People of the March
Thornwick and Saltmere aren't just shop counters. Their people keep hours: the healer tends the wounded in the square each morning, the lamplighter lights the lanterns at dusk, and the locksmith sleeps off his night in the inn loft. Out in the wild, a few kind souls keep the hidden refuges where you can rest in safety.
Talking to people
ASK <name>on its own: they greet you and tell you what you can ask about.ASK <name> ABOUT <topic>: news, rumors, history. Some will only tell their secrets to friends.ASK <name> FOR <service>, orASK <name> TO <service>: they tell you the price.ACCEPTto pay, orDECLINE.ASK <name> ABOUT WORK: an errand. Bring them something, go somewhere, or deal with some trouble. When it's done,ASKabout work again to collect.ERRANDSlists what you've promised.WAVE,BOW,NOD,SMILEandLAUGHat people. Some of them wave back. Say hello in a room, and they'll notice.- The Watch knows the town:
ASK HALE ABOUT THE BANKand he'll tell you the way. - Some answers are long:
ASK <name> MOREto hear the rest. - Some topics lead to others. When a new one opens up, you'll be told, and it shows as (new) in their list. Some only open up after you've heard something from someone else entirely.
LORElists everything you've been told and by whom;LORE <topic>reads one again.
They notice you
People remember you: how long it's been since your last visit, what you asked about last time, whether you watched their hands. They notice your race, your profession, your wounds, a fine weapon on your belt, and whether you died this morning. Some lines only come out at night or in the rain.
They notice what you do, too. Smelt your first ingot with Ironhand watching and he'll tell you to keep it. Brew your first draught and Mistress Bramblewort will want to smell it. Stand on the walls in an invasion and Hale will salute you, Tobias will cry your name, and Sister Aldra will heal you for nothing the rest of that game day. Die three times before lunch and people will worry. Walk in with your sword in pieces and the smiths will say so. If they weren't there when it happened, they'll mention it the next time you see them (once).
They also talk to each other. Keep your eyes open around the square at dusk, or the inn late in the evening.
Shopkeepers and bankers
The people behind the counters are people too: Old Ironhand, Hollin, Mistress Bramblewort, Perrin Vell at the Gilded Moth, Squint at the pawnshop, Dunmore the trophy clerk and Master Coyle at the bank in Thornwick; Maren Hookhand, Wenna Gull, Old Teague and Ressa Vane at the customs house in Saltmere. They greet you (more warmly the more often you come), tell you what's special today the first time you look each day, and now and then have a word about what you're selling. ASK them about their trade, and ASK ... ABOUT WORK: do them a few favors and they'll count you a friend, and a friend pays a little less (5%, or 10% once they trust you). Too chatty? SET REMARKS OFF.
Gossip
Kill a boss, reach a milestone level, crack open a famous chest, or die to something embarrassing, and the town will hear about it. Tobias shouts it, people mention it, and the next time you walk in, someone will have something to say to you. News reaches the other town a game day later; the keepers in the wild hear only the big stories. Rather keep your deeds to yourself? SET GOSSIP OFF.
Healers and Restore Life
Sister Aldra in Thornwick and Keeper Morwen in Saltmere will HEAL you for a few silver (free until level 5). If a friend falls, carry them to a healer, or bring the healer to them, and ASK ALDRA TO RESTORE <name>. It costs more than healing, but your friend comes back with nothing lost. You can even ask while you're dead yourself.
Opening boxes
Fennick Quill will pick any box you hold in your hand. The harder the lock (and the nastier the trap), the more he charges, and he'll tell you what he thinks of it. He is honest. Mostly. WATCH FENNICK before you accept, and keep your eyes on his hands.
Gifts
GIVE <item> TO <person>. Everybody likes food and drink. Each person also has a few things they love (a bigger boost to their favor, and sometimes a gift back) and a few things they can't stand (they'll hand it back, and like you a little less). Only two gifts a day from you count with any one person. Try the obvious: a feather for the crier's hat, ore for an old dwarf, a candle for the lamplighter.
Storylines
Some people have more than an errand for you: a story, told over several visits, in steps. Bring something, go somewhere, deal with some trouble, talk to someone else. When a story ends, the world changes: sometimes for a while, sometimes for good. ERRANDS shows where you are in each one.
- The Chanting Below: ask Brother Ansel about work, once they know you a little.
- Davy's Lantern: ask Gwen Saltwhistle about work, once you're friends.
- What the Stones Keep: ask Maud of the Stones about work, once you're friends.
