MarkOliva

06/18/2012

1383

With the 67th Map of the Week finds us in the borderlands town of Óðinn's House in the Kingdom of Slovania. Technically speaking, this map is different from previous releases. The JPG version includes a zoom view of the inner town. The original map in Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 format uses FM8's multi-zoom ability. Multi-zoom changes such things as resolution and text sizes when zooming in and out of map areas with FM8. With the menu options Map/Zoom to, one can activate multi-zoom. Full map resolution and text sizes are available at zoom levels between 0 and 60. Middle zoom resolution and text sizes appear at zoom levels from more than 60 to 85. High zoom resolution and text sizes are activated at zoom levels over 85.

Key to the Maps of Óðinn's House

1. Town Hall. This rather large complex houses the local government of Baron Vojtěch, who also rules several surrounding farm hamlets.

2. North Star Inn. The North Star is Óðinn's House's first, oldest and most expensive hostelry. Both as overnight guests and in the public room, the inn tends to draw merchants, officers, government officials and the wealthier. The 18 single rooms cost 9 bronze pieces nightly. The six double rooms cost 8 bronze pieces per person nightly. The house dark beer is 3 copper pieces per quart/liter tankard. Fine spirits from the Royal Distillery in Novýdomov run from 3 bronze pieces to a gold piece for a shot/0.1 liter glass. Fine Windland wines cost from 1 to 60 gold pieces per quart/liter bottle. Meals start at 6 bronze pieces and go to more than 1 gold piece.

4. Trailsend Inn. The Trailsend is just about everything that the North Star isn't. Innkeeper and owner Petr, a 51-year-old human male merchant, welcomes customers from all walks of life including adventurers. He also makes a point of hiring only waitresses who do after-hours business, a practice that has given the Trailsend a bit of a shady reputation but one that hasn't hurt business. The inn consists of a brewhouse and a three-story main building. The 10 single rooms cost 6 bronze pieces per night. The six doubles cost five bronze pieces per person nightly. The public room serves breakfast to house guests, but it remains closed during the day. It opens from 17 bells (5 p.m.) to midnight seven days a week. Drinks are limited to the house lager beer at 5 copper pieces per quart/liter tankard (pints are not served) and spirits from the Royal Distillery in Novýdomov at 1 to 6 bronze pieces per shot/0.1 liter glas. The menu offers simple, traditional Slovania dishes of excellent quality. Prices range from 3 to 6 bronze pieces.

5. Seer Žaneta's Tower. There are three known adult spellcasters in Óðinn's House. (Townsfolk do not know the true nature of the inhabitants of Location No. 14.) All three live and work here in Žaneta's compound. Žaneta is a 76-year-old human female seer-scholar who makes her living working as a sage. She also has a steady income as court mage for Baron Vojtěch.

6. Viola's Bakery. Master Baker Viola, a 37-year-old human female artisan, sells her baked goods on a retail basis and to the taverns and inns of Óðinn's House. She is married to the butcher Lubomir, whose shop is in the adjacent location No. 7.

7. Butcher Lubomir. Master Butcher Lubomir, a 38-year-old human male artisan, is married to the baker Viola, whose shop is in the adjacent location No. 6. Lubomir offers a wide variety of smoked and cured sausages and meats. He buys beef, veal, pork, lamb and poultry from local farmers, freshwater fish from local fishermen who take their catch from the Hexwood River and venison and boar from hunters. He also sells fresh meat when itle after slaughtering, and he sells meat, poultry and fish to local eateries. Lubomir has noticed the gradually increasing number of adventurers passing through Óðinn's House who stock up on supplies there and he has discovered that he can cash in on their business. He makes ration packs for those who are under way. They include dried, smoked hard tack that will hold out on the trail for half a year. His wife, Viola, bakes a special waybread that is sold only in the ration packs in Lubomir's shop. To round out the rations, Lubomir also buys long lasting, dried fruits and vegetables from nearby farmers.

