Northeast of Evershoal, in southwestern Hallea, the village of Quillpond sits in the Adigall valley, flanked by old-growth forest and managed woodlands. There is fertile land on the southern shore of the river, and a freshwater lake teeming with life.
Quillpond, Hallea.
- Population – Village and surroundings: 300
- Government – The Council of Five.
- 2 Representatives from largest landowning families, 1 representative each from the Temple, Merchants, and Wardens.
- Industries – Leatherwork, Woodwork, Agriculture, Forestry
- Trade
Description
Northeast of Evershoal, in southwestern Hallea, the village of Quillpond sits in the Adigall valley, flanked by old-growth forest and managed woodlands. There is fertile land on the southern shore of the river, and a freshwater lake teeming with life.
The village is situated on the Great North Road as well as the Adigall River. The river, flowing west and south from the village provides both a route of travel, a bounty of fish and wildlife, as well as rich and fertile land. Quillpond, though one of the elder townships of Hallea, is still a fledgling municipality in the greater timeline. Established as a waypoint, some 109 years ago, the small outpost steadily grew to the sizable town that it is today. It’s place along the Great North Road makes it a prime locale to stop for merchants traveling along the road or the river and it sees a fair bit of trade with travelers, as a result.
The Zanattas are relative newcomers to farming. They came from the capital about 50 years ago with money and bought land and quickly became a major distributor by hiring other people to do the actual work. The fecundity of the landscape has led to bountiful harvests allowing them to export to other regions as well.
An old farming family that has been part of Quillpond for many generations. They know all the spooky stories and the people in town. Don’t like the upstart The Zanatta Clan.
With Isran’kusha restored, you feel a serenity wash over the lands around Quillpond. A cool breeze settles your minds, and the pain of your injuries subsides somewhat. You set off to make your way back to town with renewed energy.
As the group of you return to town, you find a much calmer and serene scene. Much of the town seems to be gathered in front of Quillpond Hall. The majority of the council stands, huddled, in passionate discussion, at the top of the stairs to the hall. Murg, Margarita Zanatta, and Matilda Bosco wear clearly worried looks on their faces as Emon seems to be working to calm them. Off to the east, you see Gianno hurriedly approaching, as well.
Emon sees Gianno, first, and waves him toward the group.
“It’s back. The blessing of the forest is back.” Gianno yells out over the murmur of the crowd.
Emon’s eyes grow wide, and her expression becomes one of elation as her eyes dart over to your group.
“What happened? Is it done?” Emon calls out to you.
As you approach, you begin recounting the tale of the past hours. The entirety of the town listens intently, its murmur quieting a bit as you go, and as your story draws to a conclusion. The council, as well as the rest of the town thanks you all profusely, offering handshakes, hugs, and claps on shoulders.
“We have a lot to discuss. We will be back to make an announcement shortly.” Emon says as she gestures for the council to enter the hall.
You see Ivis bound up the stairs and place her hand on Emon’s shoulder for a moment before whispering something into her ear. Emon nods and glances past you all as she continues into the hall and pulls the doors closed
As the crowd continues to shower praise, you hear Ivis’s voice from behind you.
“I bet you all need a drink, right?” Ivis Stramn calls from about ten feet away, directing her question to your group specifically. “Come to the Stag. Everyone else, give me an hour or so. I get the feeling that I am going to need to break out the extra drinkware tonight.”
As you follow Ivis, you can see she clearly walks with an impatient and purposeful stride. Moments later, you reach the doors of The Singing Stag which Ivis pushes open and stands aside ushering you inside. After you all pass, she closes the doors without a word before striding past you all and vaulting over the bar. She reaches up and grabs a pair of bottles from one of the high shelfs.
“This calls for the good stuff” she says as she turns back to you. “Also, we have to talk.”
“You mentioned that one of the assholes that attacked Isran mentioned the Staten family in Evershoal, right? That is both great and terrible news.” she says as she pulls up eight small cups from under the bar and begins pouring.
