Chapter Three of Under the Goblin Trees

Campaign adaptation by Thomas Kelly

Bad Wolf Moon

Ivan the son of Micksalicks and his kinfolk, we were later to discover, made their homes in a village on the edge of the Dim, known by the simple name Roanwood for a certain type of tree that once grew abundantly in the area and which they made their business—the sale of the much-esteemed lumber. This they had done for several generations and, over time, much depleted the number of mighty Roans that once stood sentinel on the edge of the wood. I took these folk for some mixture of the Suelish and Flan bloods, and many of them had red hair such as one rarely sees among the Oeredian but is common enough among the Geoff folk. So it was with this one red-headed leader of their band, Ivan O’Micksalicks by name, and the other men of his band, all redheads and red beards from Roanwood.

The evernight trees (which the elves call fuinoira) surrounded the village in darkness like an encircling wall. That shadowy dim and foreboding night frowned on the village from every direction, yet within the open spaces of the homely lawn shone plenty of sunlight upon their pleasant cottages, each with a stout chimney from which smoke curled. Here were clean streets, swept of snow, lined with a few shops and necessaries, a smithy, and a lumber mill powered by a waterwheel turned by a passing stream. The folk of the place were fair skinned and tall, the men broad shouldered, the women green-eyed and fair, and one could see that in the summer they made pleasant gardens and small fields under the blessing of my Lady.

Hardy they were, both men and women, wielding axes of their trade, and not afraid to fend off any who might threaten them. They thought it no great feat to slay a party of goblin raiders, topple a troublesome ogre, hunt down a pillaging troll, or chop down a menacing giant. They made a fair living from the Roanwood they harvested from the forest, a tree rare enough to make it’s lumber valuable. They took no haste to harvest, but waited until a tree had reached its full girth and height before felling it. Then cutting it into lengths of trunk and branch, they hauled it, pulled by horse-teams, back to their village where sawmen cut it into lumber. In the spring, when the water rose high enough, they floated the planks on a rafts to meet the Realstream all the way to Hochoch.

They did honor to the true gods but also named Pelor, Beory, Obad-Hai and so forth. Most of all they cherished Ehlonna, Lady of the Wood, but called her by her elvish name, Ehlenestra. They had not priests in their midst or clerics who might teach them the service of the gods or how to direct their devotions, but they said a visiting friar of Cuthbert made the rounds among all the villages of the eastern Dim.