Post by DM Sin on Oct 24, 2006 7:48:17 GMT -5
The Way Inn
This isolated stone inn has been a famous landmark for many years, starting from when it was the last inn along the way south from Waterdeep for many days of hard and dangerous riding (hence its name). In recent years, as evil grew in ruined Dragonspear Castle, the Way Inn became ever more important as a base for mercenary armies raised by the Lords’ Alliance to keep the Trade Way clear and as a haven for merchants hurrying along that long and perilous overland road. Recently, an ancient black dragon destroyed the inn while the armies based there were afield battling legions of baatezu. The dangers of the High Moor never sleep for long. Trolls and yuan-ti from the Serpent Hills have been seen in growing numbers, but the otherplanar evil centered in ruined Dragonspear seems to have been broken - for now.
Several Waterdhavian merchant families sponsored a rebuilding of the Way Inn on the same site (an elevated, defensible site with a deep well) as before its destruction, but larger and stronger than ever. On a recent visit, I found it most impressive. The rebuilt Way Inn stands on the western side of the Trade Way two days’ hard ride (about a hundred miles) south of Daggerford. It is a walled compound atop a flat, grassy plateau about three acres in extent that overlooks a loop of road that leaves and rejoins the main trade road, giving caravans plenty of room to camp. From the loop of road, steep cartways lead up to three gates. All of these cross wooden bridges. The bridges slope on central pivots when support timbers are retracted from inside the compound to dump attackers into large spike-filled pits. The gatehouses are small stone keeps. Each is topped with a catapult. All firewood for the inn is under cover in these gatehouses, so fiery missiles can be hurled at attackers or an overrun gatehouse can be torched to prevent attackers from pouring in until the flames die down.
The inn itself is of stone, with a tile roof. Its windows look out over the road, and it is topped by a lookout tower equipped with several multiple-crossbow guns called airhurlers. Each of these is equipped with firing cords and shields for a person firing the gun, so that the airhurlers can be fired directly or aimed and fired from the room below. The stables for the inn are in one corner of the plateau. Three fenced paddocks open out of them, and more airhurlers are located on the stable roof. The village that once straggled around the slopes of the inn’s height is gone. The inn staff and attendant businesses (a wagon repair shop, a smith, a trading post, an apothecary, and a trailwares shop selling rope, skillets, tarpaulins, tents, sledges, harness, and the like) are housed in a row of stout stone cottages along the west wall of the plateau. A small orchard and hedged gardens are the only features that spoil the impression of being inside an army castle ready for war. However, this elaborate fortress is still the same good, clean, friendly refuge it used to be, and it remains under the capable hands of Dauravyn Redbeard, once an adventurer of note. He’s seen evil rise in Dragonspear Castle and be shattered, only to rise again, several times over. He is taking no chances.
He lives today only by the magic of a priest of Tempus who restored him to life after the last confrontation. He has a hired standing guard of 21 warriors at the inn, 10 of whom are always on patrol along the edges of the High Moor, looking for trouble. As Dauravyn often says, looking east, “If it isn’t orcs, it’s trolls, and if it isn’t trolls, it’s baatezu. If it isn’t baatezu, it’s dragons, and if it isn’t dragons, it’s something worse.”
Bowshot
This hamlet stands on the western side of the Trade Way, a half-day’s ride north of the Way Inn. Named because it was just a bowshot away from the Misty Forest, it’s been a logging center for a hundred years, and it’s been so successful that the forest is now miles away to the east. Bowshot consists of the Bowshot Inn, a sawmill, six farms (two run by men who shoe horses as well as any smith), and almost a dozen home woodcarvers who turn out yokes, coffers, wheel spokes, tool handles, and whimsical carvings. The place deserves mention because of recently discovered caves beneath its western fringes. They are entered from the horse-well behind the inn, and by at least one cave mouth in the stands of trees north and west of the hamlet. The Bowshot caverns show evidence of connections to deeper subterranean areas and of past use by smugglers. The existence of the caverns became widely known when a Drow exploratory band emerged from the trees one night and ran straight into an encamped, but alert, armed caravan. At least two adventuring bands have descended into the far depths of the caverns and, thus far, have not returned.
Some stolen goods were recently recovered from the caves and returned to their rightful owners in Waterdeep. With them were crates of ore very rich in silver, presumably mined in the deeps below the caverns. There’s local talk of hiring or inducing an adventuring company to dwell in Bowshot and mount a constant guard over the cavern entrances, and even of founding a company to mine and smelt silver in the depths, its workers protected by the hired adventurers. So far, no adventurers have agreed to such a defensive role. Many have come to the caverns and then moved on, talking of manspiders in the deep ways.