- Pip's Orchard: ask Pip Thistlecombe about work, once they know you a little.
- The Rockslide: ask Old Brannoc the hermit about work, once you're friends.
- Nell's Ghost: ask Nell and Rook about work, once they know you a little.
- The Lost Company: ask Corporal Hale about work, once they trust you.
- Lantern and Chant: ask Sister Aldra about work, once they trust you.
- The Lantern on the Door: ask Fennick Quill about work, once they trust you.
- The Apprentice's Hammer: ask Old Ironhand about work, once they trust you.
- Letters from the Grey Gull: ask Tobias Crane the town crier about work, once they trust you.
- The Drowned Shrine: ask Keeper Morwen about work, once they trust you.
Trusted friends
Six people have a story of their own, and they only tell it to someone they trust (favor 6, earned through their errands and gifts): Corporal Hale, Sister Aldra, Fennick Quill, Old Ironhand, Tobias Crane the crier, and Keeper Morwen in Saltmere. Each is a few steps long, ends with something they'd give only to a friend, and changes how they treat you from then on. And when any story is done, the people who care about it will still bring it up now and then, long after, and they'll remember who did it.
Mind your purse
Thornwick's street children have quick fingers. It's never much, but it's never nothing.
Animals
The towns have a few four-legged (and two-winged) residents. They can't be fought, but they can be befriended.
PET <animal>: some like it more than others. The cat has opinions.FEED <animal>while holding food (bread, honeycakes, stew, chowder, waybread). A fed dog follows you around town for a while, and the pigeons will mob you.WHISTLE: a dog that likes you comes running, as long as you're in his town.- A dog's nose isn't fooled by shadows. If you're hiding, he may growl at your corner.
- In Saltmere, keep a tight grip on your lunch.
Who's who
Thornwick
Sister Aldra
An elderly priestess in sun-yellow robes, her hands spotted and steady. A satchel of bandages and holy oil hangs at her hip, and she looks at everyone as if checking them for wounds. Usually she finds some.
Out and about: Lantern Square, Temple of the Dawnfather.
Offers: heal, restore life Has work
Master Coyle
A pale, precise bank clerk in grey, who counts coins faster than you can see and never, ever smiles.
Found at the Thornwick Bank.
Keeps a shop or bank
Mistress Bramblewort
A tiny old woman with green-stained fingers and spectacles on a chain. She smells of mint and something sharper.
Found at Bramblewort Apothecary.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Dunmore the trophy clerk
A long-faced guild clerk in ink-stained sleeves, who weighs every trophy on a little brass scale and writes it in a ledger nobody else may touch.
Found at Adventurers' Guildhall.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Fennick Quill
A wiry man with clever hands, a crooked grin and a coat with far too many pockets. A ring of picks and bent wires jingles at his belt. He never quite stops looking at your purse.
Out and about: Market Row, Tanners' Lane, the Crooked Lantern Inn.
Offers: open a box
Corporal Hale
A thick-necked watchman in a dented breastplate and the town's lantern-and-tower tabard, a halberd over one shoulder. He walks the walls and gates of Thornwick as though he owns them.
Out and about: North Gate, North Wall, Market Row, East Gate, Lantern Square, South Gate, West Gate, the Crooked Lantern Inn.
Has work Gives directions
Hollin
A round, cheerful man in a flour-dusted apron, with a pencil behind each ear.
Found at Hollin's Provisions.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Old Ironhand
A broad, grey-bearded smith with forearms like hams and one hand scarred silver from an old burn.
Found at Ironhand's Forge.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Nell and Rook
Two grubby, sharp-eyed street children: Nell, the elder, all freckles and elbows, and Rook, small and silent with very quick hands. They share one oversized coat between them, by turns.
Out and about: Lantern Square, Merchants' Arcade, Fish Market, River Docks.
Has work
Perrin Vell
A thin, elegant man with a loupe screwed into one eye and rings on every finger.
Found at the Gilded Moth.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Squint
A wiry fellow with one eye permanently narrowed from years of peering into locks.
Found at the Lantern Pawn.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Tobias Crane the town crier
A lanky man in a faded red coat and a hat with a drooping feather, a brass handbell at his belt. His voice could carry across a battlefield, and frequently does.
Out and about: Lantern Square, Guild Street, the Crooked Lantern Inn.
Shouts the news
Wick the lamplighter
A stooped, soot-streaked old man with a long brass pole over one shoulder, a hooked snuffer at one end and a taper at the other. His fingertips are black and his eyes are bright.
