Atlas

Built just west of the point where the Highreach river enters the sea, Specularum is a trade city, with a good harbor, ample accommodations for traders and other visitors, and most of the comforts of civilization.

The city is surrounded by the farmlands of the estate of Marilenev, and the lands of Baron Vorloi border the Estate of Marilenev to the southeast.

Lifeline of western Karameikos: canoes move goods and people quietly.

Travel & trade

• Downstream trade to Riverfork Keep is common.
• Upstream travel is slower, deliberate, seasonal.

A mound in the Gustos, east of a dam of felled trees. Pink ooze streamed from it. The entrance was an underwater cave at the base.

Townsfolk from Backwater dove the tunnels. They killed Mother Greenteeth here.

A fishing village on the Gustos, upriver of Backwater.

The fishermen vanished. The village went silent.

The houses were torn up and stacked into a dam. A giant beaver kept the dam and preyed on mutated residents. Townsfolk from Backwater killed the beaver.

The merfolk dismantled the dam. What remains is driftwood on the shores.

A secluded lagoon where the Gustos River slows and spreads into a wide, salty expanse. The water is clear near the surface but darkens in the depths, where the merfolk of the River Court dwell. The lagoon is accessible via a narrow channel guarded by merfolk like Aelindra, who patrol with tridents and nets of woven kelp.

The lagoon’s underwater halls are built from white stone and coral, with platforms rising just above the water’s surface for gatherings. The merfolk here are cautious but open to diplomacy, especially toward those bearing tokens of goodwill.

The merfolk of the lagoon offer several services to surface-dwellers:

• Barge and boat repairs, extending a vessel’s lifespan by years.
• Healing and recovery for wounds, illnesses, and corruption from the pink ooze.

A psychological boundary in the west: south bank tends toward tenuous ducal order; north bank toward rumor, danger, and things people do not write down.

Character

• Bureaucratic
• Lawful
• Disliked but tolerated
• Guards rotate in and out
• “Safe enough”

Downriver trade from the Gustos River often ties here.

Roads

• Luln ↔ Riverfork Keep (maintained trade road)

Known, but not loved.

Who ends up here

• Ambitious soldiers
• Disgraced officers who disappear from polite postings
• Glory-seekers who harden or break

Supply

• Luln
• Riverfork
• Brandonsford (seasonal village trade with the rest)

Reputation

Everyone agrees it is necessary. No one agrees it is succeeding.

A settlement on the Gustos River in western Karameikos. Brandonsford lies upriver.

Culture & outlook

• More Traladaran than Thyatian “Karameikan” court culture
• Pagan rites, ancestor worship, river offerings; saints over scripture
• Church of Karameikos visits rarely and leaves uneasy
• Locals say: “We were here before the Duke.”

They are not rebels. They are old.

A tavern in Backwater kept by Harlan Moss. It is the heart of the village, where decisions are made over ale and hard truths.

A town east of Brandonsford. Brother Dirk studied and took his vows at the Temple of Ragged Hollow.

A western Karameikos settlement upriver on the Gustos; tied into the same road and trade network as Riverfork Keep and the borderlands garrison line. Backwater is downriver.

Roughly five hundred souls live behind a ten-foot wall of crumbling stone, moss-eaten and claw-scored at the gates. Thatched stone cottages cluster inside, along with a small stone manor, two plaster-and-timber inns, and a chapel with its graveyard. A dragon has kept the town penned in: the farmstead lies abandoned, cattle and pigs are held within the walls, and the mill stands closed. Reeve Eric has posted a bounty of one thousand gold pieces for whoever slays the beast.

Lady Elara holds the manor in name. She is away with her guard at the Borderlands Keep.

After Gill's sons went after the dragon, the scuffle wrecked the mill.

Culture & outlook

• Traladaran custom, river rites, uneasy distance from the duke's church and capital style (same broad river-village culture as Backwater)

The Lady's Manor,a modest stone estate at the heart of Brandonsford, with stables, outbuildings, a small garden, and a warehouse for town stores. Lady Elara holds the house in name; with her and her guard away, the steward runs the household and receives petitioners at the main hall.

A well-kept plaster-and-timber inn, the livelier of Brandonsford's two drinking houses. Fresh bread from the kitchen fills the common room; upstairs rooms are let to travellers. Adventurers and would-be dragon-slayers gather here rather than at the Golden Egg down the street.

On offer

• Fox Tail brew for 3sp each
• Fresh-made bread for 5sp
• Rooms for the night for 10sp per night.
• Thin stew for 4sp

A small, boxy stone chapel with a graveyard beside it, dedicated to Halav, the Traladaran Immortal of Heroism and Protection. The priest keeps the doors open into the late afternoon and beds the wounded.

