# Dessarin Valley Player's Gazetter ![DessarinValley](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkwZtqBmR.png) ## Settlements ### Conyberry The town of Conyberry has been abandoned for years and lies in ruins. The Triboar Trail runs through the abandoned town. ### Triboar The bustling mercantile town of Triboar stands where the Long Road meets the Evermoor Way. Triboar’s name is thought to have come from a traveler’s tale of slaying three boars here in the same day, over four hundred winters ago. The town is built on flat, fertile land, with a few natural rises here and there. Nearly half of Triboar’s population lives outside the town proper, on sprawling ranches and neighboring farmsteads, most of which lie to the north or east. Triboar is the chief rival to Yartar, and the two communities compete for the trade of the Dessarin Valley. The current lord protector is a good-natured ex-adventurer named Darathra Shendrel, known for the excellent wine she makes. Darathra enacts and modifies local laws (known as “The Lord’s Decree”), which are then enforced by “The Twelve,” a dozen mounted veterans drawn from the militia to serve in a tenday cycle. Triboar is a horse-market for a dozen nearby ranches that turn out trained draft horses, riding mounts and ponies, and pack mules. Blacksmiths, harnessmakers, and wagonworks flourish in town. In addition, a number of guides operate from Triboar. They take merchants and other travelers all over the Sword Coast North (typically for stiff fees). Many of these guides are retired adventurers who know the North well. ### Yartar This fortified city commands the most northerly wagon bridge over the Dessarin River. A walled citadel on the west bank of the river connects to a bridge wide enough to accommodate two wagons with room to spare, connecting the Evermoor Way into and through Yartar. Travelers must move through the citadel and pass inspection before continuing west to Triboar or crossing the bridge to the city’s west gate. The Evermoor Way cuts through the heart of Yartar, connecting the city’s western and eastern gates. East of the city, the trade road becomes a gravel trail. Yartar is prosperous and increasingly crowded, so buildings have been torn down and taller ones built — four stories high in some instances. With its location near two great rivers and its proximity to a third (the Laughingflow, forming a trio the locals creatively call the Three Rivers), Yartar is a fishing town, and its tables have fish as fare at every meal. Fresh crabs, eels, and other river life are available both to eat and to purchase, and serve as a primary means of income for the fisherfolk of the town. The other major industry of Yartar is barge building. Most of the region’s river barges are built, or at least begin their service, in Yartar, and the works of the town’s bargewrights are famous all up and down the Dessarin and its tributaries. It is the importance of Yartar’s barges to the commerce of the North that earned the town a place in the Lords’ Alliance, to ensure that Yartar doesn’t fall to enemies and cause upheaval in the trade network along the rivers. Because the city is a major river port, Yartar’s elected leader is called a Waterbaron. The current Waterbaron is the shrewd, farseeing Nestra Ruthiol. Yartar is part of the Lords’ Alliance, and Ruthiol considers that membership vital for its survival and prosperity. There is a significant Zhentarim presence in the city. In addition, there is the Hand of Yatar, an all-female thieve's guild. The Zhentarim and Hand of Yatar sometimes do business with each other, when their interests align. ### Westbridge A village strung out along the Long Road between Red Larch and Triboar, Westbridge is home to the Harvest Inn, which stands on the west side of the Long Road facing the wagon road from the Stone Bridge. The inn is run by the affable Herivin Dardragon, a curly-haired collector and reseller of paintings and statuettes of questionable taste. ### Beliard One of the more pleasant-looking villages in the Dessarin Valley thanks to its many trees, Beliard is a market-moot for local cattle drovers. It surrounds the intersection of the Dessarin Road with the Stone Trail. Beliard is home to many cattle ranchers whose herds roam the hills around it, particularly to the east. The village offers a public well, as well as a pond where harnessed horses or oxen can be driven through the water to bathe them, drive off flies, and let them drink. It’s also home to a tanner, a smith, some horse dealers and trainers who keep extensive stables, and an inn: the venerable, popular, and several-times-expanded Watchful Knight. The inn was originally named for an inoperative helmed horror that stood in the common room, but the creature mysteriously vanished years ago. The innkeeper went missing shortly thereafter. In recent years, bodyguards and mercenaries formerly active in Waterdeep and along the Heartlands trade routes retired to Beliard, and their presence makes nearby brigands reluctant to raid the village directly. Because so many big-city folk settled here, rumors persist of cached treasure buried or otherwise hidden all over Beliard, but aside from a sack of gold coins found walled away behind stones in a chimney, nothing has yet been found — nothing that has become public knowledge, at least. ### Amphail Amphail lies north of Waterdeep on the Long Road. The town is named after one of Waterdeep’s early warlords, who is said to haunt the surrounding hills in spirit form, frightening away monsters. Horses are bred and trained here, rich Waterdhavians