Out and about: Lantern Square, Lamplighters' Yard, Hollin's Provisions, Market Row, Guild Street, the Crooked Lantern Inn.
Has work
Saltmere
Ressa Vane
A sharp-eyed customs clerk with salt-white hair pinned up hard, who keeps Saltmere's bank and its ledgers of cargo.
Found at Customs House.
Keeps a shop or bank
Old Dorrie the net-mender
A tiny, ancient Saltborn woman with fingers like knotted rope, sitting on an upturned crate amid a sea of nets. She never seems to look at her work; she looks at you.
Out and about: the Harbor, Net-Menders' Row, the Gull and Anchor.
Has work
Hessa the fishwife
A broad, red-faced woman with forearms scaled in silver to the elbow, a gutting knife on her belt and a voice that cuts through the gulls.
Out and about: Fish Sheds, Salt Market, the Harbor, the Gull and Anchor.
Offers: chowder
Maren Hookhand
A tall woman with a steel hook in place of her left hand, which she uses to hold hot iron.
Found at Tide and Steel.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Old Teague
A bent old sailor with a face like a walnut and a pearl stud in one ear.
Found at Bone and Pearl.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Wenna Gull
Mother Gall's sharp-eyed niece, who runs the chandlery with a ledger and a cudgel.
Found at Gull's Chandlery.
Has work Keeps a shop or bank
Refuges and roadside
Brother Ansel
A gaunt young monk in a soot-dark habit, a lantern always lit at his elbow. His eyes are red-rimmed from too little sleep and too much candle-smoke.
Keeps a hidden refuge somewhere in the Undercroft.
Offers: Veyra's light, torch Has work
Bess Halloway
A big, red-armed woman in a flour-dusted apron, presiding over a cookfire and an iron pot the size of a barrel. A heavy skillet hangs at her belt, and it's not for cooking.
Keeps a resting place for travellers on the King's Road.
Offers: stew Has work
Old Brannoc the hermit
A bent old dwarf with a beard to his knees, stirring a pot of something that smells of pine and onions.
Keeps a resting place for travellers in Ironroot Foothills.
Offers: tea Has work
Gwen Saltwhistle
A weathered Saltborn widow with sea-grey braids and a fisherman's knitted jumper three sizes too big. A conch hangs from her neck on a cord of braided kelp.
Keeps a hidden refuge somewhere on Wreckers' Coast.
Offers: the sea-blessing Has work
Ithrael of the Leaf
A tall elf in green and silver, with a quiver of white-fletched arrows and the stillness of someone who has stood watch for a very long time. A leaf-shaped brooch marks him as an envoy of the Eldergrove.
Keeps a resting place for travellers in Silverbough Eaves.
Offers: waybread Has work
Maud of the Stones
A small, straight-backed Duskborn woman with ash-grey skin and eyes like banked coals. Her cloak is stitched from a dozen older cloaks, and she sits with her back to the oldest stone as though it were a friend.
Keeps a hidden refuge somewhere in the Greyveil Moors.
Has work
Pip Thistlecombe
A round, apple-cheeked halfling in a beekeeper's smock, with a smear of honey on one sleeve and a cudgel that has clearly seen use leaning by the door.
Keeps a hidden refuge somewhere in Mossdown Hills.
Offers: honeycake Has work
Animals
Barnacle
A fat tabby harbor cat with a torn ear and salt in her whiskers, so round and contented she looks stuffed.
Roams Saltmere, and can often be found at Fish Sheds.
PET · FEED Follows you if fed
A pair of herring gulls
Two enormous, white-and-grey herring gulls with yellow eyes and the moral character of pirates. They watch every hand that holds food.
Roams Saltmere.
PET · FEED
Patch
A scruffy brown-and-white mutt with one floppy ear, a white patch over one eye, and a tail that never quite stops. He smells strongly of fish and optimism.
Roams Thornwick.
PET · FEED Follows you if fed Comes when you WHISTLE
A flock of pigeons
A dozen fat grey pigeons strutting around the well, bobbing their heads and squabbling over crumbs. One has only one foot and is clearly in charge.
Usually found at Lantern Square.
PET · FEED
Smudge
A sleek, sooty ferret with bright black eyes and a pink nose that never stops twitching. She rides on Fennick's shoulder and is, if anything, more light-fingered than he is.
Rides along with Fennick Quill.
PET · FEED
Soot
A big, scarred black tomcat with one gold eye and a notch out of each ear. He moves like he owns the town, which, by his reckoning, he does.
Roams Thornwick, and can often be found at the Crooked Lantern Inn.
PET · FEED Follows you if fed