The doors swing open behind you as Ella Strangford and Tharvis Rimple slip quietly inside and close and bar the door behind them.
“Damned Statens” Ella says as she charges across the room, grabs one of the cups from the bar, and downs it in one gulp before placing it gingerly back on the bar.
“Indeed, Ella” Ivis responds as she picks up her own cup and takes a sip. “And that is why we need to talk to you all. The Staten children have been of some concern for a number of years now. A sanctimonious pair of louts, the two of them are. And it seems they tumbled over the cliff into fanaticism. I think I speak for all of us (she says gesturing to Ella and Tharvis) when I say that their fanaticism isn’t something they developed all on their own. Their father is no better and if they found the motivation to come here with followers, where they don’t even seek to trade, to fuck with Isran, then this wasn’t their doing alone.”
“Their father is a right asshole and powerful. Folks think he has been up to something in the past few years but hasn't made any real moves. His progeny doesn’t do anything without his blessing, so it seems that has changed, now.”
“If they are attacking Quillpond just to remove Isran and the Wardens, then there has to be some other motivation behind it. The trouble is that Emmitt Staten is also a particularly persistent asshole. Whatever he and his children are up to is not going to stop with this setback” Ella says as she downs a second cup.
“I know that many of you aren’t necessarily interested in becoming heroes of The Republic of Hallea but I fear that Isran, the Wardens, the Seers, and Quillpond, on a greater scale, will not be safe until we know what they are up to and stop it. Not tonight, and not in the coming days, but soon enough, we may need those of you who are willing to take a little trip to the big, bad city. I understand if you choose not to and it would not be held against any of you if you chose to stay here. However, if you are willing, Ella can set up housing and a stipend for those of you that go.”
Until the Dawn
A secret organization is no more. A public entity, however, has been born.
Six decades of secrecy prepared The Harpies for a time where their existence and operation could no longer be hidden in the shadows of the Underhang. On this day, as the star alights the face of Evershoal in its golden embrace, the world in which we exist is a different place.
A few short months ago, every citizen of the city, whether pleased by their lot or craving change, knew what they could expect from their city. They would wake to ships unloading in The Docks, the chatter of revelers returning home in the Underhang, the smell of baked morsels wafting down the Terraces, and the clatter of coin as it was exchanged in the Shaletop. Life was perhaps not perfect, but it was expected.
Now, as we await a new day, a new light has shone on our beloved Evershoal and our beloved Hallea.
Veins of corruption have begun to sew rot through the fabric that binds the story of the city and of the nation. A rot that The Harpies were unable to cut out before it took hold. Thankfully, a group rooted in the small shire of Quillpond, my namesake and home, were there to wield the knife when we had grown blind.
And in doing so, these bold few tore open the walls of the city and found that much more rot existed and grew much deeper than we ever knew. With their light shining bright, they discovered not only the infestation of our home, but brought into view the winding tendrils that stretch out, like blighted roots to the world around us.
Something great and foul festers in this world, and we have these humble few to thank for the opportunity to sever these fell tendrils before they choke out light and hope.
- Unknown, Nestwarden, The Unknown
Much has happened in these past months.
Justice Can Change Shape, Too
Emmitt Staten has been exposed as a cur and a fool. Though unable to exact prosecution upon his malevolence, he suffers a fate that, for him, will be equally devastating. He has been ruined. His legitimacy need not be questioned in the courts when it will be just as thoroughly destroyed in the minds of the merchants of the Plane. Over the course of the next few months, The Staten Exchange will fall into disarray as contracts are canceled, available routes are slammed shut, and former allies, seeing the results of Emmitt’s blind greed, abandon the company altogether.
