raw onions and garlic, almost compusively. You can smell him coming from three blocks away.

Two of his beartraps are enchanted as animate objects and have the loyalty and personalities of hunting dogs. If Jean Guy is attacked, or he shouts the command word "mes petits chiens!" they will drop to the ground and go chain-chomping after his foes.

It is said that he never trades any silver fox pelts he captures, keeping them as personal trophies. The only reason he is dealt with in the town is that he seems to have a ceaseless horde of very old gold and silver coins that he uses to buy supplies. Several enterprising thieves have tried following him into the woods to see where he keeps his stash and none have ever found it. Some haven't returned at all.

DM: What the townfolk don't know is that Jean-Guy is afflicted with lycanthropy, bitten by a were-fox. He is constantly hunting for the beast that bit him, believing that if he traps and kills it, it will cure his affliction. He only comes into town during the new moon, always making sure to be far away for the three days of the full moon. Somewhere, deep in the woods, he has found the lair of a small silver dragon, which is where he gets his seemingly limitless wealth. He hasn't killed the silver dragon, but captured her and keeps her prisoner, trapped in human form with a anti-shapechanging set of manacles that he brought to use to capture his sire, trying to extort from her the power to undo his curse. Jean Guy takes himself into the dragon's lair and chains himself up for the nights of the full moon.

The players might track Jean-Guy and find out his secret. They could rescue the silver dragon from him in return for a reward, or they might take pity on him and help him cure his curse. Otherwise, he could simply be a character to bring color and occasional knowledge of the deep woods.


Alternative: If you want Jean-Guy to be less Neutral-Evil and more tragic of a figure, then instead of capturing and holding the silver dragon as prisoner change it to this: Jean Guy was a religious man, a wandering priest, who was met and fell in love with the silver dragon. However the evil were-fox who afflicted him, also trapped her, freezing her in form in a crystal statue in her own lair. Now he hunts the were-fox, not only to cure his own curse, but to force him to free his beloved from her vigil. Fixing them both requires remove curse (or wish or miracle) spells but will ONLY work with the skull of the evil were-fox as an additional component.

[brian 333]

The Pillars, The Fairy Bridge

The Pillars are ancient stonework, but the stones are not local stone. They look like ancient stonework that has weathered, but in this region there are no pale white rocks veined with blue streaks, (causing the stones to appear grey in the distance.)

The bridge everyone presumed to have been built to cross the river is, in fact, nowhere near the ancient river channels. The current oxbow of the river just happens to bisect the Southern edge of the structure, leaving five of the two-dozen pillars standing in the river's bank. The current oxbow is less than a century old, with the previous channel having closed in just the last generation.

But it was, once, a bridge. The waters it crossed were Astral. From the realm of Fae, the bridge crossed multiple dimensions to reach this land. It was, in fact, the reason for the great battle. One side sought to close the way for the other to get reinforcements, and the defense of the bridge was fierce. The battle ended when the bridge was disconnected from its attachment to the material plane.

From the side of the Fairy Realm the bridge theoretically could be reconnected, assuming a spellcaster able to perform a Wish or Miracle casts the spell. From the Material Plane, the pillars are interesting but mostly useless.

The locals know that the pillars are cursed such that trying to remove a stone results in the thief being flung 10ft away and rendered unconscious until aided by another.

The presence of the pillars form an anchor point that links the material to the fae realms, which is the cause of the permeability between the two planes in this location. If the stones of the pillars are ever returned to the fae realm from which they came, the veil would, over time, fade away.

[Wasp]

Thank you all for the great ideas! I have updated the first posting! I haven't gotten to everything yet, but see how you like my update and changes!

[brian 333]

The Dwarf Road

An old roadway emerges from broken shards at the river's edge, and follows the meandering course of a tributary stream into the hills. The road is well constructed, and exactly twelve feet, seven and one quarter inches wide along it's entire length. The cobbles are smooth-surfaced and fitted exactly so that there are no gaps between the stones.

