 HeroQuest
Copyright © 2005 |
A
Rough Guide to Clearwine
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| Note! This is a fan contribution. The information may be contradicted by official material. |
History
Around 1300 Chief Colymar and his wife Hareva lead the Black Spear clan over the Crossline into the Haunted Lands around the Quivini Mountains. The clan settled at Clearwine Temple, where Hareva found the first of the white grapes that the Colymar grow Clearwine from today. Around the temple, a village grew.About 1325, refugees fleeing to the Quivini from the civil war in the Holy Country razed Clearwine village. Chief Colymar called his clan together, and they entered and cleared all malignance out of the Vingkotling hill fort, which loomed over the valley. They called it Brondagal, but now everyone calls it Clearwine.
When Colymar died in 1335 the clan, which had grown with newcomers from the south, split into five parts. The Colymar gave the royal clan, led by Colymar’s son, the lands around Clearwine temple and Brondagal. Because the goddess’s temple was on their tula, the clan took the name Ernaldori.
Clearwine is the founder’s stead of the Ernaldori clan and the tribal seat of the Colymar.
Clearwine is an old settlement, but there are few buildings from the time of Colymar and Hareva. Most of the buildings are no more than thirty years old; the timber uprights do not rest on stone foundations and rot at soil level. Parts of the tribal king’s mead hall do date from the time when it was Chief Colymar’s mead hall.
Population: As of 1621 the population is 500 adults of the Ernaldori clan and about 400 lunars. The hides of farmland, the Ernaldori who live within the walls of Clearwine, work are scattered throughout the valley below the fort. Each dawn a procession of farmers and oxen leaves the fort for the fields, and at dusk streams back. About another 300 adults, live on three steads outside the fort. The population of these steads expanded when Blackmoor forced out those who hearths were once inside the walls to make room for the lunar garrison.
In addition, there are about 150 Heortlings from other clans in Clearwine. Some hold tribal offices, others are craftsmen who would not find a large enough marketplace in their own clan, others are traveling traders or wanderers, the poor and the desperate.
Click on the map for information on significant locations. A full key can be found here:
Within the Town
The hill fort:
The Vingkotlings built Clearwine on a spur rising above the flood plain
of the Nymie valley. A single dyke and ditch enclose the top of the
hill. The dyke has a single gate from which a path spirals inward to
the King’s Hall. Everyone understands the layout - it is just like
Storm Village, which everyone sees each Holy Day. A wooden palisade
surmounts the bank. A walkway runs along the ramparts, and eight
watchtowers provide commanding views of the valley (each identified
with one of the mountains of Aedin’s wall). The highest point in the
fort is Founder’s Hill, in the northwest, the lowest around the gate.
Town houses:
Townhouses are Heortling longhouses: single stored buildings, about
12-20ft wide and 30-50ft. They are a single room with a beaten earth
floor and stone hearth. The walls are wattle and daub (hazel twigs and
poles faced with clay on the inside), or in rare cases wooden planks.
Most have a cellar as well as loft space. Furniture is sparse: a table,
chests, some stools, and a raised earth platform for sleeping. For
crafters the longhouse is the workshop, but in good weather, craftsmen
set up stall outside where the light is better. Some farmers have
separate sheds, but the poorer carls share their longhouse with the
cattle byres. Most longhouses have a small vegetable garden.
The
Chief’s Hall: The hall is one hundred feet long and thirty
feet wide. The roof is of shingle, decorated with motifs of Esra.
The King’s Hall:
The King’s hall is one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet wide,
with buttressed outer walls and a shingled roof. The original hall of
Chief Colymar, the master carpenter Farad One-eye worked on the
building and he awakened the woods very soul, which is how the hall has
lasted so long. King Kangharl “Blackmor” Kagradusson is the current
king of the Colymar and a convert to the Lunar way.
Orlanth temple and the
founder’s shrine: Founder’s Hill is the highest point in the
fort topped by a dolmen and surrounded by a ring of standing stones.
This hill is the Ernaldori temple to Orlanth and Colymar. The lunars
have banned Orlanth worship, but the hill remains the site for worship
of Colymar, the tribal founder, and more acceptable members of the
Storm Tribe.