maintain secluded estates in the hills, and farmland is plentiful. Stands of dark duskwood and spruce trees are everywhere. In one corner of the town square stands the Great Shalarn, a black stone statue of a famous war stallion bred in Amphail long ago. Gelded by a prankster, the rearing stone horse is often painted in bright colors by high-spirited locals. Children are allowed to hurl stones at birds perched on the statue, to help keep it free of droppings. The children often climb it themselves and cling precariously to the high, tilted saddle, waving their arms and commanding imaginary armies into battle. Within spitting distance of the statue is the Stag-Horned Flagon, a cozy tavern run by an gray-haired, middle-aged woman with a wry sense of humor named Arleosa Starhenge. The three Waterdhavian families with the most influence in Amphail are Houses Amcathra, Ilzimmer, and Roaringhorn. These houses rule the town, with the controlling family changing each Shieldmeet. The current Lord Warder of Amphail is Dauner Ilzimmer, a bombastic family man who loves horses more than he does most people. Thanks largely to the influence of its nobles, Amphail is a member of the Lords’ Alliance and enjoys the protection of Waterdeep’s city guard. The lord warder also hires adventurers from time to time to take care of pesky bandits and monsters. ### Womford This tiny village has a dock on the Dessarin River for shipping the grain from its grist mill. It is also the local supply and market for the surrounding farms from which the grain comes. Aside from the mill, the village consists of a handful of granaries and a larger handful of cottages, several of which house tiny local shops. According to old tales, the village was known as Ironford until a dragon was slain nearby. Passers-by began to call the settlement “Wyrm Ford,” a name subsequently corrupted, thanks to the thick local accent, into “Womford.” Aside from the mill, the village has a handful of granaries and a larger handful of cottages, several of which house tiny shops. West of the village is the Ironford Bridge, a long, narrow, ramshackle wooden bridge that spans the Dessarin River and leads to Bargewright Inn, which looms atop a hill. Womforders lock and bar their doors and shutter their windows at night, for fear of the “Womford Bat,” a nocturnal predator that snatches folk it can catch outside after dark. ### Red Larch Red Larch has been an important stop on the Long Road for two centuries now. Named for a distinctive stand of red larch trees that were cut down when the hamlet was founded, Red Larch became a settlement in the first place thanks to a drinkable spring that fed a sizable pond ideal for watering horses, oxen, and pack mules. An east-west trail meets the Long Road at the pond, running west to the logging community of Kheldell and east to Bargewright Inn and eventually Secomber. Another trail leads to quarries in the Sumber Hills and to ruins of stone keeps long ago left to monsters and outlaws (the Haunted Keeps). In recent years, new quarries have been opened on the northwestern edge of town. So far these have yielded up great slabs of marble much prized in Waterdeep for facing large new buildings and repairing older edifices. Red Larch is also a center for stonecutters quarrying slate on the fringes of the Sumber Hills. Despite its small size, Red Larch offers many fine amenities, including the Allfaiths Shrine, a place of worship that caters to multiple faiths; the Swinging Sword, a respectable three-story stone inn with a high-pitched roof; and the Helm at Highsun, a ramshackle yet lively tavern. ### Bargewright Inn Once a hilltop wayside inn, this site has become a walled community of ramshackle, often-rebuilt wooden towers and buildings now entirely cloaking a hill that overlooks the village of Womford across the river. Bargewright Inn reeks of manure and filthy mud. It houses blacksmiths, dealers who buy and sell horses, mules, and oxen, wheelwrights, coopers, and wagonmakers. It has inns, stables, and warehouses, and two concentric rings of high protective walls with gates that are firmly closed and barred by night. (Individuals can pay stiff fees to be raised and lowered after sunset on rope-slung chairs, but nothing beyond what they can carry can pass.) Bargewright Inn is ruled by a plutocracy of business owners, most of whom are in the pockets of the Zhentarim. The unofficial leader is Chalaska Muruin, the terse, cold-eyed “Senior Sword” and master of the gate guards. The largest inn, The Old Bargewright, was recently rebuilt as a substantial stone structure with thick walls, secret passages, and private chambers separated from nearby rooms by sealed-off passages. Innkeeper Nalaskur Thaelond keeps careful watch over who comes and goes from his inn. ## Religious Communities ### Summit Hall Summit Hall is a fortified monastery of the Knights of Samular, an order devoted to Tyr, god of justice. Lady Ushien Stormbanner (female Tethyrian human knight of Tyr) oversees Summit Hall. Veterans, many of them scarred and grim, train novices and instruct them in the moral “Rule of the Knights” (an extensive series of “in this situation, a knight shall do this” guidelines). Life here is very regimented. The occupants of Summit Hall grow their own food and keep perpetual watch over nearby lands. They are always ready for battle, and fully armed and armored if encountered outside their walls. ### Goldenfields Goldenfields is a huge walled temple-farm dedicated to Chauntea, the goddess of agriculture. Called “the granary of the North,” it’s the only reason many Northerners