Hard to Bard - It's Hammertown

Arathill

A frostbound stream winds through the village surrounded by circular communal dwellings.

Eladrin huddle in lupine gray coats and deep orange fox furs.

A few villagers slink downriver, cleaving from the reluctant arms of loved ones.

An ash-colored road leads downriver from Arathill to the wagon station.

Residences

Arathill itself consists of six sectioned, communal houses, each of which is radially divided into ten dwellings.

Feast Hall

Arathill’s tavern equivalent is a feast hall which is largely abandoned but still tended to by an autumn eladrin named Killian.

The hall is sparsely furnished and hardly decorated aside from a marble archway that looks as though the building was built around it. 

The hall’s keeper is willing to provide food to travelers, Killian has vegetable stew as well as steeder legs, cheap arachnid meat traded in by Hammertown that looks and tastes like oversized crab legs.

The Band chat with Killian and Killian is forthcoming about the town’s woes;

• Each dwelling contains only a few eladrin,
• Like all eladrin of the feywild, Arathill’s residents shift between seasonal forms depending on their emotional state.
• Every eladrin in Arathill is either in the melancholy of winter or the cool-headed compassion of autumn.
• However, in the same way that Arathill is locked in winter, the residents have lost their spring and summer forms along with the accompanying moods. 
• Autumn eladrin are generally expected to use their community-minded dispositions to care for winter eladrin. 
• Some have grown tired of this dynamic, but not doing so tends to cause them to take their winter form until their weariness lifts. 
• This gloom will persist until Korray, archfey of the warm months, is returned.
• Korray disappeared into Hammertown, the raging winter that ensued soon after, 
• The villagers have begun to work in Hammertown in a desperate attempt to feed their families.
• The population is dwindling. 
• Arathill’s people go hungry, lacking the wildlife and energy to support themselves, and eladrin are going to work in Hammertown as a means of having access to food.
• A Traveller called Odeon thought he could help, and headed into Hammertown, but has never been seen from again

Killian leads them to the Wagon Station, which will bring them to Hammertown

Wagon Station

The iron coaches of Hammertown stop at a circular clearing to offer trade goods and pick up prospective employees before returning to the shadowfell. 

Each coach is pulled by a pair of gorgons yoked by two hammertown workers (a Duergar and an Eladrin) acting as drivers. 

A pair of duergar stone guards patrol the line, while a third clears villagers from Arathill who are making the journey to work in the mines. 

The duergar are wary of the greater Feywild and won’t admit anyone who isn’t an eladrin.

The band sneak onboard, pass the stone guards.

They notice that the eladrin boarding have mixed feelings about going to Hammertown, but there is a shared sentiment that it’s done out of necessity to keep Arathill going and that, at this rate, eventually Arathill will just be part of Hammertown jutting into the Feywild.

The ashen trail crosses into the winter wood and continues for another half mile. At the end of the trail, an oversized pomegranate tree grows here.

 
It’s the only tree that has survived in the chill of Arathill’s woods, but its base and roots look sickly, and the tree seems like it’s only being held together by vines growing around it. 

A wound in its side produces a bubbling stream of black sap that flows continuously and collects in a 15ft. diameter pool at its base. 

The pool seems opaque unless examined from a few feet away, at which point it seems to be translucent, with rows of ghostly candlelights flickering away under the surface, showing an abstracted view of Hammertown. 

The coaches plunge into the pool and are magically taken to “The Cold Road”.

The Shadowfell

The Cold Road

The portal opens to a snowy waste in twilight. 

The snow is the color of the sky, which is cold gray. 

It’s clear that the connection to this area is the cause of Arathill’s unnatural winter. 

The immediate area around the portal is the rocky side of a tremendous cliff; all around the edge of the shimmering pool, vines reach out and grasp the rock, seeming to hold it open. 

Digging equipment lies half-buried in a snowdrift nearby.

The caravan makes constant, trudging work of the winding mountain road here, turning down and down toward the mountainside entrance to Hammertown itself. 

For the wagons, it’s a couple of hours’ ride.

River of Stones

The entrance to Hammertown is ringed by a sixteen foot-high concrete wall that winds around the
mountain.

The band perceive that every hundred feet or two, a drudge priest patrols the outside perimeter, each paired with a shadow mastiff. 

The road that the wagon train takes leads to a pair of metal gates, where people depart the coaches, and the band sneak and hide to observe.

They notice that the metal gates are operated from a pair of Drudge Priests of Laduguer  inside and that it is operated by a low eerie chant that the priests perform.

Let the fates decide

Three incorporeal kenku in black-and-silver robes beckon the band over to them, despite being out in the open, they are not seen by anyone but the band.

One has the earnest voice of a young wizard, one the caring voice of an elven goddess, and one the raspy voice of an ancient, undying being. 

The Fates know Hammertown’s origins and true nature and warn the characters about its dangers, especially the consequences of dying there.

In the Shadowfell, fate is the domain of the Raven Queen, a goddess of secrets and death. The Fates are her emissaries.

The Fates are interested in keeping the story moving forward to the destined conclusion.

They inform the band that the concrete, mixed with underworld ash and steeped in Shadowfell sadness, is vulnerable to emotional music.

Complete your quest, but be warned, dying is final in this place.

After the Fates issue their warnings, they give each band member in the party an ominous gift. 

Heironymo - Bird On A Line.
A raven lands in Heironymo’s personal space, watching them with keen interest. The raven is actually an fey spirit similar to a familiar, except it has a neutral disposition to the target and no obligation to obey commands or aid the target in any way. It cannot be dismissed. If reduced to 0 hit points, it returns after an hour.

