Aslov:
Population: 24,673 (inside), 3,846 (outside)
Ruler: Baroness Olivia Hausman
Religion: Var, Eostre, Eira, Freo, Tiw (rumor of others)
Imports: Grain, livestock, salt, meat, vegetables
Exports: Clothing, pottery
Aslov lies at the edge of the Jagged Peaks and is the first settlement of note south of Hellfrost Pass. It is also a town entering its twilight years.
The city has far exceeded its capacity to house refugees.
Hundreds of desperate souls live outside in tents, surviving on charity and what little food they can scavenge from the surrounding countryside.
The area has become known as Tent Town. The city gates are closed at night, but the city guard patrols the perimeter around the clock.
In Tent Town, a scrap of black bread or sliver of rancid meat is enough motive to commit murder.
Inside, the city is divided into the High Quarter, which houses the rich and powerful, as well as the merchants’ warehouses, and the Old City, where the majority of folk makes their homes.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:49, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

The Citadel:
Population: 526
Ruler: His Arcane Sereneness Yaval Spellslinger
Religion: Maera
Imports: Books, glass, gold, wine
Exports: None
The Citadel serves as the headquarters of the Reliquary.
Located on the slopes of the Jagged Peaks, the fortress appears as little more than a small castle of antiquated design.
In truth, the fortress extends far beneath the mountain.
On the lower levels, reached only by hidden staircases, are libraries, laboratories, and vaults housing a plethora of magical relics.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:49, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Upper Guard:
Population: 200
Ruler: Gauntlet-Captain Agnoman ap-Cadwr
Religion: Freo, Scaetha, Var, Tiw
Imports: Furs, iron, weapons
Exports: None
Ten miles outside Darkwood, along the trade road, stands a fortified manor house.
Surrounded by a stone wall, and with separate barrack blocks nearby, this fortification was constructed by the Iron Guild to serve both as caravanserai and as hiring station for Iron Guild mercenaries.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:49, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Lower Guard:
Population: 200
Ruler: Gauntlet-Captain Idmund the Loud
Religion: Freo, Scaetha, Var, Tiw
Imports: Furs, iron, weapons
Exports: None
Ten miles outside Darkwood, along the trade road, stands a fortified manor house.
Surrounded by a stone wall, and with separate barrack blocks nearby, this fortification was constructed by the Iron Guild to serve both as caravanserai and as hiring station for Iron Guild mercenaries.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:50, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Nara:
Population: 9,494
Ruler: Count Froech the Learned; daily affairs are handled by a council
Religion: Hoenir, Eostre, Var
Imports: Furs, gold (leaf), wine
Exports: Books, leather goods, livestock, meat, wool
Nara stands on the Aslov to Bridgewater trade road and serves as a convenient stopping point for merchants.
Despite having little decent farmland, the hills around Nara are perfect for grazing livestock, and the town has grown rich.
Count Froech is a Lorekeeper, and used his personal wealth to found the House of Lore.
Extremely educated, it is said there is no topic on which he cannot converse like an expert.
However, he is a poor administrator, and leaves the running of Nara to a council of herders.
The council is a plutocracy, meaning only the wealthiest may sit on it.
Each year at the end of Sceranmonan, one of the count’s courtiers takes an inventory of all the herds.
The ten herders with the largest herds or flocks are given seats on the council.
Like Aslov, the city has an influx of refugees.
The count recently annexed the hills to the east as far as the Crystalflow, and refugees who swear allegiance to the town and pay their taxes are granted a small parcel of land to call their own.
As Aslov diminishes, so Nara is expanding.
Before long the town may well become a realm in its own right.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:50, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Deathwatch:
A temple-fortress where the forces of the Scaetha’s cult reside. It is the cult’s largest fortification and the center of a ring of 20 motte-and-bailey castles encircling the Withered Lands on the Freelands’ border.
Four contain temples to Scaetha, while the rest house only shrines.
Each is garrisoned by three to five paladins, a similar number of priests, a single mercenary company of 100 men, and a dozen non-combatants.
Of the clerics, typically only one is a disciple, and he or she serves as the commander.