The cottar’s hovels: Poor
cottars, most from other clans of the Colymar, but some those unable or
unwilling to contribute successfully to the clan, cluster at the foot
of Founder’s Hill, next to the market.
The
law rock: The law rock is a strange black rock, twice as
tall as a man, and wide enough for twenty to stand on together, with
steps carved in its side and a spiral of runes running around it. It is
used a convenient platform for the judge, plaintiffs and defendant
during law cases.
Businesses:
Coopers, redsmiths, tanners, turners, potters antler and soapstone
carvers all ply their trade in Clearwine.
Streets: The main street is made of planks spread over a
framework of wood. Side streets are of wattle fencing, but it still
helps to keep feet out of the mud.
The Clearwine Fair: The tribal
market day in Earth Season, when there is a great cattle and horse
market. Traders from all over Sartar come to sell wares, purchase
livestock and to make negotiations for the next year.
The Earth Temple:
The temple to the goddess, in her many aspects, is still located
Outside-the-Walls on the spot where Hareva first found the Clearwine
vines. The temple is a sacred grove of vines and trees with a number of
ancient dolmens in a ring at its center. This is the center for tribal
as well as clan Earth worship. Surrounding the temple are the sacred
lands of the goddess - land, pasture gardens and some grain fields that
are dedicated to the Earth Deities. Normally, no one can settle there
except the sacred people. Sacred people sometimes include orphans, sick
and poor and dispossessed people, if the priestesses decide so.
The
Humakt Temple: Located outside the walls, as is Humakt’s
stead in Storm Village, the ‘tribal’ temple to Humakt is small: a
Warband Leader, two hundred-thanes, four ten-thanes, and nine initiates
(including the Standard Bearer and Horn Blower). The temple spends much
of its time in service to the tribal king.
The
Elmal Temple: Also located outside the walls is a shrine to
Elmal. The tribal Elmal temple is at Runegate but this shrine has grown
under the occupation as Orlanthi conceal their worship under the guise
of Orlanth’s loyal thane. Ketil the clan champion is an initiate of
Elmal. The Elmali also maintain a stable from which the tribal officers
gain their horses.
The
Heler Temple: Another temple outside the walls is the tribal
Heler shrine. It is a small temple staffed by a priest and four
initiates, traditionally maintained by the tribe so that the king can
establish his authority by supporting a Rainmaker. King Blackmor favors
replacing the Heler Temple with one to Dobduran.
The Ormalaya shrine:
The Ernaldori are mainly farmers but they maintain a shrine to Ormalaya
for the clan’s hunters and for occasional tribal gatherings.
The Lunar garrison:
Since Starbrow’s rebellion the Empire has garrisoned over four hundred
soldiers in Clearwine. The current garrison is auxiliaries of the 2nd
Furthest foot regiment of the Native Furthest Corps. The Tarshites
built the garrison buildings in the local fashion, but deliberately
broke the spiral pattern of the settlement when they constructed them
and displaced Ernaldori clan folk to make room.
Outside
The Walls:
A number of ‘camp followers’, transients, and the dispossessed
shelter ‘Outside-The-Walls’ in a collection of hovels
The Seven Mothers Mission:
A temple to the Seven Mothers supported by both the garrison and the
tribal worshippers of the Sedenyic religions. The temple is an active
‘mission’ to the Colymar tribe.
Visitors should note:
How will I pay?
Ernaldori barter, but outsiders must pay in silver or gold. Payment is
by weight; change is not a problem - if the item is too
expensive, the seller will hack off parts until it is right. Of late
King Kagradusson has forced local merchants to accept minted coins.
Where will I stay?
Hospitality is a virtue among the Heortlings and visitors are also
treated as guests, and will tend to stay with whomever they have
business with, or with affinal kin. Traveling merchants or those
attending the tribal moot may stay in Tenttown, an area of rock walled
booths over which a tarpaulin is stretched for shelter and privacy. The
Lunars have built an inn where foreigners and strangers can stay, an
idea most of the Heortlings find strange.