Ekam  and Sister - Fruit of the Vine.
Ekam  and Sister are each given a bottle of winter wine

Hydrica - A Twist of Fate.
Hydrica is given a twist of fate

Lemmog - Any Way The Wind Blows.
A cool wind blows and Lemmog gains resistance to fire.

Blinky and Immith Chargoba - The Wind, The Wind, The Wind.

An ill wind blows and the target loses any resistance to cold that they might have, as well as losing any darkvision if they have it. This effect lasts until the creature leaves the Shadowfell, but can also be healed by greater restoration.

The band play accompanied by the ghosts from Heironymo's drum a highly emotional song, which make the stones weep, crack, and separate enough for the band to squeeze through.

Hammertown

The band arrive into hammertown in an Entry Hall with an office to the right.

Entry Hall

There are several Duergar workers that come and go in this area going about their duties.

The band enquire at the office and find a Duergar there, they charm him into informing them of what goes on here.

• The office admits new employees. 
• When someone signs a contract of employment, they’re mortal form immediately dies and they become an undead employee of Hammertown forever. 
• A company store issues any supplies a miner would want to carry. 
• Inside the company store there are a dozen rusty pickaxes, a dozen sets of scratchy jumpsuits, and a dozen headlamps and fuel.
• Workers tend to work 24/7
• There are bunks for workers, so they at least feel they could sleep
• Laduguer is the boss, his rule is law

The office worker, leads them to the Mine shaft where they can go down and see Laduguer (as apparently he has hired them to perform for him)

He Tells them of the bunks off the corridor to the right, the left hand door, inside there are Hundreds of rows of bare little dwellings, outfitted with just enough to maintain a dead worker with space to pretend to eat or pretend to sleep. This area exists in a liminal space that extends near infinitely and can house thousands of Hammertown workers.

The door opposite is the Foundry, where the mines tools are made, it also contains the mine’s weaponry, both conventional and larger, more experimental devices that seem to be geared toward large-scale warfare, including a Large ballista, including a store of explosives. This is also where steeder meat is butchered and smoked, for workers who want to go through the motions of eating and for trade with Arathill. 

Most forthcoming this office worker is, its almost as if he was charmed!

Mineshaft

This area is a landing that houses an elevator that leads down into the upper mine. A large freight elevator cage hoists crew and cargo down from the entry hall and up from the mines and workshops located deeper down. 

As the band descend with the office worker, they see Steeders crawling up and down the shaft.

On each side, the elevator platform has plenty of room for steeders to crawl up and down the walls for rapid transit.

As the band exits the elevtor, the office worker informs them that the steeder stables are to the East, where our steeders are kept and raised. The most hardy are trained as mounts; the rest are harvested for food.

Sister spots that there are three female steeders and three male steeders in the stable.

Despite valiant efforts she cannot persuade the office worker to part with any.

Upper Mine

This older section of the mine has been stripped of value and is now inhabited by a colony of kruthiks and acts as a path to the lower portion of the mine. 

The tunnels are roughly 10 feet tall and 15 feet wide, they consist of unworked stone picked clean of ore. 

There are four railways that lead deeper into the mine and two minecarts parked at the entrance. 

The path down to the lower mines is too treacherous to be trekked on foot due to the abundance of loose earth and pitfalls hundreds of feet below into the lower mines, so the descent must be completed on steederback, in one of the minecarts, or another form of travel that doesn’t involve walking.

The office worker informs the band on how to use the carts, and bids them fairway as he rides the elevator back up.

Cart Ride.

The minecarts can be used to descend into the Lower mine. 

The band dived between two carts, as each can only hold up to three medium sized creatures and are operated by a crank that is found in each cart. 

It takes one person to operate the crank in each cart, and another who can assist them.

Hydrica finds a wooden wand, and picks it up and in a cloud of green smoke a Duergar ghost appears to the band.

The ghosts introduces itself as Chitinguts 

I, Chitinguts, was a part of Clan Duergar and fought alongside Laduguer in the rebellion against the Mind Flayers.
I was the first soldier to die in the battle and my spirit has been drawn to Laduguer ever since he became a deity.
I have served Laduguer faithfully until the deity began to treat his people as the mind flayers did before.
I spoke out against my lord and was exiled to live with the insects as punishment.
Now that Laduguer is no more, I was drawn to his avatar in Hammertown and I have found a home in the infested mines.
Help me show Laduguer the error of his ways to return the Duergar clan back to its former glory.
I miss the time when Laduguer was a respectable god and wish for a return to form.

Chitinguts looks to have bruises around his neck and teeth marks on his head.

The band accept to help Chitinguts, and he reinhabits the netherworld wand, saying he will travel with them till they find Boss Laduguer.

The band head down the tracks in the carts.

While the band are descending down the tunnel, they are set upon by 6 adult kruthiks that give chase climbing on the walls. 

Shortly through the fighting with them, with the band desperatly trying to both fight and stay in the carts, two more minecarts each carrying two salamanders and a magma mephit pass by the band, getting hit with some radiant damage, those carts then skid to a stop, and change directions to pursue and attack them.

The band manage to kill off the kruthiks, but arrive in the Lower Mine with the other two carts in hot pursuit.

Lower Mine

This section of the mine seems to be the current focus of Hammertown’s mining efforts, thrumming with
activity as workers chip away. 

Solemn singing can be heard resonating throughout the mine.

 

There are dozens of workers that work tirelessly throughout this area.