# Faulmoor Locations Faulmoor is a land steeped in sorrow, where the weight of the **Rotmire Blight** presses against the hearts of its people as surely as the thick fog that clings to its marshes. The air is heavy with decay, carrying the scent of damp earth, stagnant water, and something far fouler—the distant, cloying rot of the dead. In the second year of the Blight, the land is neither fully consumed nor truly untouched, existing in a purgatory of slow decline. The deeper reaches of the swamps pulse with the foul sickness, and abandoned hamlets sag beneath the weight of creeping mold and deathless hunger. But Faulmoor is not yet lost—its roads are still traveled, its villages still cling to life, and its people still fight for whatever scraps remain. # Valkenheim > *“Valkenheim is a golden lantern in the dark.”* > — Lord Ivor Valkenmar **Valkenheim** is the capital of [Faulmoor](/link/2) and the seat of [House Valkenmar](/link/6). Its maintained streets, gardens, markets, and fortified walls stand in deliberate contrast to much of the surrounding barony, where the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) has damaged roads, emptied settlements, and disrupted ordinary government. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Valkenheim remains one of [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s most tightly controlled cities. [House Valkenmar](/link/6) maintains the walls, gates, markets, barracks, canals, and civic spaces with unusual care, preserving a degree of public order that few settlements can still manage. Its most unsettling quality is that ordinary life still works. Gardens are tended, markets open, canals are maintained, and punishment remains public because the city spends extraordinary effort deciding what and whom it will protect. That order is selective. Entry is tightly restricted, identification and official purpose matter, and refugees or unapproved travelers may be turned away. Wealth, official standing, valuable trade, or the favor of influential people can make passage easier, while most outsiders face scrutiny before they ever reach the interior streets. Daily life remains unusually visible inside the walls. Markets open, gardens are maintained, food and medicine are distributed, trades continue, and public spaces are kept usable. The contrast between those routines and the military precautions surrounding them is one of Valkenheim's defining features. --- ### History Valkenheim grew as [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s political and administrative center, supported by major trade routes and the military power of [House Valkenmar](/link/6). Its fortifications once demonstrated wealth and authority as much as practical defense. The Blight changed the purpose of those defenses. As nearby settlements failed or were quarantined, Valkenheim's walls became barriers against uncontrolled movement as well as attack. Gates grew more selective, patrols increased, and access to the city became a privilege rather than an ordinary part of regional travel. --- ### Present Day Baron Malric Valkenmar rules from the **Blackspire**, while his brother Lord Ivor Valkenmar is publicly associated with much of the city's daily administration and the effort to preserve ordinary civic life. Military patrols, controlled access, and quarantine policy are part of everyday life. Markets and institutions continue to function, but that stability depends on guarded supply lines, constant maintenance, and decisions about who is allowed to benefit from the city's protection. Smuggling and bribery are widely rumored despite the city's reputation for strict control. The **Duskwater Canal** and stories of hidden routes feature prominently in such accounts, although the reliability of any particular route changes quickly. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Blackspire** The **Blackspire** is the seat of House Valkenmar and the dominant fortress within Valkenheim. Its blackened towers and heavy fortifications make it the city's most visible symbol of baronial authority. ##### **The Gilded Exchange** The **Gilded Exchange** is one of Valkenheim's principal controlled markets. Food, medicine, [silver](/link/17), and other scarce goods pass through it under close supervision while ordinary merchants continue to serve residents who can afford what remains available. ##### **The Silverclad Spire** The **Silverclad Spire** is a major religious and scholarly institution. Worship continues there, while restricted chambers, unusual traffic, and the presence of healers and scholars have fueled persistent rumors about Blight research. The extent of that work is not publicly established. ##### **Duskwater Canal** The **Duskwater Canal** was once a major commercial waterway through the city. It remains useful for movement and supply, but Blight-era quarantine practices and the disposal of bodies have given its dark waters a grim reputation. ##### **The Sunveil Gardens** The **Sunveil Gardens** are among Valkenheim's best-maintained public spaces. Their continued care provides residents with one of the clearest signs that the city still has the labor and resources to preserve something beyond bare survival. ##### **The Ironveil Barracks** The **Ironveil Barracks** house many of the troops and enforcers responsible for maintaining order and guarding Valkenheim's approaches. ##### **The Widow's Walk** The **Widow's Walk** overlooks the Duskwater Canal and is associated with public executions. Its use reinforces the same message as the city's walls and gates: safety inside Valkenheim depends on obedience to rules enforced without much room for appeal. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Vexenford > *“I came here hoping for safety, but all I found was more death.”