Wherever there is a grade greater than 3 degrees, stone pillars are set no more than a quarter of a mile apart. Many still retain the rusted chains and complex block and tackle that was used to haul heavy wagons uphill, or to brace them against loss of control on their way down. Large flat places are carved into the hillside at switchbacks and along long runs, most likely as rest stops or places to reset the equipment used to help wagons get up the side of the mountain.

The course taken by the stream is choked with rapids and falls. One of these falls is over fifty feet high. A long, winding course up the ridge returns the road to the waterfall, but there is also an ancient steel structure atop the cliff which dangles a complicated chain mechanism over a point at the base of the falls where a branch of the road terminates in a circular plaza. Apparently, the massive device lifts while wagons to the clifftop. From the clifftop the road bridges the stream and continues into the hills following the river's course.
The road terminates at a sheer wall over seven-hindred feet high. The road appears to simply go beneath the edge of the wall, but as can be seen in places chipped into the stone, the cobblestones fuse with the wall where they meet. Alongside the road, two rows of stone structures stand, with very small yards between them and the road. The buildings only stand one or occasionally two stories high when viewed from the road, but their rears overlook the valleys on either side of the final ridge. From the valleys they appear to be long walls pierced by deep, narrow windows.

Where human houses would have common rooms on the ground floor and private rooms upstairs, these houses appear to be designed with the public areas on top and more private quarters lower down. The basements, of course, are still basements: dark storage rooms, often with exposed foundation structures. On the first floor beneath the road, a plaza which joins every building together supports the heavy stone beams with columns and arches. Some of the buildings have broad, open courtyard entrances to the plaza while some have a simple vaulted tunnel or vestibule. The location appears to have been a way for the villagers to move around and conduct business during winter storms. The plaza abruptly ends where the sheer wall intersects the road above.

DM: there appear to be bandits living here, storing their loot and camp followers here while they raid in an adjacent valley. The bandits may or may not be here when the adventurers arrive, but the camp followers will try to loot the adventurers using tricks and copious quantities of wine.

Unless the adventurers threaten to expose them, the camp followers will pretend to be peaceful villagers. Their lack of fields or herds is the first clue that they are not. If they do feel threatened, their attack will be planned, perhaps with a party first to get the adventurers drunk enough to capture without a fight.

If one follows the dwarf road in the opposite direction, it appears to go down the river valley for many miles, often broken, as at the village, by the meanders of the river. It vanished near civilization because its stones have been salvaged and repurposed by folk who have no native stone to use in construction. One who knows to look can see that many parlor floors, blacksmith's furnaces, and other structures have been built of the cobbles of the Dwarf Road.

[Wintermoot]

The Watcher in the Wall

It is said, amongst the Willowdale fisherfolk that it is unwise to fish at night when the stars and moon are occluded by clouds. They claim that sometimes a boat out in the night, when overcast and the moon is hidden, will see a strange glowing light appear under the river. A great creature or magical apparition is there, under the water. Although no one is known to have suffered attack, it unnerves any who see it and sends them to the shore. Most never go out on the water again, changing occupation from fisherman to farmer in order to stay with two feet solidly on the ground. One story that is told is that one brave or foolish young fisherman followed the light to see what it was. It meandered along under the river for many hours before it finally moved toward one of the mysterious pillars, the one that is half in and half out of the river's edge. There a creature appeared, a massive beast, half fish half bull-dog, with a long tentacle hanging from its brow from which hung a bright light, like a lantern. Riding the beast was a man-sized figure wearing a sodden cloak of tattered kelp and carrying a driftwood staff. They plodded from the river, up the shore where the stones of the pillar seemed to shift and move creating an opening into which they disappeared. Right before the stone door closed, the foolish young man made a noise and the figure turned. It wasn't a man at all, but a hideous fish-man with billowing gills and murderous red eyes. The lad turned and ran back to the Inn where everyone laughed at his story until they finally followed him back to the pillar where strange tracks where found plodding up from the river and disappearing into the stone. After that, everyone stopped laughing.