8. Marketplace and Market Tavern. The entire market square and tavern belong to the town. Anyone wishing to set up a stand on the market square must obtain a permit at town hall. The number of stands on the market varies considerably, from a few local stands to a nearly full market square, depending upon who is in town selling goods on any given day. The town rents out the tavern on a long-term contract. The tavernkeeper who rents it is required to keep the tavern open during market hours, from 8 bells in the morning until 19 bells (7 p.m.) at night, however, he does have the right to remain open longer. Patrik, the current tavernkeeper, has been running it for the last 18 years. Patrik sells lager beer from the Trailsend Brewery (Location No. 4) and fruit drinks and teas that he buys from traveling peddlers. He also sells salted bread sticks that Viola's Bakery (Location No. 6) makes especially for him, serving them with butter or with smoked boar ham from Lubomir's butcher shop (Location No. 7). Beer costs 3 copper pieces per pint/half-liter tankard. The fruit drinks and teas cost 2 to 5 copper pieces per cup. Bread sticks with butter cost 3 copper pieces, and with ham added, 5 copper pieces.


9. Boris' Firewood. Heating is only occasionally necessary in Óðinn's House's semi-tropical climate, but firewood still is needed to heat water, cook, brew and for a number of other uses as well. Boris buys freshly cut firewood from the Border Forest, stores it sheltered from the weather for two years and then sells it at two gold pieces per cord/ster. He runs the operation alone, but his wife Pavlina often helps with sales.

10. Bronze Forge. Master Smith Regína, a 56-year-old female artisan, learned the trade from her father and took over Óðinn's House's largest smithy after his death. She is a master weaponsmith, armor maker and blacksmith and can make weapons and armor of master quality. The Bronze Forge will make or repair almost anything that can be forged of bronze. Its products and work range from Regína's masterpiece armor and weapons to the shoeing of horses for business and retail customers.

11. Soňa's Wagons. Master Wainwright Soňa, a 41-year-old human female artisan, makes and repairs all kinds and sizes of wagons, carts and wheelbarrows. She has four employees.

12. Royal Trading Co. Warehouses). The trading company has no large branch office in Óðinn's House. When caravans come through town, they leave merchandise in the two warehouses and pick up outgoing freight from the warehouses.

13. Eleonara's Corral. Eleonora, a 44-year-old human female artisan, and her sister, Milada, a 42-year-old female artisan, breed buy and sell riding, draught and farm horses. The two sisters are spinsters who always have had more interest for their steeds than in other humans.

14. Dark Temple. No one in Óðinn's House ecept the inhabitants have any idea that this long-empty house has become a temple. Eliška, a 28-year-old human female black necromancer, purchased the sizeable two-story house a little more than a year ago. She has not identified herself as a spellcaster but rather as a merchant from Windland who works for a company there that subsidizes exploration of the Æsir ruins. For most townsfolk, this is a rather acceptable cover story. It explains why she speaks Slovanian with a Windland accent, and it also explains why her otherwise mysterious visitors travel northward into the draug lands. Eliška is a low level priestess in waiting in the dark draug Mýsing's Society of Immortal Darkness, the developing new dark religion that is intended to make a deity of Mýsing.

15. Šarlota's House of Healing. Šarlota, a 62-year-old human female healer, founded this house. It was expanded substantially when she married her husband, Valentýn, a 62-year-old human male healer. Šarlota is a practicing herbal healer, where Valentýn is a healer who specializes as a herbalist. Once he entered the practice, it expanded from a house of healing that had to buy its herbal remedies elsewhere to becoming the biggest provider of herbal teas, preserves, salves, powers, poultices, wines and liqueurs in Slovania.

16. Servác's Woodworks. Servác, a 48-year-old master carpenter and joiner and humServác has three joiners and an apprentice working in the shop and three carpenters and another apprentice working on location in the town..

17. Border March Tailoring. Master Tailor Radomír, a 42-year-old human male artisan, and his wife, Master Seamstress Zoe, a 40-year old human female artisan, make most of Óðinn's House's commercial clothing.

18. Vilma's General Store. Just about anything one might want (weapons, armor, food and livestock excepted) is in stock at Vilma's. If it's not, she'll order its and a caravan from Royal Trading (Location No. 12) will bring it to town within a month or so.

19. Skáldar Meet Tavern. The Skáldar Meet is a small tavern. The non-local patrons are mostly adventurers who have returned safely from the draug lands, but also of those who are en route there and have tales of their own great deeds elsewhere. Never mind whether those tales are true. There even are very infrequent nights when two or three visiting rangers from the Northern Circle might pop in and take a dark table in a corner. These Æsir come infrequently and speak even less frequently. Still, they say something now and then of the dark ruined lands to the north. When they do, all other mouths remain silent and all other ears open. And then, sometime, the closing hour comes, and all return to the place where they make their beds. Few laugh or smile after hearing from these old Æsir. Locals return home with a bit of fear, being reminded anew of the horrible, threatening evil that lurks in the north, not far from their borders. Adventurers who are passing through feel doubt, and they ask themselves if the really are up to the mission they've set for themselves. The skáldar are the only thing that is missing. A skáld may pass through Óðinn's House once or twice a year and stop at the tavern, but that is all. So things are in the Skáldar Meet.