* > — an unnamed refugee **Vexenford** is a massive fortified harbor-city in [Faulmoor](/link/2) controlling the mainland approach to [Ebonmoor](/link/48). Governed under [House Valkenmar](/link/6), it is both an active trade center and one of the barony's most important checkpoints during the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Stone walls, scarred ramparts, watchtowers, docks, and fortified bridgeworks dominate Vexenford. Merchant vessels, fishing craft, freight traffic, and armed house ships still use the harbor, keeping the city economically important despite strict control over movement. The city's class divide can be read vertically. Wealth lives in cleaner air above the street, while labor, runoff, crowding, checkpoints, and much of the cost of keeping the city alive collect below. Vexenford's defining modern feature is vertical. During the Blight, wealthy residents began building bridges and platforms above the crowded original streets. Those structures expanded into stairs, alleys, shops, homes, and whole elevated blocks, creating a second city above the first. The upper level is cleaner, drier, brighter, and better maintained, with treated timber, stonework, painted facades, wrought iron, glass, better food, and private towers. Below, the original streets sit beneath beams, awnings, and the undersides of newer construction. Ash, runoff, refuse, and reduced sunlight make the city's class divide physically unavoidable. --- ### History Before the Blight, Vexenford was already a major harbor and trade center positioned where traffic from mainland [Faulmoor](/link/2) could move toward [Ebonmoor](/link/48). As quarantine and restricted movement became central to regional survival, the crossing grew even more important. Fortifications, inspections, and military control expanded while displaced wealth reshaped the city upward. What began as elevated bridges and private platforms became a permanent upper district. --- ### Present Day Vexenford remains busy because it still connects people and goods that cannot easily travel elsewhere. The same importance makes it heavily policed. Travelers approaching [Ebonmoor](/link/48) are inspected, cargo is scrutinized, and suspected exposure can result in confinement or refusal of passage. Refugees and displaced people gather around a system built to keep movement selective, while forged papers, bribery, and smuggling remain persistent responses to those restrictions. The upper and lower city now function almost as different social worlds, although each depends on the labor, trade, infrastructure, and movement of the other. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Iron Gate** The **Iron Gate** controls the principal lawful crossing toward [Ebonmoor](/link/48), where the route meets [Rimewatch Keep](/link/51) on the island side. Soldiers inspect travelers, papers, cargo, and visible signs of possible Blight exposure before allowing passage. ##### **The Blackflow Docks** The **Blackflow Docks** remain active under military scrutiny and are central to Vexenford's continuing trade. Approved cargo, fishing traffic, house vessels, and less lawful business all compete around the same waterfront. ##### **The Rot Ward** The **Rot Ward** is a walled quarantine district used to confine people suspected of Blight exposure. Its reputation is grim, and stories of wrongful confinement, abuse, and people disappearing behind its barricades circulate widely. Officials describe the ward as a containment necessity. ##### **The Upper City** The elevated districts contain wealthier homes, shops, private towers, covered walks, and bridges built above the older street plan. Construction ranges from elegant stone-and-timber residences to precarious additions suspended over lower streets. ##### **The Lower City** The original city remains crowded beneath the newer construction. It receives less light, more runoff, and much of the physical burden created by life above. Markets, workshops, lodging, labor, and ordinary street commerce continue there despite harsher conditions. ##### **Blackflow Market** **Blackflow Market** remains a major commercial district. Legitimate trade mixes with medicine, stolen goods, forged papers, contraband, and other transactions that thrive under restrictive movement laws. ##### **The Hollow Crown** **The Hollow Crown** is a worn tavern on the city's outskirts frequented by mercenaries, travelers, refugees, smugglers, and people looking for work or passage. Its reputation rests more on connections than comfort. ##### **Gallows Square** **Gallows Square** is used for public punishment and execution. Bodies may remain on display as warnings, making the square one of the clearest expressions of [House Valkenmar](/link/6)'s visible enforcement in the city. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Ebonmoor](/link/48) - [Rimewatch Keep](/link/51) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Greymire > *“In Greymire, you can buy anything: stolen grain, a name that ain't yours, a dagger meant for a friend's back.”* **Greymire** is a coastal city in [Faulmoor](/link/2) and one of the region's most active surviving ports. It remains formally subject to [House Valkenmar](/link/6), but the barony's military and administrative resources are too thin to closely police every dock, neighborhood, hidden landing, and informal trade network. Fishing, legitimate commerce, smuggling, refugee transport, and illicit trade therefore exist beside one another. Greymire is not politically independent or truly lawless. It survives in the space between formal authority and limited enforcement. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Greymire is wet, crowded, and densely built. Salt-stained warehouses, leaning timber buildings, cracked cobbles, working quays, patched roofs, improvised barricades, and hastily repaired vessels give the city a visibly worn character. Salt, fish, mold, smoke, wet rope, cooking food, and harbor water mingle from street to street. A Greymire morning can contain all of those worlds at once: fish coming off boats, a roof being patched, freight changing hands, a refugee bargaining for a room, and officials collecting the dues of a government that cannot fully control the next street. The city remains busy because goods, people, information, and contraband still need somewhere to move when official routes fail. Fish are unloaded at dawn, freight changes hands, ships are repaired, contracts are negotiated, rooms are rented, and market stalls continue to serve ordinary households alongside smugglers and refugees. Bright scraps of cloth, knotted cord, painted marks, and similar signs are used in parts of the city as warnings, route markers, business signals, or coded communication. Their meaning depends heavily on neighborhood and audience. --- ### History Before the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3), Greymire was a prosperous shipping city supported by fishing, warehousing, maritime trade, and the traffic of travelers and goods through Faulmoor. The Blight disrupted roads, emptied settlements from established trade routes, and made movement between communities increasingly dangerous. Greymire's economy changed rather than collapsed. Unofficial networks expanded into the gaps left by failing institutions, and activities once regarded as straightforward smuggling became entwined with the movement of food, medicine, people, [silver](/link/17), and information. Containment failures during the early Blight permanently reshaped how people enter and leave the city. One of the city's deepest scars is [Charrow](/link/87), a cluster of wards deliberately burned during the early crisis without meaningful evacuation. Greymire later rebuilt around the ruined district rather than removing it. --- ### Present Day [House Valkenmar](/link/6) remains Greymire's lawful ruling authority. Soldiers, officials, clerks, tax collectors, and civic personnel are still present, but practical control varies sharply by district and circumstance. That produces an uneven civic order. Official checkpoints, fines, custody, records, and public punishments exist beside private brokers, smugglers, freight interests, and neighborhood power figures. Local operators generally understand that tolerance for informal power ends when it draws sustained attention from one of Faulmoor's ruling houses. Greymire's justice is intentionally visible. People condemned to death may be hanged from the exterior walls and left on display as warnings to those approaching the city. Who is displayed, where, and under what explanation can carry political meaning beyond the punishment itself. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Working Docks** Greymire's docks remain the center of its maritime economy. Fishing boats, merchant vessels, patched coastal craft, ferries, freight crews, warehouses, and private brokers all compete for space along the waterfront. Legal and illegal cargo often pass through the same streets and buildings. ##### **The City Gate** Only one of Greymire's former three principal gates remains in regular use. It is both a practical checkpoint and a reminder of the containment failures that reshaped the city during the early Blight. ##### **Charrow** [Charrow](/link/87) is a walled burned district inside Greymire. Once known as the Charred Row, it contains an organized inhabited core under the influence of a power broker known as **Rook**, while deeper ruins remain less controlled. The district's principal logistical center is the **Rookery**, a surviving former merchant exchange used to coordinate supplies, favors, debts, and access. ##### **The Marrow Room** The **Marrow Room** is a decaying brothel long associated with Greymire operator **Jorick Vance**. Its importance came as much from the people and business that passed through it as from its stated trade. ##### **The City Walls** Greymire's exterior walls serve both defensive and judicial purposes. Executed prisoners may remain hanging from them for extended periods, making the walls one of the city's most visible expressions of formal authority. --- ### Nearby Sites ##### **Hadran's Rest** [Hadran's Rest](/link/88) is an island off Greymire's coast centered on a temple and traditions associated with Saint Hadran. It is closely connected to the city by geography and travel, but is not part of Greymire itself. --- ### Campaign Developments ##### **Jorick Vance** Jorick Vance was later found dead and displayed among the bodies hanging from Greymire's exterior walls. The circumstances surrounding his death are not publicly established. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Charrow](/link/87) - [Hadran's Rest](/link/88) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) - [Silver and its Importance](/link/17) # Oldfen > *“These walls are not built in cruelty, but in necessity.”* > — Baron Malric Valkenmar **Oldfen** is a ruined settlement in [Faulmoor](/link/2) remembered as one of the most notorious containment failures of the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). During the first year of the crisis, a perimeter wall was built around the town to keep the afflicted population inside. The town was effectively sealed and abandoned to its fate. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Sections of Oldfen's quarantine wall still stand. The remaining timber is warped and decayed, marked by damage from people who attempted to escape and by the later breach that allowed Blighted dead to spread into the surrounding countryside. The wall made the town's social contract brutally simple: safety for everyone outside depended on denying escape to everyone inside. The settlement within is largely ruined. Streets, homes, storehouses, and older commercial buildings survive in varying states of collapse, while the remains of quarantine works continue to define the landscape. Old burial pits and disposal grounds lie around the perimeter, further marking the area as a place shaped by containment rather than rescue. --- ### History Oldfen was enclosed during the first year of the Blight as [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s authorities attempted to prevent the crisis from spreading beyond the town. Soldiers were stationed around the perimeter with orders to prevent escape. The sealed population was left inside as conditions deteriorated. The policy failed. Enough of Oldfen's dead eventually broke through the perimeter to create a major outward movement of Blighted. That breach contributed directly to later disasters in the surrounding region, including the fall of [Ashenmoor](/link/9). --- ### Present Day Oldfen remains overrun and hazardous. Its surviving structures and cellars attract scavengers despite the risk, particularly because stories persist that valuables, [silver](/link/17), and old household wealth remain hidden beneath the ruins. The town's greater significance is historical. Oldfen is remembered as proof that quarantine could become an instrument of mass death without ultimately achieving the containment it was meant to provide. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Quarantine Wall** The surviving wall sections are the most visible remains of the containment effort. Their construction and later breach define Oldfen's history. ##### **Burial Grounds** Unmarked pits and disposal sites remain around the settlement, created during the period when soldiers and laborers attempted to remove bodies from the quarantine perimeter. ##### **The Ruined Town** The interior contains damaged homes, stores, workshops, cellars, and other remnants of the settlement's pre-Blight life. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Ashenmoor](/link/9) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Ashenmoor > *“To send men to them is not a rescue. It is an invitation to join them.”* > — Baron Malric Valkenmar **Ashenmoor** is a ruined settlement in [Faulmoor](/link/2) whose unfinished defenses became one of the clearest signs of how quickly a containment plan could fail. The town fell within hours when Blighted reached it, before its barricades and walls could be completed. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Ashenmoor's most distinctive remains are its incomplete defensive works. Wooden walls, gaps, construction materials, abandoned barriers, and buildings pressed into service as improvised defenses show a settlement that was still preparing when the attack arrived. Its horror is unfinished work: lumber stacked for walls that never closed, barriers abandoned midway through construction, and streets whose defenders planned for a siege that never gave them time to finish preparing. The ruins do not represent a town that survived a long siege. They preserve the opposite: preparations interrupted before they could become a functioning defense. --- ### History Ashenmoor was being fortified during the first year of the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). Some Blighted emerged from nearby burial grounds, but the larger disaster came from the breach of [Oldfen](/link/8). The resulting surge reached Ashenmoor before its defenses were finished. The settlement fell within hours. Some later stories describe survivors holding the unfinished walls for an extended period. These conflict with the more widely accepted account of the town's rapid fall. --- ### Present Day Ashenmoor remains abandoned and dangerous. Its unfinished barricades, burned defensive positions, and interrupted construction make the ruins unusually legible: much of what survives can still be understood as the work of people who expected more time than they received. The town is commonly cited alongside [Oldfen](/link/8) when discussing the failures of early Blight containment. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Unfinished Wall** Large sections of the town's planned defensive perimeter were never completed. Gaps and abandoned building works remain central to Ashenmoor's appearance. ##### **The Ruined Streets** Buildings near the incomplete defenses were adapted hurriedly into barricades and fighting positions during the final hours of the settlement. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Oldfen](/link/8) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Blackholt Fort **Blackholt Fort** is the largest major fortress in [Faulmoor](/link/2) and a longstanding stronghold of [House Valkenmar](/link/6). It lies immediately south of [the Pale](/link/86) and historically guarded important routes linking the mainland with [Fenmire](/link/39), [Ebonmoor](/link/48), and the eastern road network. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Blackholt was built as a military stronghold rather than a town. Heavy stone walls, watchtowers, barracks, storage spaces, and fortified approaches allowed the garrison to control movement through one of Faulmoor's most strategically important corridors. That change is visible in the people and supplies the fort has had to hold: soldiers beside displaced families, military stores beside emergency shelter, and a stronghold designed for war pressed into the slower work of keeping a collapsing region functioning. The spread of the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) changed the fort's role. Military duties increasingly overlapped with quarantine enforcement, supply protection, and the sheltering of displaced people moving away from failed settlements. --- ### History Before the Blight, Blackholt's importance came primarily from its position and garrison. It served as a regional military anchor and supply point for [House Valkenmar](/link/6). As conditions deteriorated across Faulmoor, the fort became increasingly crowded and portions of its infrastructure were repurposed under emergency conditions. Several lower areas were eventually closed and remain inaccessible. --- ### Present Day Blackholt remains an important geographic and military landmark south of [the Pale](/link/86). Its walls and surface defenses continue to dominate the surrounding routes even as the wider region has become more difficult to control. The official explanation for the closure of portions of the lower fort is structural failure. Rumors persist that the abandoned levels contain more than collapsed stone and spoiled stores, but such accounts vary considerably. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Surface Fortifications** The fort's surface works remain the part most travelers encounter: guarded approaches, military yards, supply areas, and elevated positions overlooking the routes south of the Pale. ##### **The Closed Lower Levels** Large sections beneath the fort are inaccessible. Official accounts attribute the closure to dangerous structural damage. Stories told by soldiers and refugees offer less certain explanations, including sounds or movement beyond sealed passages. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [The Pale](/link/86) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # The Ash Peaks > *“The oldest tunnels do not follow the ore. Miners call them failed workings, but failed workings generally begin by following something worth digging toward.”* > — Veydrith Serrin, Lucent Endura **The Ash Peaks** are a rugged mountain range in [Faulmoor](/link/2), rising near [Valkenheim](/link/12) in a region of dark rock, steep ravines, caves, misted ridges, and difficult passes. They remain only lightly controlled by [House Valkenmar](/link/6) and are avoided by most ordinary travel. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview The range is not exceptionally high by the standards of distant mountain country, but it is difficult to cross. Loose shale, hidden sinkholes, deep fissures, sudden fog, cold rain, and poorly mapped routes make even short journeys unpredictable. Natural caves mix with older cut tunnels and abandoned workings. Some were once used for mining, while others have no clearly remembered purpose. The Ash Peaks have never supported the kind of settled authority found in [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s lowlands. Small groups, isolated camps, prospectors, refugees, and travelers may enter the range, but no power maintains dependable control across it. --- ### History Mining and exploration brought people into the Ash Peaks long before the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). The Sveerla Mines were once an important excavation site before collapse, flooding, or abandonment ended large-scale work there. The range also accumulated stories about ruins, buried chambers, and objects older than the institutions of modern [Faulmoor](/link/2). The lack of reliable maps has helped those stories survive because few expeditions can conclusively prove or disprove them. --- ### Present Day The Blight drove some refugees into the mountains in search of isolation. The peaks offer distance from heavily affected lowlands, but little food, difficult shelter, and no reliable protection. The range offers the kind of isolation refugees dream about and the kind of terrain that can make isolation lethal: little food, uncertain shelter, bad maps, and no authority close enough to help when something goes wrong. Whether the Blight has established a lasting presence deep within the range is not publicly settled. [House Valkenmar](/link/6) maintains little effective military presence beyond the more accessible approaches. Explorers and relic-seekers continue to enter despite the risks, particularly those drawn by stories of old mines and the legend of the Hollow King. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **Sveerla Mines** The Sveerla Mines are abandoned workings within the range. Portions are collapsed or flooded, and their deeper extent is uncertain. ##### **Valley of Ash** The Valley of Ash is a barren stretch where fine gray material is carried constantly by the wind. Its origin is unknown in surviving public accounts. ##### **The Shattered Spires** The Shattered Spires are tall, irregular rock formations overlooking part of the range. Some traditions claim they are natural remnants; others interpret them as the eroded remains of something constructed. --- ### Rumors and Legends ##### **The Hollow King** Stories of the **Hollow King** describe a forgotten warrior or ruler connected to a hidden chamber somewhere beneath the peaks. One version of the tale claims miners once found a black throne of unfamiliar metal deep below the Sveerla Mines before the route to it was sealed or lost. ##### **The Crown of the Hollow King** A related legend describes a crown hidden somewhere within the range. Some stories call it a relic of great power; others claim it served as a seal or symbol rather than a weapon. No publicly verified recovery of the crown is known, and stories about its powers differ widely. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Valkenheim](/link/12) - [House Valkenmar](/link/6) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Southvale **Southvale** is a river-and-farm settlement in [Faulmoor](/link/2) whose relative fertility and livable terrain made it a refuge for wealth during the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). What began as a small agricultural community changed rapidly as affluent refugees settled permanently and built fortified private estates beside the town's older homes. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Southvale occupies unusually productive country by [Faulmoor](/link/2) standards. Farms, orchards, river access, and reliable produce gave the settlement value before the Blight and made it even more desirable once food became scarce elsewhere. Southvale survived well enough to become desirable, and that success proved corrosive. The town still grows food while many families who once worked its fields can no longer afford the security that wealth purchased around them. The influx of wealthy refugees altered the town's physical and social structure. Imported materials and private construction produced larger fortified estates beside older stone cottages and timber homes. Original residents increasingly found themselves pushed toward service work, overcrowded housing, poverty, or displacement. Southvale has a modest wall and guarded checkpoints, but private mercenaries, money, and control of supplies matter more than conventional military strength. --- ### History Before the Blight, Southvale was known primarily as a small agricultural and river settlement. The crisis brought people with enough wealth to purchase safety, property, labor, and food. A temporary refuge gradually became a permanent enclave, concentrating resources in the hands of newcomers while making access to ordinary necessities less equal. Southvale's dark purple plums were expensive even before the Blight and have become nearly impossible to obtain outside the settlement, a small luxury that now carries outsized symbolic value. --- ### Present Day Class tension defines Southvale. Food, medicine, [silver](/link/17), protected housing, and armed security are distributed unevenly, and resentment toward wealthy residents has hardened as the wider crisis continues. An executioner or persona known as the **Copper Judge** is blamed for killings of wealthy or corrupt figures. Victims are associated with copper coins forced into the mouth or throat. To the town's elite, the Judge is a murderer. To some among the poor, the figure represents vengeance against people believed to have purchased survival at everyone else's expense. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Gilded Pits** The Gilded Pits are an established Southvale location associated with the town's wealth and social divisions. ##### **The Hearth & Oak Tavern** The Hearth & Oak Tavern is one of Southvale's established public houses. ##### **The Lantern's Hollow** The Lantern's Hollow is another persistent location in local accounts, though its fuller role has not yet been firmly established in current public Lore. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) - [Silver and its Importance](/link/17) # The Harrowgate Ruins > *“Three expeditions have called Harrowgate a temple. None identified an altar, sanctuary, or arrangement that requires worship as an explanation. We should be more careful with the word sacred.”* > — Veydrith Serrin, Lucent Endura **The Harrowgate Ruins** are a partially submerged complex southeast of [Valkenheim](/link/12), where the mountains meet the marsh. Only fragments remain above the mire, while flooded chambers, buried structures, and unusual objects suggest that much more lies beneath the surface. [![image.png](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/scaled-1680-/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png)](https://dnd.raresnacks.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-02/1pctiQZ25s0fOv5x-image.png) --- ### Overview Harrowgate is difficult to interpret even by the standards of [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s older ruins. Jagged black stone rises from reeds and standing water, while passages descend into flooded spaces that have never been fully mapped. Harrowgate endures partly because nobody agrees what it was. Pilgrims, scholars, scavengers, and marshfolk approach the same stones with different expectations and leave with accounts that rarely fit neatly together. The site attracts several kinds of visitors. Pilgrims of the Old Ways come seeking visions, signs, or divine understanding. Scholars and explorers seek physical evidence of the region's forgotten past. Scavengers come hoping to recover relics or unusual materials. Local stories are less welcoming. Marshfolk describe strange lights beneath the water, disorientation, unexplained voices, and travelers who fail to return. --- ### History The original purpose of Harrowgate is unknown. No surviving public account establishes whether it was a fortress, settlement, sacred site, or something else. The ruin appears older than the institutions now surrounding it. Marsh and floodwater have swallowed much of the site, leaving only fragments visible above ground. Over time, its unexplained phenomena and occasional relic recoveries turned Harrowgate into both a place of pilgrimage and a source of local superstition. --- ### Present Day Harrowgate remains only partially explored. Flooded tunnels and submerged chambers make investigation difficult, and reports from different visitors often contradict one another. Pilgrims continue to visit despite the danger. Some claim to receive visions or hear echoes they interpret as divine. Others leave with nothing more than damaged equipment and stories about shifting passages, cold stone, or lights under the water. Small unusual objects have been recovered from the site over the years, enough to sustain continued interest without establishing that Harrowgate contains any single great treasure. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Black Arch** The Black Arch is one of the most recognizable surviving structures above the mire, a damaged gateway noted for remaining unusually cold to the touch. ##### **The Flooded Passages** Submerged corridors and chambers extend beneath the visible ruins. Their full extent is unknown. --- ### See Also - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Valkenheim](/link/12) # The Pale **The Pale** is a broad quarantine region in [Faulmoor](/link/2), lying southeast of [Greymire](/link/10) and north of [Blackholt Fort](/link/20). Once a settled landscape of farmland, cattle routes, river traffic, villages, forts, and religious holdings, it has been largely abandoned since the spread of the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3). --- ### Overview Long neglect has allowed marsh and floodwater to reclaim much of the region. Roads vanish into standing water, firm ground gives way without warning, and old farms and work sites survive as half-submerged remnants of the communities that once maintained them. The Pale's devastation is as much the absence of labor as the presence of Blight. Drains go uncleared, landing stages rot, roads drown, and routes disappear because too few people remain to maintain the systems that once made the landscape habitable. Travel remains possible, but old maps are unreliable. Local knowledge, ferries, small boats, and patience matter more than distance. Flooded channels may conceal Blighted beneath apparently still water, making unnecessary noise or disturbance dangerous. --- ### History The Pale became a major containment zone during the early response to the [Blight](/link/3). As restrictions hardened and settlements emptied, the labor that kept roads drained, waterways managed, and isolated facilities supplied collapsed with them. The region was not destroyed in a single event. It was abandoned piece by piece until marsh, ruined infrastructure, and quarantine became its defining features. --- ### Present Day The Pale remains one of [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s least reliably controlled regions. Flooded farms, broken landing stages, shrines, storage buildings, military remnants, and abandoned settlements still mark the old landscape. Old routes continue toward [Blackholt Fort](/link/20) and the roads leading farther toward [Vexenford](/link/11), but present-day passability changes with weather, water, and local conditions. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **Pale-Edge Ferry Outpost** An unnamed ferry outpost stands on stilts above one of the flooded approaches. Patched timber, tarred supports, lanterns, and a rough dock surround a low barge used for slow crossings into deeper marsh. ##### **Crookbend Station** [Crookbend Station](/link/89) is a pre-Blight river shipping and logistics facility. It was eventually overrun after most workers fled and the remainder barricaded themselves inside. The site still bears the marks of hurried evacuation, damaged river infrastructure, and failed defenses. ##### **Lathander Monastery** The [Lathander monastery in the Pale](/link/90) remained occupied by a small religious remnant after much of the surrounding region was abandoned. For generations it safeguarded [Emberglass](/link/76). The monastery and wider Church of Lathander came to believe that the relic should pass to Lady Elspeth Wilthorne for a religious pilgrimage. Emberglass has since left the monastery, but the route, destination, and ultimate purpose attributed to that pilgrimage remain uncertain outside the Church. --- ### See Also - [Greymire](/link/10) - [Blackholt Fort](/link/20) - [Crookbend Station](/link/89) - [Lathander Monastery in the Pale](/link/90) - [Emberglass](/link/76) - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Charrow **Charrow** is a walled burned district within [Greymire](/link/10), formed from neighborhoods deliberately destroyed during the early [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) and later isolated behind stone, scrap metal, blackened timber, and improvised barriers. Its name evolved from **the Charred Row**, to **Char Row**, and eventually **Charrow**. --- ### Overview Charrow is ruined but inhabited. Blackened stone, collapsed roofs, warped streets, scorched warehouses, and burned masonry preserve the violence of its creation. Greymire later grew directly against its perimeter, leaving the district embedded within the living city rather than abandoned beyond it. Some surviving buildings remain connected by crawlspaces, old service passages, drainage routes, and damaged streets. Smugglers have used portions of the district to avoid ordinary inspection, although even experienced operators may prefer longer routes rather than cross the deeper ruins. --- ### History During the early Blight, [Greymire](/link/10) officials selected a cluster of affected wards for a controlled burn. Residents received no meaningful evacuation before entire streets were set alight. The fire was stopped only when it threatened healthier districts. The burned wards were sealed rather than rebuilt. Over time, [Greymire](/link/10) resumed construction around them, turning the old disaster into a permanent district boundary. --- ### Present Day Charrow is not simply an anarchic ruin. An inhabited core functions under the influence of a power broker known as **Rook**, whose authority depends on logistics, favors, debts, access, and the systems people rely upon to live inside the district. People now live inside the remains of an atrocity that the rest of [Greymire](/link/10) built around rather than repaired. Ordinary survival, informal government, and civic memory therefore occupy the same blackened streets. That order weakens farther into the burned interior. Charrow therefore contains several overlapping realities: an outer perimeter pressed against modern Greymire, an organized inhabited core, and deeper ruins where the original destruction remains dominant. Rook's influence is practical rather than civic. Charrow still lies within Greymire, and the district's informal order does not make it independent of [House Valkenmar](/link/6) or the city's formal authorities. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Rookery** The **Rookery** is a surviving former merchant exchange or guildhall adapted into a three-story administrative and logistics center. It serves as the principal hub for Rook's network of supplies, favors, debts, and information. Wild rooks nest around the building, and Rook keeps a tame or semi-tame bird named **Ink**. ##### **The Burned Interior** Beyond the more organized portions of Charrow, whole streets remain damaged or partially collapsed. Old service passages, drainage infrastructure, fused masonry, and fire-blackened shells make these areas difficult to navigate and harder to control. --- ### See Also - [Greymire](/link/10) - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Hadran's Rest > *“Let no hand wake him before mercy has finished its work.”* > — traditional warning associated with Hadran's resting place **Hadran's Rest** is a small sacred island off the coast of [Greymire](/link/10), centered on a temple and resting chamber associated with Saint Hadran, an Ilmatari holy warrior remembered for enduring suffering in defense of others. --- ### The Holy Sleep The oldest surviving temple tradition does not describe Hadran as simply buried beneath the island. It says that he **entered the Holy Sleep beneath the Bound One's mercy** and warns that no hand should wake him before mercy has finished its work. Later generations increasingly treated the chamber as a tomb and the preserved body within it as the remains of a dead saint. Some worshipers still take the older language literally, while others regard the Holy Sleep as devotional metaphor. No single public interpretation has settled the question. --- ### Saint Hadran Hadran's sainthood rests on endurance rather than conquest. Ilmatari stories remember him repeatedly placing himself between danger and other people, accepting wounds and hardship as part of his service. The island's identity is built less on triumph than on the belief that suffering accepted for another person can itself be sacred. That idea shapes how Hadran is remembered more strongly than any account of enemies defeated. That tradition made the island a place associated with mercy, protection, sacrifice, and chosen suffering. The surviving temple presents Hadran as someone who bore a burden because another person should not have had to. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Temple of Saint Hadran** The temple is the island's principal sacred structure. Its teachings preserve the older Holy Sleep tradition and the Ilmatari ideals attached to Hadran's memory. ##### **Hadran's Resting Chamber** Beneath the temple lies the chamber containing the preserved body traditionally identified as Saint Hadran. The warning against waking him is associated specifically with this place. --- ### Hadran's Burden The breastplate said to remain upon Hadran is known as **Hadran's Burden**. Its name reflects the same religious ideal as the saint himself: accepting danger intended for someone else. Stories claim that the armor protected Hadran from otherwise fatal blows and helped him draw violence away from those he defended. Such accounts are religious tradition rather than precise public knowledge of the armor's properties. --- ### See Also - [Greymire](/link/10) - Ilmater - [Faulmoor](/link/2) # Crookbend Station **Crookbend Station** is an abandoned river shipping and logistics facility in [the Pale](/link/86). Before the [Rotmire Blight](/link/3), it handled ordinary commercial traffic moving through [Faulmoor](/link/2)'s river network, including routes connected to [Fenmire](/link/39) and the Saltmarshes. --- ### Overview Crookbend was built for work rather than ceremony. Its surviving structures belong to the practical infrastructure of river trade: loading areas, storage space, access to the water, and the remains of facilities once used to move goods between boats and overland routes. The station's original importance came from its position within a larger transport network. It was never a sacred site or relic complex, and surviving stories about it concern workers, shipments, routes, and the difficulty of keeping river traffic moving through difficult country. --- ### History During the spread of the [Blight](/link/3), Crookbend became untenable after a surge or migration of Blighted reached the station. Most workers fled. Some remained behind and attempted to hold the facility by barricading themselves inside. Those defenses ultimately failed, and the people who stayed were overrun. --- ### Present Day Crookbend remains abandoned. Evidence of its fall is preserved in the site itself: unfinished work, signs of hurried departure, damaged river infrastructure, makeshift barricades, and the remains of a facility that ceased functioning abruptly rather than being deliberately dismantled. Its ruin is ordinary in the most unsettling way. Unfinished work, abandoned loading areas, broken equipment, and makeshift barricades preserve the moment when a workplace had to become a refuge and then failed at that too. The surrounding waterways remain part of the broader hazards of the Pale, where old routes can be difficult to follow and conditions may change faster than surviving maps suggest. --- ### See Also - [The Pale](/link/86) - [Faulmoor](/link/2) - [Fenmire](/link/39) - [Rotmire Blight](/link/3) # Lathander Monastery in the Pale The **Lathander monastery in the Pale** is an old religious complex within [the Pale](/link/86), partially swallowed by marsh and standing water but never entirely abandoned. Its proper historical name is no longer widely established. For generations the monastery safeguarded [Emberglass](/link/76), treating the relic as a sacred trust rather than private property. --- ### Overview Stone walls and ironwork rise above mud and water around a partially collapsed gateway. Damp has ruined much of the wooden ornamentation, and surviving stained glass is clouded by grime and mold. What survived here was not grandeur so much as routine: lamps kept filled, blankets folded, books kept dry, and a shrinking community continuing its duties while the country around it emptied. The occupied portions remained unusually orderly even as the surrounding region emptied. Chairs, books, blankets, lamps, mosaics, and living quarters were maintained by the shrinking monastic community. The principal hall preserves imagery associated with Lathander and renewal, while lower chambers contain older residential rooms, some later sealed or boarded. --- ### History The monastery predates the quarantine. As [the Pale](/link/86) was abandoned, most of its community departed or died, but a small number of monks remained and continued their routines around the relic. By the time [Emberglass](/link/76) left the site, the surviving clergy and the wider Church believed Lathander had directed it to pass to Lady Elspeth Wilthorne for a pilgrimage. The elderly caretaker surrendered the relic reluctantly but willingly because he understood doing so as an act of obedience. The Church still treats that transfer as religious duty. The intended route, destination, rites, and final purpose of the pilgrimage are not widely known. --- ### Notable Locations ##### **The Main Hall** The principal worship space contains faded murals and a large cracked mosaic associated with Lathander's traditional themes of light, renewal, and creation. ##### **The Lower Chambers** Stone stairs descend to old monastic rooms. Some remained in use by the final caretakers while others were closed as the community dwindled. --- ### The Elderly Caretaker The monastery's principal caretaker had served there since his youth. Frail, poor of sight, and dressed in old but carefully maintained robes, he regarded custody of [Emberglass](/link/76) as the central responsibility of his religious life. His theology emphasized obedience without complete understanding. His personal name is not presently established. --- ### See Also - Lathander - [The Pale](/link/86) - [Emberglass](/link/76)