This isolated stone inn has been a famous landmark for many years, starting from when it was the last inn along the way south from Waterdeep for many days of hard and dangerous riding (hence its name). In recent years, as evil grew in ruined Dragonspear Castle, the Way Inn became ever more important as a base for mercenary armies raised by the Lords’ Alliance to keep the Trade Way clear and as a haven for merchants hurrying along that long and perilous overland road. Recently, an ancient black dragon destroyed the inn while the armies based there were afield battling legions of baatezu. The dangers of the High Moor never sleep for long. Trolls and yuan-ti from the Serpent Hills have been seen in growing numbers, but the otherplanar evil centered in ruined Dragonspear seems to have been broken - for now.
Several Waterdhavian merchant families sponsored a rebuilding of the Way Inn on the same site (an elevated, defensible site with a deep well) as before its destruction, but larger and stronger than ever. On a recent visit, I found it most impressive. The rebuilt Way Inn stands on the western side of the Trade Way two days’ hard ride (about a hundred miles) south of Daggerford. It is a walled compound atop a flat, grassy plateau about three acres in extent that overlooks a loop of road that leaves and rejoins the main trade road, giving caravans plenty of room to camp. From the loop of road, steep cartways lead up to three gates. All of these cross wooden bridges. The bridges slope on central pivots when support timbers are retracted from inside the compound to dump attackers into large spike-filled pits. The gatehouses are small stone keeps. Each is topped with a catapult. All firewood for the inn is under cover in these gatehouses, so fiery missiles can be hurled at attackers or an overrun gatehouse can be torched to prevent attackers from pouring in until the flames die down.
The inn itself is of stone, with a tile roof. Its windows look out over the road, and it is topped by a lookout tower equipped with several multiple-crossbow guns called airhurlers. Each of these is equipped with firing cords and shields for a person firing the gun, so that the airhurlers can be fired directly or aimed and fired from the room below. The stables for the inn are in one corner of the plateau. Three fenced paddocks open out of them, and more airhurlers are located on the stable roof. The village that once straggled around the slopes of the inn’s height is gone. The inn staff and attendant businesses (a wagon repair shop, a smith, a trading post, an apothecary, and a trailwares shop selling rope, skillets, tarpaulins, tents, sledges, harness, and the like) are housed in a row of stout stone cottages along the west wall of the plateau. A small orchard and hedged gardens are the only features that spoil the impression of being inside an army castle ready for war. However, this elaborate fortress is still the same good, clean, friendly refuge it used to be, and it remains under the capable hands of Dauravyn Redbeard, once an adventurer of note. He’s seen evil rise in Dragonspear Castle and be shattered, only to rise again, several times over. He is taking no chances.
He lives today only by the magic of a priest of Tempus who restored him to life after the last confrontation. He has a hired standing guard of 21 warriors at the inn, 10 of whom are always on patrol along the edges of the High Moor, looking for trouble. As Dauravyn often says, looking east, “If it isn’t orcs, it’s trolls, and if it isn’t trolls, it’s baatezu. If it isn’t baatezu, it’s dragons, and if it isn’t dragons, it’s something worse.”
Bowshot
This hamlet stands on the western side of the Trade Way, a half-day’s ride north of the Way Inn. Named because it was just a bowshot away from the Misty Forest, it’s been a logging center for a hundred years, and it’s been so successful that the forest is now miles away to the east. Bowshot consists of the Bowshot Inn, a sawmill, six farms (two run by men who shoe horses as well as any smith), and almost a dozen home woodcarvers who turn out yokes, coffers, wheel spokes, tool handles, and whimsical carvings. The place deserves mention because of recently discovered caves beneath its western fringes. They are entered from the horse-well behind the inn, and by at least one cave mouth in the stands of trees north and west of the hamlet. The Bowshot caverns show evidence of connections to deeper subterranean areas and of past use by smugglers. The existence of the caverns became widely known when a Drow exploratory band emerged from the trees one night and ran straight into an encamped, but alert, armed caravan. At least two adventuring bands have descended into the far depths of the caverns and, thus far, have not returned.
Some stolen goods were recently recovered from the caves and returned to their rightful owners in Waterdeep. With them were crates of ore very rich in silver, presumably mined in the deeps below the caverns. There’s local talk of hiring or inducing an adventuring company to dwell in Bowshot and mount a constant guard over the cavern entrances, and even of founding a company to mine and smelt silver in the depths, its workers protected by the hired adventurers. So far, no adventurers have agreed to such a defensive role. Many have come to the caverns and then moved on, talking of manspiders in the deep ways.