People and Places: Hobb



Hobb:

A tiny hamlet located at the place where the Dawn Way descends out of the Howling Hills, Hobb grew up around a walled inn known as the Cross-Eyed Beholder.  The folk of Hobb grow apples, pears, and chestnuts in orchards sheltered below the hills, while shepherds and goatherds keep their flocks up in the heights.  Most of the inhabitants are human, but smattering of the other common races make their home here as well.

The Dawn Way:

An important east-west trading route linking the more densely settled heartlands of the Old Kingdom of Yvony (West of the Shaelastran River) with rich mining settlements dotting the Spine of the World such as the great mountain city of Overlook.

The Cross-Eyed Beholder:

A fortified, walled inn on the Dawn Way, this sturdy structure was built as a haven from brigands and from the outside looks as though it could withstand the attacks of anything short of an army if properly defended.  Despite this sturdy exterior, the interior of the inn feels warm and hospitable, and is filled with the warm smells of stew and freshly baked bread.  The Cross Eyed Beholder is named for its most eye-catching feature: amid the heads of more mundane game trophies hangs the rather grisly, dessicated stuffed trophy of a beholder (a legendary creature comprising an enormous, disembodied eye surrounded by individual eyestalks; in this case the eye-stalks are 'cross-eyed'). 

Mallie Marchess

The proprietor of the Cross-Eyed Beholder is a broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman with smiling green eyes wavy auburn hair shot through with silver, who looks as though she would be just as comfortable splitting firewood or stringing a hunting bow as she is baking a loaf or serving her clientele.

Mallie owns and runs the Cross-Eyed Beholder inn, where she seems to fill most roles as manager, bartender and host herself.  She comes across as a tough, capable, frontierswoman who is respected as something of a spokesperson and leader for her community.  Along with Arvel (see below), Mallie is responsible for commisioning the construction of a log palisade to defend Hobb, and for sending out the call for adventurers to discover what is causing the goblins sudden aggression and hopefully putting an end to their threat.

The Seven Suns Trading Coaster:

One of the many organized trading coasters which trades with the communities of the Dawn Way, bringing goods backwards and forth between the Old Kingdom of Yvony in the West and the great city of Overlook in the Worldspine Mountains to the East.  The trail-glyph for the Seven Suns Trading Coaster is seven discs, and Seven Suns caravans fly a russet flag with seven golden disks arrayed upon them.

Arvel Durgoden

A proud, powerfully built dwarf in his middle years, magnificently well-groomed and oiled black beard falls in magnificent curls to cover his impressive paunch.  While he is clothed in the characteristicly practical and sombre garb of the dwarves, his attire is of exceptional quality and his belt buckle, thick chain of office and rings glitter with gold.

The wealthy Arvel Durgoden not only runs the Seven Suns trading coaster from a fortified warhouse and base straddling the hill overlooking Hobb, but serves as the hamlet's money-lender.  Along with Mallie (see above), Arvel seems something of an unofficial leader and spokesperson for the hamlet, and was instrumental in organising the construction of the log-palisade and raising the reward for adventurers to end the goblin threat. 

The Shrine

This large building's unpainted exterior clearly shows it to be a recent construction.  Outside, the carved wooden symbols of many gods await their first coat of paint and identify it as a place of worship.  Inside, one large room features shrines honoring different gods spaced evenly along the walls.  Though currently maintained by a novice cleric of Pelor, this temple is dedicated to no single deity and appears to honour most of the good and neutral gods honoured in the Umbrian Marches.

Listra

This willowy, delicate, novice speaks in hushed tones from with the voluminous folds of her pale yellow robes, and keeps her large dark eyes demurely to the floor.  Her robes are clasped by the golden sun-disc of Pelor.

Hobb's only resident cleric, Listra is an aspiring cleric of Pelor, but tends to the shrines of all the deities and sees to the spiritual needs of the locals when they call upon her.  She also serves the community as a healer, and when informed that adventurers would be seeking to end the goblin threat to Hobb she offered them her healing services as well.