Asbravn

[DM Leverage]

Asbravn (Small City, 5,668)
- Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting -

Asbravn is the central marketplace for the farmers of Sunset Vale, the rich farmlands between the Reaching Wood and the Sunset Mountains. The town resists Zhent raids from Darkhold and more subtle pressures, thanks to the services of a volunteer militia known as the Riders in Red Cloaks, whose numbers are often supplemented by friendly or retired adventurers. The town is a popular caravan stop for all but Zhent merchants, who can buy provisions but may not spend the night. Beneath the town's well-kept farms and orderly market, catacombs left by a previous civilisation of seminomadic horse riders sometimes turn up odd treasures. For a town erected upon the remnants of old tombs, Asbravn is sunny and relatively untroubled by undead.

[DM Leverage]

Asbravn

This small town is the market center of the farmers of the southern Vale.

They trade with each other and with traveling merchants in the central market rather than taking their trade to the cities where someone else will make a profit from their food, not them. Buyers out of Berdusk and Iriaebor come to the market each day. Its understood that the market of Asbravn fills bellies all along the Chionthar.

Asbravn lies in a shallow valley where the Dusk Road and the Uldoon Trail meet. A dilapidated temple to Ilmater faces the market, which is ringed by swap shops, a cooper and cratemaker, a wagonworks, shrines to Lliira (A House of Joy), Lathander (Morningstone House), and Waukeen (formerly Goldcoin House, and now an abandoned, burnt-out shell where local children play), a tavern called the Tankard and Sheaf, and an inn, the Board Laid Bare.

Asbravn is famous for the Riders in Red Cloaks, its police and defenders. They're local volunteers led by a few experienced warriors and occasionally bolstered by mages and priests who are sponsored by Iriaebor to keep the roads and the market safe. The Red Cloaks patrol in mounted dozens and often have to battle bandits, trolls, bug-bears, orcs, and predatory monsters in the foothills of the southern Sunset Mountains, east of town.

Since Zhentarim activity has increased, the Cloaks have run up against poisonings several times, and against ambushes by mercenaries who were very well paid by someone. Local feeling and fear is running high against the Zhentarim. Almost every family has at least one Rider. The post of reinforcement Rider was once offered to any able warrior when needed, with archers being particularly sought after. At a pay rate of tens of gold pieces per week, such positions were eagerly sought. Now, however, the towns chief priest of Ilmater, Abject Supplicant Asgar Tel-lendar, is insisting on questioning applicants with the aid of the Harpers, or so local rumor runs.

Asgar's temple, the House of the Suffering God, is in danger of closing down. Asgar heads a clerical staff of only six priests, three novices, and four lay worshipers. The temple itself is a crumbling ruin, its tithes too meager to pay for repairs. Sinister visions have begun to appear in Asgar's dreams, showing the God on the Rack turning his back on the temple of Asbravn, but as these dreams were always followed closely by visits from mysterious smooth-tongued people trying to buy the House, hes not put too much credence in them. (Zhents, or I'm a toad, Asgar has told his worshipers angrily.)

Other current local concerns are centered around a plan by one new landowner to breed long-horned horses for sale as battle mounts. Many farmers are afraid they'll get out and trample crops or need too much hay to keep the surplus crops shipping as good-as-gold exports.

The traveler through Asbravn will see only lush farms with wood lots, drainage ditches and ponds, well-kept barns and stump-and-boulder fences, and general tranquility. At corners where tracks and trails meet in the town stand old, cracked, stout stone pillars surmounted by crumbling horse heads. These are the only visible relics of an ancient city, Urdrath of the Horsemen, that stood on this site. The Horsemen were nomads who moved to Tunland or the Savage North long ago. Urdrath was where they came to worship and bury their dead in catacombs beneath the streets.