If you hear this story told by the locals, no one can remember who the young man was, even though many seem to think they were there and experienced it first hand. If you press them, they will get confused, look bewilderdly toward a nearby light and lose their focus and forget they were ever telling you a story in the first place.

DM: The creature is a Locathah Wizard of Moderate level (10-13th probably). Once, long ago, in the time of the war, he was a servant of the Wizard who lived in the broken tower, serving as butler, major domo and apprentice. Almost a familiar of a sort. When the wizard was killed, the tower broken and the bridge closed, the Locathah took it upon himself to serve as guardian and watcher to make sure the way stays closed. He does not work alone. There is a brotherhood operating on both this side and the other of the closed portal, working in secret to make sure the way never again reopens. He wants nothing to do with the locals, because he knows his kind would likely be killed on sight, but he occasionally interacts with other aquatics that live in the area, such as the river selkie that live in the dam downstream from the town, and various nixies and neriads that live in pools and grottos up and down the river.

He lives in a sort of permanent spatial fold in the pillar, created by the energies that used to open the gateway between realms. Think of it as a permanant minor mansion or rope trick like affair. To locate and open it, you would need to be a moderately powerful wizard yourself. Inside his lair he has a shard of magic mirror that he can use to communicate with this brethren in the realm of Fae who work on that side to make sure no one reopens the gate. He used to live in the ruins of the wizard tower, but he was too unnerved by the apparition of his dead master and too tired of dealing with the bands of adventurers using the ruins as a Lvl 1-5 dungeon adventure always stumbling on his hidden caches and lairs, so he moved here instead. He maintains a number of wards and charms at the ruins that alert him whenever people begins disturbing and delving into the ruins because he's learned that most arcane spellcasters who show up to try to reopen the gateway tend to start there, (under the mistaken impression that his old master was somehow related to the gateway or perhaps its creator) so he can find out about them fairly quickly.

He specializes in fear effect magic, minor mental manipulation and charm abilities, some illusions and enchantments that help him maintain his solitude, hide what needs to remain hidden and watch for magic-users who show up to try and reopen the gate. He has a crystal ball that he can use to scry on any of his wards that get triggered, so he's pretty on the ball with knowing things.

If the players managed to meet and ocmmunicate with him, and convince him that they pose no threat to reopen the gate, he can be an excellent resource of knowledge and provider of magical aid and place to purchase potions and minor magic items. He spends the bulk of his time making potions, wands, rings and so on, because it was one of his tasks when he worked for the wizard and he can trade them to get anything he needs. However, he is likely to be extremely paranoid and wary of any arcane spellcasters or Fae-adjacent PCs.

His riding beast is a kind of large sized lantern-fish/bulldog like creature with a great swim speed and terrible land-speed. However, it can charge in a straight line for a short distance if it needs to attack. It's name is F'lwrskri'Njalinph, which translates as "Fluffy"


The Old Dam, the New Dam and the River Selkie


So why did the flow of the Greywater Oxbow change and when? The answer lies in two dams, one several days upriver of the Village and one a few scant leagues downriver. Both dams are made of mud and wood and both were created by a local tribe of river Selkie. River Selkie are not Fae creatures, but more like anthropomorphic otter-folk and beaver-folk. All the Selkie now live in the new dam, downriver from the village and have a contentious relationship with the villagers. Very little trade occurs and very little contact. However the young of the Selkie are prone to sneaking upriver and occasionally raiding the village, destrying fishing nets and traps, sinking boats and causing havok amongst the fishemen. This is apparently a rite of passage for the Selkie youths, a form of couting coup. The Selkie resent the village for taking the best fish before they can swim downstream to their dam and hunting pools, and for contaminating the river with their washing soaps and wastewater.