The Creeping Rot
In these most recent days, Kallista Kaine was exposed as not only a generally manipulative person with her claws deep into the nape of Emmitt Staten, but also as an other-worldly being of evil and corruption. Likely not her true name, but a name to call her by nonetheless, Kallista was discovered to be a Night Hag. Night Hags are beings originally of the feywild whose desire for corruption and manipulation grew, in that plane, into a perverse obsession. Deemed too foul for the immense chaos of the Fey Courts, they were cast away and exiled to Hades where their motivation for this sickly joy might abate. However, they would not be held there long and the Night Hags, drawn to either ordered suffering or unbridled brutality traveled through the Lower Planes to The Nine Hells and The Abyss where they found brethren, devils and demons, who had a greater appreciation for their predilections.
Kallista employed both devils and demons along with a number of changelings to attempt to seize control over the leadership of Hallea. When she was discovered and thwarted, she seemed to tear a hole in the fabric of space and shunted herself to another place. A place that glowed red and where ash bore the shape of the winds.
How Far Does the Bile Seep?
At the Unknown, as it was being taken under siege rather unsuccessfully (laughably unsuccessfully), the newly established allies from Bosaadak in the Koumazot Islands made mention that they, too, had seen such creatures, devils and demons, make appearances in their capitol around the time that the direction of their leadership’s motivations changed rather abruptly. Equally concerning was the presence of a new advisor, a woman, who had appeared behind the throne. They had never heard of the name Kallista Kaine. However, history and lore is abound with stories of these hags, these witches, and how they so often appear in threes.
In addition, the individual that led the attack on the Celeano house was found to be carrying something that is, perhaps, even more worrying. A missive in the foreign Damenthian dialect of Common seemed to contain orders to “find and eliminate the opposition and begin preparations to move on to the next target once Evershoal falls”. It seems that the fiendish foes may not be working alone.
A World Where Redemption is Real?
Sometimes, unfortunate circumstances and reactionary thinking lead to terrible events. A childhood of indoctrination and an adulthood of abandonment lead Maxwell Staten to act out in a terrible way, alongside his sister, when they attacked the Order of the Teeming Verdant Wood outside of Quillpond. Minerva suffered a more definite fate for her efforts, but Max has suffered much more since. Afflicted by lycanthropy, Max’s hatred for shapeshifters was only bolstered as he dragged his sister’s body from the forest. He came to embrace the power that the “curse” provided him and used it as motivation to teach his father a lesson and, perhaps, to teach those who took his sister’s life a lesson, as well. However, empathy may have won out, as the latter of those two was ameliorated when Maxwell was assisted with the resurrection of his sister. His focus, then, fell firmly on the shoulders of Emmitt and his organization.
Maxwell and Minerva are still not good people. They are certainly flawed and still have their bigoted views toward shapeshifters that persist. However, there may be hope. Strangers showed an unnecessary regard for Max once and with a consistent challenge to his problematic worldview, perhaps there is still room for positive change.
Punishment in Kind
Former Sergeant Rixser Meles was another type of evil. Greedy, arrogant, uncaring, corrupt. However, some stories reach a completion that is befitting of the main character.
Sometimes, your arrogance leads you into an act of extreme bravado. Sometimes that act of extreme bravado turns into an abomination of flesh. That’s what happens when you take the research of a somewhat accomplished necromancer and attempt to bend them to your twisted will.
And sometimes, that immediately bites back. Meles took leaps and bounds toward corrupted power from being an everyday corrupt officer of The Slatebearers and found himself exactly where he deserved to be. After incapacitating himself in a ritual gone wrong, he was arrested for his crimes and, under the careful and exacting care of his former employers, the extent of his crimes truly came to bear. Years of dirty deals and extortion in the Docks lead to the murder of a fellow Slatebearer, a coverup, a descent further into the criminal underworld of Evershoal, and finally to a ritual circle underneath a Sanguine Knell warehouse. And in that warehouse, he saw past what he truly could understand. He saw that ill intention and corruption of the mind leads to corruption of the soul and of the flesh. He saw the manifestation of that corruption.
One cannot necessarily speak to the motivations of Meles after that, but what was left of his soul was barred to the investigators. His confessions spared him the sword, but a lifetime in cages next to those who you threatened, beat, and spit on may not yet be the mercy Meles hoped for.
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