ever taste soft-fleshed fruit larger than bush berries. Waterdeep, Secomber, Yartar, and points beyond consume the temple’s reliable output: carefully husbanded grains and dried, oil-packed, or salted foodstuffs preserved in vast storage cellars, vats, ricks, and squat stone grain-towers. Now run by Abbot Ellardin Darovik, Goldenfields is a stronghold of the Emerald Enclave. Members of that faction are as welcome here as clergy of Chauntea; many of them stay for months at a time to help with the work and the vigilant defense of the farm against insects and blights, as well as would-be vandals and plunderers. Hired adventurers patrol the walls and the land immediately around them, watching for anyone approaching. More than five thousand people live and work in Goldenfields year round, farming more than twenty square miles of tillage in gangs of hard-working gardeners. No guest at Goldenfields ever leaves hungry, and the farmer-priests expect that everyone should leave with “food for a tenday or more on the road, and seeds for the future beyond that.” ## Wilderness And Hills ### Westwood A tangled and varied forest cloaking the eastern foothills of the Sword Mountains, these woods are home to a shrine to Mielikki, several woodcutters’ camps that are often taken over forcibly for a season or a few months at a time by bandits, and a few overgrown ruins of the ancient elven kingdom of Rilithar. Recently, a roving band of Elk tribe barbarians have come to Westwood. They forcibly evicted bandits from the innermost woodcutters’ camps, then camped there themselves to explore and hunt in Westwood. ### Kryptgarden Forest Kryptgarden Forest hides many old dwarven ruins and the extensive underground city now known as Southkrypt. For centuries, this forest has been the home and hunting ground of the ancient female green dragon Claugiyliamatar, better known to many as “Old Gnawbone.” She earned her nickname by her habit of gnawing on old kills, and is often seen with a mangled corpse hanging from her mouth. Other dragons rarely remain in Kryptgarden Forest for long because Claugiyliamatar drives them out. Hunters from Westbridge used to cautiously seek game along the easternmost verges of Kryptgarden but dare not do so now, after several hunting parties disappeared. Small game remains plentiful, but larger beasts are seldom seen. Presumably, such beasts have fallen prey to Old Gnawbone. ### High Forest Although much shrunken from its ancient boundaries, the High Forest is still vast and mysterious. Larger than some kingdoms, it’s big enough to encompass mountains within its depths. It is home to treants of gigantic size, stags with antlers as wide across as a wagon, brown bears bigger than large sheds, owlbears, wolves, and unicorns. Woodcutters and even outlaws on the run dare visit only the verges of the High Forest. As everyone knows, those who venture too deep are seldom seen again. In the northwestern High Forest stands Shadowtop Cathedral, a stand of towering shadowtop trees that is an important meeting-place for the Emerald Enclave. Foes of the enclave have to fight to reach it, but members can readily find aid, healing, and advice in the grove. The Tree Ghost Uthgardt tribe also calls the High Forest home. ### Dessarin Hills The rugged, scruffy hills south of Yartar provide a safe haven for orcs, ogres, hill giants, manticores, and Uthgardt barbarian tribes. Scattered throughout the Dessarin Hills are ancient dwarven ruins, crumbling towers, lost mines, and abandoned hunting lodges, any of which might contain monsters and other perils. ### Sumber Hills The Sumber Hills are windswept badlands sparsely covered in dry grass. Many of the hills have exposed rock faces or steep escarpments. While the hills are dry, countless tiny streams rise from hidden springs (usually clean and drinkable), then flow down to join the Dessarin River, which bisects the hills. Most locals only think of the wilder, higher hills west of the river when they hear “Sumber Hills,” because it’s there that once had rich quarries and good hunting. Some hunting lodges and keeps owned by wealthy Waterdhavians or adventurers remain — and in recent times have become homes to bandits and monsters. Those who quarry the Sumber Hills for building stones and gravel often trade tales of finding gemstones and rich veins of ore in the hills — but for the most part, these persistent tales have never been more than talk. ### Forlorn Hills A great forest claimed by elven kingdoms once covered the Forlorn Hills. When the elves left, the forest was cleared to make room for a dwarven empire, which also faded from memory. The area is home to scores of hill giants and ettins, while the mountains in its center are claimed by copper dragons who have invaded ancient dwarven vaults and throne halls and turned these chambers into their lairs. ## Other Points Of Interest ### Lance Rock A prominent landmark near Red Larch, Lance Rock is a slender stone monolith that juts up out of the plains a few miles west of the Long Road. It stands only about 25 feet high, but the land nearby is flat and open, so it can be seen from miles away on a clear day. Lance Rock is made of granite that doesn’t match any other stone nearby, and looks like it was dropped from the sky. ### Rundreth Manor Atop a hill overlooking the Long Road less than a day’s travel northeast of Amphail stands ruined Rundreth Manor. This large stone mansion, now roofless and overgrown, is home to a mysterious and terrifying figure known far and wide as “the Dark Lady.” Locals warn everyone to stay well away from the ruins.