The Foothills

Two days northwest of Stonetop, the rolling Flats give way to hills, climbing up into the Whitefang Mountains. The Highway cuts through these hills, leading to Barrier Pass. To the east, the hills wrap around the Great Wood.

The Foothills are rugged and forest-strewn, crisscrossed with streams, dotted with gorges and ponds and small lakes. In ages past, it was a borderland between the Rime Lords and the Green Lords, and later it was the extent of the Barrow Builders' reach.

Nowadays, it is mostly uninhabited, but both Stonetop and Barrier Pass come here to harvest timber.

Impressions

Always

• Hills rising up from the Flats, mountains looming behind them
• Young thin trees on the southernmost slopes, getting bigger and older as you press into the hills
• Echoes of birdsong, beast-bellows, tumbling rocks, raised voices

Questions

• What striking difference do you notice between the trees here and those in the Great Wood?
• Who typically leads Stonetop's logging trips up to the Foothills?
• What dread beast or monster is said to lurk in the Foothills?
• What is said to draw its ire?
• Who claims to have encountered it? When, and how so?
• Why do you/don't you believe them?
• What mundane dangers up there worry you more than some legendary beast?

Hooks

• A logging expedition goes missing
• Loggers stumble upon a ruin or corrupted site
• Someone went missing on a logging trip years ago, and now they reappear
• Heavy rains wash out a stretch of the Highway, blocking access to good timber
• An adventurer claims to know the location of an old barrow in the Foothills, said to be laden with gold and other treasure

Logging trips

A typical logging trip generates a wagonload of timber (Value 2), and requires:

• A wagon and two horses;
• ~20 able-bodied workers; and
• Pulling Together over 9-12 days (for travel and work)

Trips traditionally take place in autumn, after the harvest is complete and only if there are no more-pressing needs in town.

The Palisade steading improvement

requires ~1,000 logs of good timber (Value

3). A wagonload of timber (Value 2) contains ~40-50 logs, meaning you need

~20-25 wagonloads. To gather that much timber:

• You need ~20 able-bodied workers, a wagon, and two horses working for the course of a season
• You must talk to a few town elders, and get their support
• You risk accidents and attacks
• You must spend 1 Surplus (to feed and equip the loggers) and reduce Fortunes by 1 (because of so many people and resources being away for so long)
• The steading must Pull Together over the course of the season

However, the logging camp consumes

1 Surplus every summer or else it ceases operation.

Terrain

Pick 1 or combine 2, or have someone roll the Die of Fate (d12).

Discoveries

For any of these, pick 1 or have someone roll the Die of Fate.

Dangers

Hazards

• Getting lost among the hills and trees
• Treacherous terrain (loose footing, scree, slippery slopes, potholes, deadfall, etc.)
• Flash flooding, especially in ravines and valleys
• Harsh weather, especially rain and snow
• Something tall to climb, and reason to climb it
• Hazardous growth, from the time of the Green Lords

Monsters

• Ornery beasts: boars, cave bears, ice drakes, mountain apes, wisents
• Predators: butcherbirds, cougars, feathered drakes, or wolves
• Spirits of the wild
• Fae
• A hagr or two, come up from the Great Wood
• Tulpas, tied to Rime Lord sites or perhaps to Barrier Pass
• Chimerae and other remnants of the Green Lords
• Ghosts or revenants, lurking near old barrows, tombs, or battlefields
• A copse of dool trees and its resident spirits
• A bhoka, come down from the mountains
• Whatever dangerous beast or monster your players tell you dwells in these hills