Left alone, the Selkie are mostly peaceful, content to fish for crabs, freshwater oysters, mussels and fish in their hunting pools and live in their expansive grottos in the new dam superstructure. Only the rambunctious youths leave to raid the land-walkers. When they do, they come dressed in oyster-shell armor, with jagged edges for cutting nets and snares, and weilding cudgels that act like lacross mallets and let them hurl stones with deadly force.

DM: So why do they live in the New Dam downriver and not in the abandoned Old Dam upriver? No one knows for sure, but no Selkie goes anywhere near it. It is said that something terrible forced them out and now nests there, something fallow, something dark and twisted and unhealthy.

A possible adventure would be if mutated sickened fish started coming downriver, or the waters of the greywater were to grow foul and the party would have to journey several days upriver to the Old Dam and route out whatever foulness roosts there.

[Wintermoot]

Spoiler: The Dwarf Road you say?

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The Dwarf Road

An old roadway emerges from broken shards at the river's edge, and follows the meandering course of a tributary stream into the hills. The road is well constructed, and exactly twelve feet, seven and one quarter inches wide along it's entire length. The cobbles are smooth-surfaced and fitted exactly so that there are no gaps between the stones.

Wherever there is a grade greater than 3 degrees, stone pillars are set no more than a quarter of a mile apart. Many still retain the rusted chains and complex block and tackle that was used to haul heavy wagons uphill, or to brace them against loss of control on their way down. Large flat places are carved into the hillside at switchbacks and along long runs, most likely as rest stops or places to reset the equipment used to help wagons get up the side of the mountain.

The course taken by the stream is choked with rapids and falls. One of these falls is over fifty feet high. A long, winding course up the ridge returns the road to the waterfall, but there is also an ancient steel structure atop the cliff which dangles a complicated chain mechanism over a point at the base of the falls where a branch of the road terminates in a circular plaza. Apparently, the massive device lifts while wagons to the clifftop. From the clifftop the road bridges the stream and continues into the hills following the river's course.
The road terminates at a sheer wall over seven-hindred feet high. The road appears to simply go beneath the edge of the wall, but as can be seen in places chipped into the stone, the cobblestones fuse with the wall where they meet. Alongside the road, two rows of stone structures stand, with very small yards between them and the road. The buildings only stand one or occasionally two stories high when viewed from the road, but their rears overlook the valleys on either side of the final ridge. From the valleys they appear to be long walls pierced by deep, narrow windows.

Where human houses would have common rooms on the ground floor and private rooms upstairs, these houses appear to be designed with the public areas on top and more private quarters lower down. The basements, of course, are still basements: dark storage rooms, often with exposed foundation structures. On the first floor beneath the road, a plaza which joins every building together supports the heavy stone beams with columns and arches. Some of the buildings have broad, open courtyard entrances to the plaza while some have a simple vaulted tunnel or vestibule. The location appears to have been a way for the villagers to move around and conduct business during winter storms. The plaza abruptly ends where the sheer wall intersects the road above.

DM: there appear to be bandits living here, storing their loot and camp followers here while they raid in an adjacent valley. The bandits may or may not be here when the adventurers arrive, but the camp followers will try to loot the adventurers using tricks and copious quantities of wine.

Unless the adventurers threaten to expose them, the camp followers will pretend to be peaceful villagers. Their lack of fields or herds is the first clue that they are not. If they do feel threatened, their attack will be planned, perhaps with a party first to get the adventurers drunk enough to capture without a fight.

If one follows the dwarf road in the opposite direction, it appears to go down the river valley for many miles, often broken, as at the village, by the meanders of the river. It vanished near civilization because its stones have been salvaged and repurposed by folk who have no native stone to use in construction. One who knows to look can see that many parlor floors, blacksmith's furnaces, and other structures have been built of the cobbles of the Dwarf Road.

The Dwarf, Rhode.


