GoCorral

I talk a little bit about distilled beverages in this entry as if they are a secret that no one knows about. While that’s not true now, it was for when my campaign is set! The events in Cimmeria take place 400BCE and the first alcoholic beverage wasn’t distilled (in reality) until 1200CE, 1600 years later.

Restnor’s Point is a small mining town with a population of about 11,000 people. Restnor’s Point is named after its original founder Restnor the Third. He was a schizophrenic ranger who enjoyed exploring the northern wilderness along the Terror Mountains. In his travels he found a waterfall with a gold mine behind it. He returned to his hometown of Dalleer and made a large bet that there was a large treasure behind the waterfall. The man he made the bet with accepted thinking that Restnor had imagined the gold deposit during a schizophrenic episode. The man lost the bet and Restnor used the wager to set up a mining operation by the waterfall for people with socially devastating disabilities like his own. Thus, Restnor’s Point has become a place where the majority of the population have physical or mental disabilities.

Hephaestus has risen to a place above Zeus in the pantheon of Restnor’s Point. His lame leg and status as the god of mining make him at fitting patron deity for the city. Hephaestus has blessed the town and given them astoundingly high and thick walls made of adamantite. The walls are 32 feet high and 10 feet thick. No known weapon has been able to get through the town’s gates when they are closed except a dragon’s breath or a disintegrate spell, and even then only after repeated attempts.

West of Talon’s Waterfall is a large alcove bored out of the mountain wall. This alcove is used for Restnor’s Point’s temple. It is devoted largely to Hephaestus, the town’s patron god, but also to Apollo, for he is the god of healing, and to Hades, for his dominion over wealth. These three are the only who have statues in the temple, but the largest altar is still reserved for Zeus and the rest of the pantheon. The High Priestess of the temple, Titandra the blind seer, is the spiritual leader as well as the actual leader of Restnor’s Point, although she spends most of her time in Bradel Fields aiding the Alliance’s efforts against the Xorians. The only tax in the city is a tithe, but it is also considerably larger than most tithes. This tithe is used for all typical religious practices and for secular secular services that the town needs, such as paying for food and textiles from downriver.

The town exports the products from their divinely blessed mine for their economic livelihood. They sell stone, jewels, iron, bronze, copper, tin, mithral, and adamantite. They also produce cold iron, alchemical silver, normal silver, and gold. The town has grown to a position of wealth, but not arrogance. It has no standing army and has not increased prices even though they have a virtual monopoly on some metals.

The town does have a few barley and potato farms, along with a banana orchard that is magically enchanted to survive the freezing temperatures during the winter. These crops are not used for food except in the most dire of circumstances. They are more frequently used to make beer and an exotic banana wine. Dwarven alchemists in Restnor’s Point have also perfected a process where the alcohol of many different beverages is combined to make the hardest liquor anyone has ever laid eyes on. This, “vodka,” as they have named it, is exported throughout the known world and the secret to its making is guarded vehemently by the very few brewers who have access to it.

The mine of the town has its entrance behind the waterfall, known as Talon’s Waterfall, at the start of Talon’s Bed. Every morning the majority of the town’s adult populace gathers in the temple to the west of the waterfall for a blessing before going into the mine. Because the people of the town have worked for so long in the same place they have acquired many magical digging and appraising tools to help them in the excavation of ore. There are so many of these tools that they could be worth quite a  bit more than the metals, jewels, and stones they are used to mine, if one could find a buyer for them.

Restnor’s Point is also home to some of the best falconers in the entire world. They have bred normal birds of prey with other magical varieties to make a super hunting machine that still acts docile around humanoids. This new species has been dubbed the asestaro. One of these creatures can be purchased at maturity for 20,000 gold pieces, at a young age for 15,000, and in the egg for 10,000. The bonding process between the new owner and the animal is amazingly only one week. At that point the asestaro will do anything it has been trained to do for the owner.

In recent years Restnor’s Point has joined the Second Alliance against Xoria. The town cannot contribute much in the way of troops, but the wealth and resources produced by the town’s mine have proved useful for the Alliance. Additionally, Titandra receives prophetic visions of the future that have occasionally aided in the conflict with the Xorian Empire.

-GoCorral