Located between each small castle, at a distance of roughly five to ten miles, depending on the terrain, are signal towers, simple affairs garrisoned by a single cleric of Scaetha and ten mercenaries.
Their sole purpose is to alert the forts to any undead incursion into the Freelands.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:50, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Fat Rat
Population: 250+
Ruler: Baron Landri ap-Rabel
Religion: Eostre Animalmother, Var
Imports: Grain, pottery, timber, vegetables
Exports: Mutton, sheep, wool

Ask anyone living within 50 miles of Fat Rat to give you directions to the place and they’ll do so without hesitation, but search for it on most commonly available maps and you’ll draw a complete blank.
Officially known as Castle Fordagarde, named for its purpose rather than its builder, Fat Rat takes its more common name from its famous inn.

Fat Rat stands atop a large, rocky outcrop rising sharply out of the flatlands between the Citadel and the Withered Lands.
A wide river, a tributary of the Crystalflow now called the Rat Run, surrounds the hill on two sides.
To reach the ford, the only crossing point for many miles, travelers must follow the road up the hill into Fat Rat, pay the toll, and then descend out the other side of town.

Fat Rat is dominated by its castle, a small stone structure built by Baron Landri’s ancestors.
The barons grew so wealthy they could afford to encircle the entire town behind a deep ditch, inside which rise strong stone walls.
Wooden bridges positioned at each of the two town gates can be pulled down with little effort in the event of trouble.

Most of the town’s income comes from tolls, for the route is a busy one.
Flocks of sheep and goats roam the hill and nearby grasslands, which provide the villagers with a steady income.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:50, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Dalsetter
Population: 283
Ruler: Mayor Agdi Skulisunu
Religion: Eostre Plantmother, Var
Imports: Cloth
Exports: Apples, cider, grain, vegetables

Dalsetter is a small farming community about a day’s hard ride (two days by wagon) due west of Aslov. Oval in shape, the village sits behind a wooden palisade.
The gates are open during daylight hours.
The two guards on duty give travelers only a cursory glance.
At night, the number of guards outside the gates is doubled, the gates barred from the inside, and two additional guards stand on duty behind the gate.

Governed by an elected mayor, the town grows and exports grain and a variety of vegetables. Much of its grain is turned into flour elsewhere, since Dalsetter has no mill.

While the mayor is in charge, he must placate the landowners, whose crops keep the village prosperous. All of the land claimed by the villagers belongs to ten landowners, with most other citizens working the land in return for a wage. During summer, when the fields need little attention, the citizens earn a living by producing handicrafts.
Two areas of common land are used for grazing small herds of sheep and goats, which provide the locals with milk and cheese.

The small settlement also boasts a healer and herbalist, a chandler, and a general store.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:50, Wed 14 Feb 2018.

Dunross
Population: 87
Ruler: Mayor Umbold ap-Rutger
Religion: Eostre Plantmother, Var
Imports: Grain
Exports: Flour

The winter grain stores from Dalsetter and other villages are transported to the mill on a stream at Dunross, where they are stored and guarded while awaiting grinding into flour.
Bread is a staple part of the diet across the land of Rassilon, especially in winter.

An earth rampart topped by a stout fence protects the village, broken by a double gate.
The stream runs alongside the road leading to the village and passes through the center of the village on its way to the Rat Run rivulet.

Dunross is located southwest of the Temple of Ertha.
South of the trade road between Aslov and Dalsetter but north of the Rat Run.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:25, Tue 23 Jan 2018.

Workshop of Damnation
A major temple to Hela, the workshop has the capacity to produce undead on an industrial scale.
Corpses are brought here by cultists, smuggled through the lines of Scaetha’s clerics guarding the borders, dug up from the burial grounds in the Withered Lands, or gathered from foolish explorers in the dark realm, and reanimated as undead by living clerics of Hela.

The whole structure, a ramshackle stone ruin formerly a small castle of Anari design, is devoted to necromancy.