A not-uncommon character whom travellers on the Dwarf Road will stumble upon, normally when getting ready to camp for the night, Rhode claims to be a dwarven merchant, left behind when the doors to the Mountain King's halls closed, who plies his simple trade up and down the Dwarf Road. A thoughtful player might note that, though he claims to be a merchant, he travels without wagon or mule or any noticeable goods beyond whatever he can fit in his knapsack. If pressed about it, he might claim to be between shipments, or might pat his knapsack and chuckle and say he is carrying all the goods he needs. Or he might be angry at being questioned depending on how the questioner states his questions. He will seek to share the party's fire for the night, and provide wine, share food and play his accordian upon request. If the party treat him fairly and well, then he will depart in the morning, and they will find good fortune and safety on their travels while on the Road. If they treat him poorly or with suspicion, he will be irate and take his leave abruptly. Afterwards, they will find their way difficult and treacherous, full of ill-luck and lead to disaster.

To all appearances, he is a tall sturdy dwarf with blacker than black hair and ruddy complexion. However if you look EXTREMELY close, you'll notice that his skin is the color of the cobbles themselves and you can make out the lines where rocks join together on his cheeks and forehead and his gravel like nose. If you figure out he isn't want he claims to be, he will laugh and congratulate you and either dart away, leaving behind some gems if he thinks you earned them, or challenge you to various contests of strength or skill or riddles. He enjoys good company and good contests, but abhors cheaters or people who beat him in anyway he deems not fair-and-square.

DM: So what is Rhode? He is an earth-spirit of some sort or another. During the construction of the Road, many earth elementals were summoned and used to aid in construction and Rhode was errantly summoned instead as sometimes happens. Because he is no simple elemental, he chose to stay. Now he is the literal spirit of the Road, tied to the Road like a Dryad is tied to their tree or a Neried to their river. He can only go a few hundred yards from the Road before he starts weakening and fading. If he was forced further than that, he'd disappear back to the elemental plane and lose his connection completely.

He can teleport without error to anywhere along the road, and to anyplace where enough of the cobbles have been moved (so those parlor floors and blacksmith's furnaces are fair game). He can also earth-glide through the road at extremely high rate of speed. When he does so, you can hear and see him go because the cobbles will bulge up and clack in and out of position like bugs-bunny trailing through the earth.

He can control the stones and chains of the road, causing them to fly up and at people or the chains to entangle them. He can meld into the road and use the stones to grow in size as per enlarge person spells to become a stone giant if needs be. If he is destroyed, his body just crumbles to rock and he reappears elsewhere on the Road, reformed and at full health. However, he will leave behind his armor, weapons and knapsack which will contain a number of magical items and abundant gems for anyone who defeats him. Rhode considers that well-earned and rarely seeks out revenge or the return of the items.

He is a trickster type personality, and likes to play tricks on people that anger him, but likes to help those he deems worthy. His affections are fickle and based on his own somewhat unusual moral compass, so he's difficult to control or anticipate.

He is on good terms with the more powerful folk of the area, and can be summoned, by those who know how, to provide information about goings on up and down the Road. He has hidden caches of wine and gems under the cobbles at various points on the road. When he is attacked and ends up killing his attackers, he simply buries them under the road as another cache of goods for his future use.

Lastly, he has one power that he only uses as a final resort. Many dwarves died in the creation of the road. Many other non-dwarves he has killed himself over the years and buried under the road. He can summon their spirits, raising them as wraiths or ghouls if he needs to. However doing so taints his soul in a way he finds distasteful. He feels that every time he does so, he is opening the door to something ELSE coming in and taking him over. Something from a darker place than the elemental plane of earth.

[brian 333]

I love The Dwarf, Rhode! I am jealous that I didn't think of him first.
This is why I love this forum so much; I came here to post another dumb idea and I ran into genius!

The Gooch
The old fishers drink a toast to Old Maude and The Gooch as the evening winds down.
The hostess smirks, if asked about it, and says, "It is just a local legend which the oldsters have told so many times that they have come to believe it is true."
Any of the fishermen will tell the tale, if offered a round for his group for a second toast.

