The Neighborhood: Points of Interest

Berador lies at the intersection of the Blue Wash, a river running roughly north and south, and the Road which runs generally east and west. A wooden palisade surrounds the town proper as it sits atop one of the higher hills in this rolling woodland. Just outside of the palisade on the south side Lake Callie, a deep, cold pool, gathers the waters of the Blue Wash between three high hills before they tumble over a swift fall to continue the southward journey. A narrow cart track follows the Blue Wash north out of town, and a similar path skirts the edge of the lake on its eastern shore and follows to points south.

The city state of Roth lies some three hundred fifty miles down the Road to the west and south. Once the eastern jewel of the long lost Oshland Empire, Roth still supports significant port trade and wealth as its great towers guard the Elba River as it passes between the sea to the east and the inland Great Lake to the west. King Mark Winland IV of Roth claims all of the lands within two hundred miles of his city, but in reality he holds less than a third of that.

Two hundred miles south of Berador the former pirate cove of Port Eben floats in the marshy mouth the Blue Wash where it joins with the Elba River near the sea. While time and civilization have tamed Port Eben somewhat, one can find a nasty bit of trouble there without looking too hard. Admiral Aaron Caine, the current governor of Port Eben, has worked hard over the last decade to introduce civility and culture to the place, but old habits die hard, and many of the sea captains that call Port Eben home still hold to the pirate ways of yesteryear.

Along the Blue Wash south of Berador are the towns of Darshire and Treefall. Darshire is a farming community, not unlike Berador about fifty miles downstream. Farther along, another seventy miles or so, is Treefall, a community wholly dedicated to the lumber industry. A great many of the ships and boats of Port Eben have their origin in the piney woods of Treefall.

Dalton's Camp, called Dalton by most, nestles high in the foothills of the White Mist Mountains some hundred miles up the road to the east and north of Berador. The place is little more than a mining camp with a wooden wall and a couple of guard towers overlooking the tightly packed inns and brothels. Many people will spend years in Dalton working the nearby mines trying to strike it rich. Some few families call the place home, but mostly the population consists of miners, guardsmen, traders, whores and ruffians.

About one hundred miles north of Berador, the town of Ford straddles the Blue Wash at an old crossroads. The east-west route that once ran through the town has fallen into disuse and is nearly impassable. Intrepid explorers could follow the track from the dwarf holdings in the White Mist Mountains way north and east to the town of Galloway in the northern reaches of old Oshland, but such a journey would surely bring great trouble. Many years ago the town of Ford was the commercial center of the region. When the dwarfs stopped trading with the men of Oshland the town dried up. Now it is a shadow of its old self. Many abandoned farms and shops litter the land while a hardy bunch of farmers and ranchers hold on in hopes of recapturing lost glory and wealth someday.

The ruins of the town of Kendall haunt the old track west of Ford. Kendall was once one of the "Free Cities" of the border, just out of the reach of the Oshland Empire's territory.

Well south of the road going west to Roth are the ruins of North Roth. North Roth was once an outpost of the Oshland Empire in what the kings called "the Eastern Marches". When the empire fell to ruin this town dried up as its purpose was to extend the reach of the Oshlanders. With no one to pay the soldiers' salaries, they drifted away and the town died.