On offer

• Healing for the faithful

The cheaper rival to The Clumsy Fox, a neglected plaster-and-timber tavern, quiet and oppressive. Peasants gather here rather than sell-swords; most visitors do not linger.

Quinn said his good booze disappears every night. He blamed Bentley or someone working for him and offered the party 100 gp to catch the thief.

On offer

• Watered-down ale
• Thin cabbage soup

A cramped Brandonsford shop smelling of herbs and strange powders, with clay and glass vials crowded on every shelf. Ingrid, the town alchemist, keeps the place, shy and awkward, but able to supply practical alchemical goods to those who know what to ask for.

On offer

• Essence of Wolfsbane (applied to skin, repels wolves for 1d8 hours). 5 GP.
• Witch Powder (Bright blue, glows when touching something magical, washed off with water). 7GP.
• Mandrake Root Tea (heals 1 HD over 4 hours). 10 GP.
• Identification of two potions. 100 GP.

The forest around Brandonsford, dense pine and undergrowth east and north of the town wall, where farmland gives way to fairy-haunted woodland and whatever the dragon has driven out of the hills. Deeper in the woods lie Vivian's hut, the giant's cottage on a hillside, and Sir Brandon's barrow mound.

Upriver to the north, a trail leaves the Gustos toward the dwarves' mine at the foot of the hills. Further west along the mountain is a cave ringed by blackened trees.

West of town is the Fauns' Grove, where the trees bleed wine-like sap.

A forest clearing east of Brandonsford, where the trees give way to a garden of eerily detailed topiary, woodland creatures, halflings, humans, and stranger shapes, around a pond and a wattle cottage. Vivian, the woods witch, lives here. Nixies swarm the pond and have been known to demand weapons cast into the water as tribute, threatening that the witch will turn trespassers into new shrubbery for her garden.

A stand of trees west of Brandonsford. The sap runs like wine. One sip can knock a mortal unconscious.

Fauns frequent the grove and do not take kindly to anyone stealing their drink.

The party met Lilt and Cask here. Cask exchanged a bottle of wine for Grimni's Witness Ring, a gift with sentimental value. As the fauns left, Lilt played a calming lullaby, and Mono and Brother Dirk fell asleep.

A cottage three times the size of a normal house, built from cyclopean stone slabs on the side of a hill north of Brandonsford. It has a tree bark door, a window, a moss and earth roof, and a mud brick chimney that billows smoke. A woods giant lives here.

When the party arrived, he was asleep in a cushy chair by a roaring hearth and cauldron, and thunderous breathing could be heard from outside. Brother Dirk had been kept bound and gagged in a sack in the corner.

A barrow mound in the woods north of Brandonsford, with a white stone slab set into the entrance. A faded mural on the slab depicts a conquering knight. Father William sent Brother Dirk here to recover Sir Brandon's magic sword.

The antechamber holds three wall mosaics that tell the story of Sir Brandon and the dragon, divided into panels:

1. Brandon gathers his men and they journey to the dragon's lair. Three figures stand out against the other knights: a shaggy giant of a man with a greatsword (Alfred), a wizened priest (Myrddin), and a wild-eyed man with an axe (Wyllt).
2. Brandon slays the dragon by driving his sword through its mouth.
3. Brandon and his men are knighted by a queen.

Deeper in, the party has opened the crypts of Alfred, Wyllt, and Myrddin, cleared a cleric's workroom (finding Lives of the Saints), and fought Myrddin's ghost among the warrior statues. Past a maiden statue that asked what makes a true knight, they entered Sir Brandon's tomb: a wooden dragon-headed ship holding his sarcophagus. They took his holy sword and plate mail, then found a secret passage from the maiden's room back toward the shrine.

The remains of a stone and log cabin lie in a rotting heap at the base of a hill north of Brandonsford, up a forest trail from the Gustos. On the hill itself stand an old shed with picks and shovels, and a lintel entrance to a mineshaft, sealed by a collapse.

The dead of the dwarf family lie here: Grimni, Grelli, Durni, Breni, Kedri, and Hruni, buried at the mineshaft entrance. Brol's pick was found by the hearth. His body was not among them. Hruni was found on the trail west along the mountain foot, a pick hole in his chest. Fourteen iron ingots remain in a scorched crate by the hearth.

A cave west of the dwarves' mine, at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by blackened corroded trees.

A Brandonsford smithy run by Warwick. Lucky charms, horseshoes, rabbit's feet, and clovers cover its walls and every beam.

Warwick is running short of iron. The dragon has kept him from checking on the dwarves who supplied it. Hooded figures have also been leaving things around the smithy. Mono found part of a burned note here.