Character
This little halfling village could best be descirbed as quaint. It's also known as a place of great hospitality, despite the fact that its guests must sleep out in the open.
Ruler
Tudbury Tuftle, mayor of Barrnstable. A wizened, white-headed old halfling of the Stout line. Tuftle rules by virtue of being the oldest member of the village, at 190 years of age.
Behind the Throne
If truth be told, Tuftle has grown quite senile and isn't really up to ruling anyone. Fortunately, he is also hard of hearing and has a very weak voice. because of this, his nephew Jereby Mallock Wilbert Stockart acts as a spokesman and interpreter for the old halfling, and in time of need, he's perfectly willing to translate Tuftle's mumblings as he sees fit. Because Tuftle is hard of hearing, he seldom notices that people are doing other than what he intended.
Description
Barnstable was once a sleepy prime halfling village, before a rogue wild magic surge sucked the entire village into Limbo. Luckily, some of the halflings caught the trick of imagining solid terrain before they all drowned. Unable to return to the Prime and determined to carry on with their lives, they've made themselves as comfortable as they can.
Barnstable is composed of a few dozen subterranean homes, each nestled among the roots of a huge oak tree, with cobbled lanes winding their way from door to door. The only above ground building is a great central barn in which the villagers keep ponies and goats as communal property and store the food they harvest from the surrounding wood.
One thing of special interest concerning this village is that there were no natural anarchs among the halflings. Consequently, the villagers have to take turns round the clock concentrating on maintaining the lcoal terrain. Some of the younger ones amuse themselves by mentally rearranging the location of the various homes and streets while the rest of the village is sleeping, then watching the resulting confusion when the villagers awake. Their elders threaten them witha ll sorts of dire punishments, but prefer not to have to stay awake to take a night shift themselves, so they just live with the youth's pranks. It can be very disconcerting for a visitor, however, to go to sleep near the village barn, and wake up surrounded by dense woods.
Militia
The village doesn't have a militia as such. Instead, internal problems are delath with by a sort of general meeting when the need arises. For defense from the world outside, the villagers simply rearrange the local terrain so that the surrounding oak woods become impenetrably thick near the village, and all paths through it lead away. If they don't want the village to be found, they can enforce those wishes by manipulating their environment.
Services
The primary thing that Barnstable has to offer the traveller is simply a quiet place to rest, lots of homey food, and cheery company. Very occasionally, the villagers may be persuaded to part with a poney if a party needs a pack animal, but they will only barter for it: they have no use for hard currency.
Local News
There's never any news here of interest to outsiders, except what news they bring themselves. So unless a basher happens to stop by the village while other travelers are there, he's not going to learn anything he didn't already know beforehand.
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