"Old Maude was the best of us all. No fisher knew the river better; no fisher brought in bigger catches. One summer, the water was low, hotter than the air, and even Old Maude was having a hard time catching fish. Two boats went missing, then three. Pieces of them were found, crushed like they had gone over a very tall waterfall.
"Old Maude paid the Temple to find the cause: the priest said, "You must kill The Gooch."
"So she set out to do it."

At this point the speaker falls silent. Any requests to continue the story are answered by one of the group, "Poor Old Maude."
A toast all 'round will encourage the storyteller.

"Old Maude set about killing The Gooch. She loaded a keelboat for her hunt. Instead of nets, she carried spears. She baited long lines with hooks as big as your arm. And in the dark of the New Moon she poled out on the river."
"Anointed!" Interjects one of the elders. "You left out the part where she was annointed by the Temple priest."
"These folk don't pray to our God," answers the storyteller.
"If you don't want to tell the story right, don't tell it at all."
"Well you tell it, then!"
"All right," the new storyteller says, "The priest of the temple met her at the river's edge, and with the Blessing of the River cast upon herself and her boat, she poled away in the dark of the moon.
"Billy's great-uncle followed her, to help..."
"T'was Billy's Grandfather."
"No, it was Taelis' Grandmother."
"It was Harth's uncle, twice-removed..."
The storytelling devolves into an argument over who followed Old Maude, ended with several disgruntled oldsters and the rest aligned into three camps: Taelis' Grandmother, Billy's Great-Uncle, and a small following for a variety of Harth's relatives, exactly which to be decided later.
The argument can be ended with the offer of a round and a toast to the heroic villager who went along.

"In a deep hole in an oxbow bend, she finally met The Gooch. It was only a dark shadow in black water, but it pushed a huge bow wake that threatened to capsize Old Maude.
"She hurled a barbed spear into the dark, then another. The Gooch struck. Its tail slapped Old Maude's boat and spun it right around, but she swam back and crawled back aboard. She gathered every remaining spear and stood atop the sinking boat so she could be seen as the broken vessel drifted downstream.
"She waited.
"And waited.
"Through the long night she waited. As the early light of dawn turned the edge of the sky blue a giant wave formed, aimed right at her. As the wave hit the boat, The Gooch leapt into the air. Big as the keelboat, it was, and blacker than the dark waters of its creation.
"A fiend, it was! A spawn of the nether worlds!
"Old Maude braced her spear and aimed for its heart. The Gooch fell on her, crushing her between itself and the keelboat beneath them, which was also crushed. The Gooch sank into the deep, along with Old Maude.
"What do you say to one more round for Old Maude?"

If the answer to the last question is 'yes,' the story's ending follows.

"Nobody knows what became of them. Some say Old Maude is out there still, on the Great River, fighting the minions of Darkness to protect the afterlives of those on the Good shore of the river.
"But the fiend? It was slain that night, they say.
"The hopeful say.
"Some say The Gooch simply sleeps in some deep channel, waiting for the drought that warms the river. Then she will return."
"Mickie's aunt saw it's back once."

The story devolves into an argument over whether The Gooch still haunts the river. Torn nets and lost lines are cited as proof, while others blame the losses on giant catfish or nixies, or even the indigenous river crabs.

[Wasp]

Very intersting ideas! :-)

I don't know if I go that route with the Dwarf Roads. I had this vague idea of Dwarven Roads being literal "Highways" - aqueduct-like structures - but I don't quite yet know what I want to do with the dwarves...

As for something completely different: I had this completely random idea to just include pre-columbian American crops, animals and wildlife in "The Dales" maybe with some extinct American (mega-)fauna added like those extinct horses. But I don't know if that would be just a gimmick.

I am also contemplating: If I should open up this moon/fox/shapechaning/lycanthrophy thing to other creatures. The players could for example learn that the trickster fox is a lynx or bobcat in other regions. I don't know.

[brian 333]

Do you have a campaign theme?

The difference between a campaign setting and a campaign is that a setting is background full of possibility. The campaign frames what is possible.

