Flatland Farm

Out where the windformed clay has formed into bluffs, a formation of dolomite shades a region of unexpected high wild grass from the salt winds. Water is clearly here, but invisible and the avid clucking of birds from among the grasses is content.     Deeper:   On inspection, one gap in the dolomite fingers is rimmed in burlap—a wall has been built up with bags of crushed rock, fortifying a cave entrance.   Higher up, a series of mud-daub two-story dwellings house [d10 + 4] of Béa Horn's berrylmen runt hen-keepers who have lived under the sky-watcher's guidance and protection for enough generations to adapt to the drier landscape. They are small by berrylmen standards, and keep home around a pair of limestone wells which've been carved deep into the nearby rock. The farmers are prone to gambling, which at its worst, provokes night-time brawls.   Harness racks and dry seed bins; scythes and farm equipment; [d12] periat hens, big rideable flightless birds, range the grass and home inside the cave in a 15' x 40' roost with roosting bars of old ship rope. They lay eggs the size of a human head. The males are vicious.   The periat hen roost is kept very clean at Béa's insistence, is walled on all sides, accessed by great winched doors.   Past it into the ridge, a natural cave structure follows two paths, spliting up towards Béa's cliffside dwelling on the opposite face of the ridge, and down the way the edderling mass dwells.   Mostly Béa Horn watches clouds. She is a revered cloud reader, consulted by ship captains before raze-hunting expeditions, explorative efforts, and raiding efforts. She is descendant of trolls, twelve-feet in height and wrapped in a terrific raze-skin veil from neck to toe. She has an uncanny intelligence and is known as a wild, rugged individual with a preternatural understanding of humans, their mannerisms, body language, and behavior. Her predictive capacity exceeds simply clouds, with a savant's capacity for foreseeing outcomes in social affairs too.   The edderlings do give her trouble though, preferring to lay their young among the feces of the periat hens. Knee-high creatures of arachnid ancestry, carnivorous; their nests extend out from the dolomite ridge, making porous cake of the nearby bluffs.   The hens can be bought as mounts—the seer trades most in wood product and delivery, as the stuff is incredibly hard to come by and much easier to use than the nearby stone.   Details on The Depths of the Dolomite Ridge can be found on Pg XX.

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