Morguhald

Morguhald is a small town at the southern border of Sithicus, lying at the very edge of the Misty Border.

Layout

The town lies three days' travel beyond sight of the nearest road, at the center of the fields cultivated by its inhabitants. Its one-story, wattle-and-daub[1] huts might be mistaken for weathered boulders from a distance. At the very center of the village stands a communal storehouse, where villagers collect the yields of their acres. The village inn, the Impaled Count, stands at the northern outer edge of the village fields. This stout, two-storey building is made of bricks and slate, rather than the wattle-and-daub construction prevalent in the rest of the village. Another stone building, set at the western outer edge of the village fields, contains preserved foods and meagre amounts of coin the village collects to pay its taxes.

Inhabitants

The town is inhabited by a mixed population of humans, elves, halflings, half-elves and Afflicted kender. Oddly enough, there is none of the racism that is rampant in so much of the Demiplane of Dread.

Morguhald is sparsely populated, even for its small size, and each inhabitant typically has a hut to themselves. Very rarely, a new immigrant to the village will spend time in the hut of a previous resident until they are considered to be able to 'stand on their own feet', in which case they will construct a hut of their own.

Although the town has a mayor, who is recognizable by an iron chain carrying the black rose symbol of Sithicus' former ruler, he or she is appointed annually as a figurehead for contact with outsiders by an informal council of village elders.

Economy

Morguhald appears to be more or less self-reliant. The villagers tend their fields, adhering to strict rules of crop rotation and good stewardship of the land, and know enough to make and repair their own equipment and homes, as well as how to preserve food. Those who contribute to the wellbeing of the village are allowed to take food from the communal storage to meet their own needs, with rationing overseen by the village council occurring in particularly lean times.

It is rare for outsiders to come to Morguhald, and there is no regular trade with any other community in Sithicus or beyond the Mists. If outsiders do arrive in Morguhald, be they traders, travellers or outlaws, the villagers provide what is asked within reason without charging anything, so long as the outsiders keep the peace. Food and repairs to gear, clothes made of Morguhald's coarse grey cloth, room and board in the Impaled Count - all these things are provided, on the understanding that strangers leave as soon as they are able. If grateful travellers do press coin on the villagers, they will gravely accept it, only to then store it in the tax-house for when "King" Azrael's Politskarae come around to collect.