JL: Willow Hamlet: Camp

Willow Hamlet: Camp

Society and Personalities: Crag Mouth #5.0

NOV/15/23

The lore about the surrounding wilderness may be gleaned from certain persons of Willow Hamlet who possess this knowledge. Every occupant of the Plantation is detailed in brief below. The Lore itself and who possesses it is contained in:

Weeper Bog and Cedar Forest

Crag Mouth #6

and

The North Track

Crag Mouth #7

Jail

Jailer Joe is a brutal coward, a large shaven headed man who beats slaves regularly in the pen and is terrified of the forest, swamp and mountains. He regards the rangers with a superstitious dread. He is in fact a slave for life to Willow Hamlet, held jointly by the Plantation Council:

Captain Crane [Controlled by Durst]

Innkeeper Durst [effective governor of Willow Hamlet]

Joel Hedgesmith [Independent]

Black Bront [Controlled by Durst]

Brewer Brent [Controlled by Durst]

These five men vote on any article of concern and bar any persons engaged in external duty, like goatherding and hunting, from political influence. Joe is responsible for whipping, beating, torturing, boring, cropping, shaving and hanging malcontents, by order of their owner or the Plantation Council.

Slave Pen

name, employment, employer, past

Kink, Cook, Innkeeper Durst, vagabond orphan, a red headed freckle faced boy with kinky hair, bound for 5 years to Durst after running from seaman’s service in Deep Sound, where he was a cabin boy.

Slack, porter, Innkeeper Durst, vagabond orphan, a stocky blond boy with shaven head and wiry frame, held for 7 years by Durst after his laundress mother died, being beaten by Joe, for laughing at Prentice Neal’s lisp.

Slink, porter, Innkeeper Durst, orphan apprentice runaway held for life by Durst based on theft of eggs, the second son of the slain laundress, Ellen.

Chuck, wood cutter, Innkeeper Durst, a pauper who is going lame in early middle years and begs each harvest moon to be held bound for another year. He expects to be sent off this coming winter, as his shoulders are giving out, and would offer his service to a wayfarer who seems less cruel than Durst.

Gar, fisherman, Innkeeper Durst, idle pauper, black haired and gaunt in his middle years, held by Durst annually, who is jealous of his fishing and afraid to return to Bund where he will be put to harder use.

Slouch, porter, picker, fisher, Innkeeper Durst, encourageble rogue and rapist, beaten every Friday by Joe at the post and often caught humping that very post. He is slave for life to Durst, who spared him yet bars him from staying in the house due to his extreme lust.

Little Girl, chicken maid, skinny bed warmer half price in winter, full price in summer, held by Durst for life, she is a half orphan runaway who was quite cute before Slouch knocked her front teeth out for a bloody kiss.

Big Girl, wet nurse, bed warmer and laundress, held by Durst annually, a slut who has no marriage prospects and must prove her usefulness always to earn another year of jail life, preferable to her to being humped by ruffians in the alleys of Low Bund. She has stabbed Slouch twice with hair pins and glares at him regularly. Her baby, born of rape, was sold three years ago and she was sold for a year to Durst for the crime of sex out of wedlock. She would love to be sold to an adventurer and would extol her value as a camp follower to any likely man with money in his purse or sand in his soul.

Pretty Girl, bed warmer, Durst’s favorite slave, a black haired blue eyed hour glass of a wench, an orphan of a raped orphan girl from Deep Sound, who she sings songs about, idolizing her mother, who, she is told, died in child birth bringing her into the same cruel world that now used her. She does harbor romantic notions about almost everything, except for sex. Durst’s wife is cruel to her and refuses to let her live in the inn, even as propriety bars her from the maid or matron house. Both of these places she constantly seeks for advice and refuge whenever a chore can bring her there. The inmates of the maid and matron house care for her very much and have extracted a pledge from Captain Crane to prevent the worst.

Fink, held by Durst & Crane for five years, is a young orphan lad with broad shoulders and bouncing brown curls, who loves going barefoot even in winter and fancies himself a Ranger one day. He will seek to attach himself to an adventurer as an apprentice, bought from Durst & Crane. He is in love with Pretty Girl, who he has been warned off by Durst and Joe, being beaten twice for looking at her.

