Settlements and Sites of the Four City-States #213

Settlements and Sites of the Four City-States #213 

August 1st, 2023 

• Number: 213 

• Name:  Deep Dive on a Settlement of Interest: Village of Forest’s Edge – Part 3 

• Location: Eastern edge of the Lolot Forest, east of Berien Manor in County Berien 

• Population (approx.): 235 

• Brief:  Despite the border of Lolot Forest being deep within the City-State of Noldrune, there are still reasons for the County to maintain an active and skilled border patrol. Dayntree Claid, and prior leaders, seek to protect against banditry, poachers and illegal logging among other threats to the woods. The border patrol is commonly called the Lolot Rangers even though they number among their ranks all manner of professions - trackers, foragers, druids, foresters, hunters, archers and warriors.

• Naehorn Alderbrook, 253, a male Wood Elf, protects the area of Lolot Forest around Forest’s Edge. He is short and has an athletic build. He wears his brown hair long and in a ponytail. Naeborn has leaf-green eyes and a lop-sided smile. He wears a complete suit of leather armor and has a strap that keeps his quiver tied to his back. His bow has Elven runes scribed on it, giving him benefits when he draws it.

• Naehorn and the other local Lolot Rangers guard various portions of the surrounding forest. They have set up a series of bird and animal calls that let each other know when someone enters the woods. Naehorn is on night patrol and uses his animal empathy and intuition to keep apprised of everything happening nearby.

• Naehorn has a wolf, Shadow, that follows him everywhere. He raised him from a pup and trained him in the ways of the rangers. Naehorn was married to a human for 50 years before she died. He still grieves every day and won't consider even dating anyone else. Despite this, he isn't lonely and has many friends and family.

• Geography: Naehorn’s patrols cover an area northeast of Forest’s Edge where the woods thins and ground rises to overlook an area of rough terrain to the east. His favorite vantage point is an ancient festival site. At the edge of the ridge, according to local histories, an ancient peoples called the Sunwatchers built a temple so that they could watch the rise of the Malam the Sun. On the walls of the circle, they placed stone obelisks fashioned with vertical slots, arranged so that the rising sun, at the beginning of each season, shone through the gaps. The sunlight would be focused by lenses set into the slots onto the central altar. The resultant heat would ignite the festival fires.

• Runners, selected by their villages by competition or election for this was a high honor, would light torches from the holy fire and run tirelessly through the Lolot Forest to central squares and grand keeps alike, to ignite their bonfires and fireplaces. So, the priests declared, began the four seasons of the land.