Outer Town, also known as the Æsir Valley

The settlement outside the town wall in the Hexwood Valley southwest of town is a special area to which most townsfolk have a mixed and not necessarily positive relationship. When the Slovania settled the mostly abandoned Austamæra town of Óðinnshús, they found – as the Æsir had – that the so-called outer town offered by the best river location for milling. As a result, they restored the grain and sawmills there rather than building on a new site. For many years, the two mills were the only structures in this area. That began to change more than 20 years ago when the last Slovania grain miller died without heirs. The Æsir Northern Circle quietly bought the mill from the march. The transaction was recorded in Sentinel City and only gradually became known in Óðinn's House. It became more immediately known that an Æsir refugee family from the Dreadlands had taken over the mill. Not too much later, secret negotiations also resulted in the sale of the sawmill to the Northern Circle. Again, an Æsir refugee family from the Dreadlands took over the mill. Both were vital to the town. Therefore, the townsfolk set aside their misgivings and did business with usual with the refugees. However, except for shoppiing, the newcomers did little to mix with the Slovania inside the town wall. Shortly thereafter, the Northern Circle filed charter claims in Sentinel City upon the still unused land along the millstream and the road to the fortress in the south above the town. Once those claims were acknowledged, old Æsir gold began flowing freely into Óðinn's House, as the circle began letting contracts to the town's artisans, to build farmhouses, sheds and barns with wood-shingled roofs on the newly chartered parcels in the valley. When these were completed, the circle moved still more Dreadlands escapees out of its fortresses and into the Hexwood Valley. The last construction project built a tavern with its own small brewing and malting house. Today, the entire valley is a settlement of Æsir Dreadlands refugees. The Æsir go inside the town walls to buy goods that they need, and the Slovania continue to mill their grain and buy their lumber from the Æsir, but beyond that, there is little contact between the two groups. They do not necessarily trust each other, but there are no hostilities.

20. Æsir Trail Tavern. Outsiders aren't welcome here. This is the tavern of the Æsir refugees from the Dreadlands and the members of the Northern Circle, who come down from the fortress to drink the good and heady light bock beer (7% alcohol) of Master Brewmistress Ásta, a refugee from Underhill. If outsiders do enter the tavern, they will not be thrown out immediately. They will be served, just like locals, but without any signs that they are welcome or that their presence is desired. The tavern opens at 17 bells (5 p.m.) and closes at midnight. No food is served, only Ásta's bock beer.

21. Outer Town Mill. The Northern Circle bought the mill and gave it to Master Miller Tryggvi, a 48-year-old human male artisan from Vesthlið (Westgate) in the Dreadlands. Although he has learned only broken Slovanian, Tryggvi is the miller for the entire Óðinn's House area. He and his family live on the mill's upper story. He charges a 10% milling fee.
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22. Hexwood Sawmill. The Northern Circle bought the sawmill and gave it to Master Sawyer Hafliði, a 43-year-old human male artisan from Northtgate in the Dreadlands. He is not fully fluent in Slovanian, but Hafliði is the source of lumber for the entire Óðinn's House area. When he attempted to flee the Dreadlands with his family, only Hafliði survived.
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23. Óðinn's Fortress. Once the the fortress of the Æsir god-king Óðinn, it now is a seat of the Northern Circle.

You can get the full-sized maps in two versions:

1. The Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 map in FMP format, fully editable, from our Jörðgarð web page (47 MB).

2. Two JPG flat maps of 1360 Pixels wide (1,8 MB), available with the hyperlink below.

Both versions are released for personal and commercial use under the Open Game License Version 1.0a, which you can read on the Jörðgarð web site.

The Jörðgarð web site:

www.vintyri.org/joerdhgardh/joerdhgardh.htm

Next: Óðinn's House - Trailsend Inn

Mark Oliva
The Vintyri (TM) Project
www.vintyri.org
info@vintyri.org