Interlude: Hearthwick
General Summary
You have found a refuge in a small but prosperous village a couple days' ride south of Tamrivena called Hearthwick. You have ridden through a dense forest to get here, meaning pursuers would likely need to do the same or waste extra days skirting the woods. This seems like a safe spot.
Hearthwick is comprised of roughly three parts. The village proper consists of a few dozen well-built half-timbered buildings clustered tightly together on a rocky rise, defended by palisades and an orderly constabulary. The fields surrounding the village grow cabbage, oats, beans, rice and wheat, and are busy places during the day. The occasional lone farmhouse or prosperous estate dot the area. Further south, between the village and the river is an open meadow. It is currently occupied by a troupe (or kumpaniya) of Farlanders, or halfling gypsies.
Two people stand out as important personages. In the village, you see Oliphar Bulbanius, the chandler and burgomaster of the local village. A shrewd, somewhat hard-hearted merchant, Oliphar nevertheless has broad legal authority and is willing to be “lenient” with generous “contributors” and even willing to provide official documents to legitimize various behaviors and property. In the camp you find the leader of the Farlander kumpaniya, Zoltan Muddybrook. He has no authority outside his community, but he is well-traveled and deceptively low-key. That makes him a walking treasury of valuable insider information in regions from Varisia in the west to the River Kingdoms in the east. He may be willing to share if the price is right... or if you might be willing to get your hands dirty.