Take Krynn as an example. There is actually very little detail in the setting related to dragons, but the campaign is all about dragons. However, there is a great deal of information about the Cataclysm and its effect on the world. This supports and sets up the dragon-theme of the campaign.

Faerun and Greyhawk are realms of possibility. For campaigns to happen in either someone must create a story that links elements of the campaign world to form a chain of adventures that logically follow one another.

Example: Undeath is a horrible way to recruit an army

Campaign begins with the Cult of The Old One 'recruiting' soldiers in Bonemarch, with the intention of encircling the sea and extending the realms of the cambion Iuz. The early adventures evolve around undead priests offering low to mid level monsters more power through undeath. As the PCs succeed, they discover the true scale of the campaign, and must organize the defense of Greyhawk against the minions of Iuz and their followers.

So, use a campaign theme as the glue that connects the pieces of your setting together.

[brian 333]

I am also contemplating: If I should open up this moon/fox/shapechaning/lycanthrophy thing to other creatures. The players could for example learn that the trickster fox is a lynx or bobcat in other regions. I don't know.

Could this be linked to heritage? The Simpson family venerates the Bobcat Spirit, while the Hill family venerates the Mockingbird spirit, but both spirits are aspects of the same trickster deity.

One could have the player propose the aspect he wishes to venerate, then work out the effects of lycanthropy for that creature type. For example, a bobcat lycanthrope may have three forms, a man, a man-cat, and a bobcat. His natural attacks are weak, but leaping and agility are vastly superior. The Mockingbird version may have a man, a man-bird, and a bird form, with vulnerability to blunt weapons but the ability to glide in hybrid form and the diminutive size category and ability to fly as a bird.

Of course, you may choose several species, dictate their forms and declare them the only options available.

True lycanthropy? Does the bite infect the bitten? I would say not, because this is a beneficial aspect of venerating the trickster deity.

Template or ECL? Benefits both ways, which may also be drawbacks. As a template, level 1 characters will be greatly advantaged. Weakening the template will disadvantage the high level character. ECL will allow the template to apply, but the character will begin play at a higher level.

Prestige Class may be a better way to go, with the requirement that a character be from a certain family or village to take the PrC, with abilities manifesting as the character levels up in that PrC. One might even require for the PrC version that a character have as many levels in other classes as in PrC levels. This way allows the DM to load weak abilities in the low levels and the strong ones become available only at higher levels.

Example PrC
Child of the Trickster-Mockingbird
Members of the Byrd Family of Willow Branch secretly claim descent from the Trickster, who seduced their ancestor while in the form of a mockingbird. Children who are descended from that birth have been known to manifest strange abilities, such as their uncanny ability to mimic any whistling-type sound they hear.

At level 1 of this PrC the character gains Bird-Vision, granting 270 degrees forward arc, with a 90 degree flank directly to the rear.
Level 2 allows the character to morph into a bird-man hybrid, whose feathers help deflect piercing attacks, (AC +1 vs. Piercing,) but each damage die rolled from a successful Bludgeoning attack gains a +1 damage due to thinning of the bones in the altered form. A DC 15 Dex check allows the morphed character to eliminate falling damage by parachuting with his undeveloped wings.
At Level 3 the bird-hybrid form can glide 20 feet per 5 feet of elevation, but maneuvering reduces this distance by 10' per 90 degree turn. Each maneuver also subtracts from the Dex check to avoid falling damage.
At level 4 gliding in hybrid form no longer requires a save to avoid falling damage and the character may engage in spellcasting, archery, or many other non-contact actions. A level 4 bird-hybrid may also use thermal or other updrafts to gain altitude and extend gliding time and distance.
At level 5 the character gains the ability to change into a mockingbird, with agile flight capabilities. Unlike natural mockingbirds, the character can speak, allowing spells with no somatic component, or spells learned as Still Spells to be cast. Its melee combat ability is negligible.

Of course, this leaves out things like 'Speak with Birds' and 'Appetite of a Bird' as flavor benefits along the way, which a full and complete write-up would include.