Today, false cellar walls and sliding stones in the foundations of many of the towns fifty-odd buildings lead into a vast maze of underground passages and galleries, their extent unknown. Tomb chambers and coffin niches in the passage walls are everywhere, and the deeper levels are roamed by undead. Some of the fallen warriors of the Horsemen, legend says, were buried with rich treasures.

Many a curious visitor has paid 10 gold pieces or more to a local to be let into the catacombs and more than one has fled out again in terror after coming upon a recently slain thief, face black with strangulation, throat caught forever in the bony, chilling grip of a skeletal arm that reached out of one of the horizontal coffin niches as the culprit passed. Still, the occasional person comes to the surface with a gem-adorned dagger or the remnants of an ivory or amber necklace, and brave (foolish, locals say) young people still come from Berdusk and Iriaebor on dares to enter the catacombs to impress their friends.

Most visitors don't look for such excitement in Asbravn. They marvel at the well-kept farms while passing through, perhaps buying some fresh eggs, cheese, or a joint of meat at the market. Or, they come here to buy wagonloads of provender in the market, knowing they'll get good fresh fare at fair prices. This is the sort of town folk remember fondly after one visit, feel at home in after a second, and make sure they stop by when possible thereafter.

[DM Leverage]

Places of Interest in Asbravn

Shops

+ Samborls Sundries-in-Trade - Swapshop

Largest and most successful of the towns swap shops, the establishment of Samborl Deiryn is a crowded warehouse full of overstocked, used, no-longer-needed and useless items, from brass Calishite veil dancers fingerbells to three-elk winter sledges. Some of Samborls stock is broken, more is undoubtedly stolen, and he knows that some items are left with him as covert signals or message drops by various merchant cabals and other secret groups he pretends to know nothing about.

Both collectors and adventurers find his shop a fascinating place to browse after all, where else in the entire Vale can you find a lifelike bulls head made of wood and painted felt, designed to be worn during fertility parades? Or a knockdown-archpole brass changing stall for ladies of delicate breeding, complete with cloth-of-gold dancing unicorn curtains (only slightly moth-eaten)? A triple-jointed blown glass back-scratcher from far Kara-Tur, perhaps? Or a whistle that summons dogs, leucrotta, and certain carrion birds but is guaranteed to drive away carrion crawlers, thri-kreen, ankhegs, and other giant insects with hard outer chitin? Perhaps a veil of feathers, once worn by a bird maiden of far Zakhara? Or six smooth-polished wooden casks from Thay, designed to fit inside eachother? Samborl sells them all, grinning and rubbing his hands or belly all the while. Most people think hes an oily slug, but Samborl just smiles and makes sure he goes to bed each night a slightly richer oily slug.


+ Tantains Barrels and Crates - Cooper, Packer

Tantain the Tall is perhaps the most important man in Asbravn. Its his flying fingers and tireless work that get goods ready to leave the market and travel long distances well protected. Some merchants even bring their wares up for packing from Berdusk and Iriaebor before shipping them elsewhere just to get Tantain to do the packing for them.

The tall, gaunt, sharp-jawed Tantain is never still except when he finds a packing table and lies down on it to snatch a few hours of sleep. He supervises a skilled crew of 10 strong young women and men, and casually throws all payments over his shoulder into a huge brass spittoon unearthed by some enterprising merchant from the old giant kingdom of Darchar (roughly, eastern Amn). Surprisingly, no matter where he is or what hes doing, the coins end up in the spittoon.

As one might expect, Tantain is deadly with throwing knives - the result, he says darkly, of a pirate and then a carnival career when he was too young to know better. Tantain lives for his current work, though. He goes at it so hard that hell probably die because of it after a shorter span of years than he might otherwise enjoy.


+ Rolling Wheel Wagons - Wagonmaker, Wheelwright, Carpenter

A wheel large enough for a titan's wagon adorns the front of the huge barn that houses this wagonworks. It's fully 20 feet tall and a favorite climbing tower for local youths, until they're chased off.

[tbc!]