Temple of Ertha
Located a day’s hard march east of Dalsetter, all that is visible to the naked eye are a small fort and a watchtower.
The true temple lies beneath the ground, in a series of natural chambers.
The site was chosen by the cult after the discovery of an elemental locus of earth.
Unusually, the locus grants boons to clerics of Ertha as well as elementalists, a phenomenon that first drew clerics here long ago.

The temple was abandoned during the Blizzard War and thereafter forgotten.
Across the centuries, orcs, bandits, and adventurers have used the surface level as a base of operations, each driving out the current inhabitants in a seemingly never-ending cycle.

Temple of the Sundered Sword
Population: 37
Ruler: Swordmaster Bruyant Cerdicsunu
Religion: Tiw, Rigr, Kenaz
Imports: Ale, food, iron, pottery
Exports: Mercenary services
The Temple of the Sundered Sword is a battle-monastery, a heavily fortified stone temple of vaguely pentagonal shape.
It stands in the narrowest gap between the edge of the Jagged Peaks and the Withered Lands.
Living here are a dozen Swords of Tiw and a dozen Shields, two clerics of Rigr, and a cleric of Kenaz.
The highest-ranking member is always a Sword, and he takes the title Swordmaster.
All must be competent horsemen, with Riding equal to Fighting.
As well as the clerics there are a herald, a treasurer, two healers-cum-herbalists, two veterinarians, a cook, and three stablehands.
The clerics are an independent mercenary force, small in number, yet more than adequate to defeat an enemy ten times their number.
Any settlement can hire them, at the rate of 50 gs per cleric per day for aggressive missions and half that for defensive ones.
They also hire out the clerics of Rigr to help oversee the construction and blessing of new fortifications.
The cleric of Kenaz works as an armorer and weaponsmith and rarely leaves the temple.

The temple takes its name from its most sacred artifact, a great sword, sundered in twain half way along the blade.
The remains of the weapon lie on the altar of Tiw.
According to legend, it belonged to a mighty Sword of Tiw.
During the Blizzard War he cleaved clean through the neck of an ancient Hellfrost dragon, snapping his blade in the process.
Each cleric who serves the temple wears a sliver of the blade on a thong around his neck.

Trading Posts
Population: 10
Although travel towers line the major trade roads, enterprising Freelanders quickly caught onto the idea of erecting trading posts, especially along the myriad of lesser trade roads.
A typical trading post is little more than a stockade housing a basic inn, a store, and a stable block, with a lone watchtower in one corner.
The courtyard provides parking for up to a dozen wagons.
Caravans can park free of charge overnight, but visitors are bound by the laws of hospitality to aid in the defense of the trading post should it be attacked.
The inn normally charges a flat 2 ss per person.
This covers sleeping space in a heated communal hall, a bowl of soup, a hunk of cheese, and a small loaf of bread. Drinks cost extra.
Stabling is free, but oats and hay incur an additional charge.
Generally, drinks, oats, and other extras cost 50% more than normal for a village.
Most trading posts are run by a single family.
Security may be mercenaries, but often family members fill this role.
Others are outposts for the cult of Var, usually with a paladin or two for security and a priest running the business side.

Raðhylrby
Population: 368
Ruler: Mayor Diderik Wildhair
Religion: Eostre Plantmother, Var, Freo
Imports: Clothing, pottery
Exports: Livestock, vegetables
Raðhylrby (“wish pool village;” pronounced “rath-el-bee”) lies on the trade road between Nara and Aslov.
A farming community with a large, fortified inn catering to merchants, it is named after the small pool in the center of the market square.
Local tradition has it that anyone who throws a scield into the pool and makes a wish will, if of good soul, have it come true.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:02, Thu 25 Jan 2018.

Signal-towers and Wards of Scaetha
Encircling the Withered Lands on the Freelands’ border are 20 motte-and-bailey castles.

Located between each one at a distance of roughly five to ten miles, depending on the terrain, are signal towers, simple affairs garrisoned by a single cleric of Scaetha and ten mercenaries.
Their sole purpose is to alert the forts to any undead incursion into the Freelands.

In times of desperate need, the clerics can call upon the inhabitants of the Freelands to provide troops.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:51, Wed 14 Feb 2018.