Wilderness
Rowdy
Modest prices
The Hewn Knot
the lumberjacks' longhouse beneath the old wood
You push through a carved doorway into a single vast hall of timber: smoke-dark beams, benches sunk from use, and a central hearth that throws orange faces and long shadows up the rafters. The air smells of damp wood, frying fat, and spilled ale; somewhere a chipper tune is hammered out on a spoon against a tankard and the roar of voices answers like falling timber. Lumbermen and woodfolk crowd the benches — furred cloaks, splintered gloves, and muddy boots — while axes lean against posts like sleeping dogs. The light is low, but the longhouse hums with warmth and noise: bargains shouted, wagers knocked down, and the occasional oath punctuated by a laugh that scares crows. At the far end a raised platform holds the bar: a hulking slab with burn marks and axe-gouges. Behind it Bram Stoutbranch moves with the confident punctuality of someone who has measured kindling and men by the same eye. Open racks show smoked meat and jars of pickles; a ladder climbs to a loft where rough mattresses are already rumpled with snoring backs. The room seems to watch you back, assessing whether you belong to the forest or if you'll be fed to it.
A thick oval oak slab, bark still clinging, carved with a cleaved knot and a crossed handaxe and mug; iron chains hang it lopsided above the doorway, grey with sap and age, no words.
Bram Stoutbranch
Human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Stumpfire Toddy
5 spA strong blend of warmed mead, spruce resin, and a sliver of smoked pine — it thaws cold limbs and makes storytellers bolder; drinkers gain advantage on Persuasion checks to trade or bribe for the next hour but suffer a -1 penalty to Stealth for one hour due to excess warmth and laughter.
Modest (5e lifestyle: about 1 gp a day)
Miri Two-Knife · cook
A broad-shouldered halfling who hacks game with two cleavers and insists on adding smoked juniper to everything.
Togan · barmaid
A scarred half-elf who hops between tables like a squirrel, remembers every face and their last wager.
Belt · bouncer
A silent wood-giant of a man who smells of pine and will place you outside before you know you've crossed him.
Old Jorren
A retired foreman who claims he once guided a hollowed tree to the hall and now seeks the Hollowsong Pillar's sleeping root to finish his strange map.
Nell of the Slick Axe
A young, fast-handed logger who bets on climbing and wants coin to buy a strange iron chisel said to split enchanted knots.
Murk the Mapmaker
A gruff halforc who trades crude maps for ale and is sketching out a cluster of dark clearings that 'weren't there before last winter.'
1
A travelling woodsage named Ilben says the Hollowsong Pillar below the longhouse stirs in its sleep whenever a 'silver fungus' blooms nearby.
2
Nell of the Slick Axe boasts she heard of an iron chisel kept at the abandoned mill of Threen Forks that will split any enchanted knot — it's guarded by warped timber guardians.
3
Murk the Mapmaker warns a string of new clearings called the Weeping Openings has begun attracting night-things; one clearing holds a carved stone with the same rune Bram hides under the loft.
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