Block House

Captain Crane, is a tall silver haired man in late middle years, a middling swordsman armed with a broadsword and a good pistoleer armed with two wheellocks. He is loyal to Durst, not confident in his own judgment, but gritty and steadfast in a crisis. Crane is not a brute and cannot bring himself to whip or beat his men. He is not chivalrous in nature but is easily engaged by oath to people he respect. These include those men wiser and more intelligent than him, as well as women of high moral standing, such as matrons and nuns. For all of his faults, Crane knows that he is in the middle range of reasoning and sees his place largely as taking the wise counsels and commands of holy men and politicians and applying them to the bottom portion of humanity.

Footman Bust is a short, stocky, black-haired freedman with smashed in nose, who guards the foot bridge with a halbred, having a hammer hanging from his belt as a side arm. He dresses in a long gray cowl and tunic and is proudly fond of his bear hide shawl, made for him by Mamma after he slew that very bear that had gotten into her garden. “I am Captain Crane’s man,” is one of his favorite stock phrases. He is painfully stupid and loyal beyond all reasonable fault.

Musketgee Pete is a freedman of early middle years, a runaway from Deep Sound where he had jumped ship as an impressed seaman. Recovered by Crane, Pete was named Musketgee based on his excellent long gun handling and has been retained as a soldier for life to Crane, who has promised to adopt him on his deathbed and elevate him to the Captain’s rank. This has been publicly agreed to by The Council. Pete is brave, cool under pressure and a crack shot as he levels his long beaked nose along the stock of his prize weapon. Pete is charged with the care and use of both of the muskets held in the Blockhouse.

Wood Shed

Watchman Daniel, is a woodchuck bound for life to Willow Hamlet in return for care in his old age. He is afraid of dying cold and alone as his brothers did back in Low Bund. Daniel is intelligent, hard working, attentive and a coward.

Underwatchman Span is a fearless logger who is apprenticed to Daniel under Durst and Crane as second woodsman. He has been promised freedom in 5 years. His open, freckled face and glinting blue eyes betray a confidence in his ability to run the woodshed and eventually take a 6th council seat, an idea put into his head by Durst.

Woodschuck Brem is stupid, lazy, but not willful, sulking often from under his beetle brows and brown bangs of bowl cut hair, his brown eyes beady and worried. Brem lives in constant fear that he will starve and is a glutton. He is a slave for life due to food theft increases in his service time. He was an idle pauper in Low Bund, sold into service by order of The Mayor. “by order of the mayor,” is his must commonly uttered mumble of phrase, anytime he is called to account or asked for information.

Woodchuck Jon, is active, intelligent, competent, works only as hard as he must, never shirking. He idles away his spare time carving totems of Angels as gifts and seems ever lost in thought. He is a gray-eyed, blond-headed, athletic and a gifted fighter, who ran away from service at Raven Watch out of hatred for the Warden. His word is judged good and he has sworn to Crane, who holds him, to serve three honest years in return for not being sent back to the Warden. Jon is secretly an Alienist who has developed a great thirst for angelic lore and has theories backed by dreams as to the Silver Gate and the Well of Kells. He alone has not confided in Joel, who he does not trust and names “the Silver Monger.”

Silver Smithy

Joel Hedgesmith does excellent work transforming silver brought down out of the scarlet mountains by the rangers and occasional prospectors. He will engage wayfarers in silver finding and actually knows all of the lore that the individuals of Willow Hamlet know, except for that possessed by Woodchuck Jon. He will only impart such lore to those who he maintains as prospectors and silver finders.

Silver Chapel

Prentice Neal is a man of hazel eyes, wispy brown hair and malformed nose and lip. He wears a silver mask below his eyes and speaks with a strident lisp and is haunted by the killing of the laundress, who he will not name, for the crime of laughing at his lisp. He is the younger half-brother of Joel Hedgesmith. Neal is conflicted in his theology, secretly afraid that as his brother whispers to him, that there is no God and that only monsters stalk humanity. He has qualified for a deaconship, but lacked the confidence to attend the rank and clings to his brother. He would dearly welcome and cling to evidence of Godly and Angelic intervention to renew his faith. He will pray avidly to The Mother of God, to any named Angel, and also scold “the False God of Scarlet Mountain,” on behalf of any wayfarer kind enough to describe the Dawn Angel chapel, which he is afraid to visit, and bold enough to strike out into the wilds.

West Ranger Cabin

Ranger Bob and Hiedi Eggs

Central Ranger Cabin

Ranger Arn and Eda Berry

Eastern Ranger Cabin

Ranger Jon and Bess Long

Brewery

Brewer Bent

Breweress Megs

Maid Cabin

Lisa Sent Wife

Nunny Glens