Mortonfell
Carol Town
Mortonfell, called Carol Town for its bells, has a population of 8,000, was founded in 888, and acquired its charter in 1122. Its crest is three martlets volant, dexter sinister dexter, or, on a field of paley of six, argent and sable. Mortonfell is found in the County of Mortfeld, the Kingdom of Gwyfned, in the High Kingdom of Myddum. It is connected by a secondary road that bisects with Old Street, giving it access to Beck in the southwest and Grensham in the north.
Mortonfell was established in the low foothills of the Aendril Mountains, and it is built atop a z-shaped ridge. The hills are picturesque, but they make poor agricultural land, and are instead used for pasturage. To the distant west, the Lower Aendril Mountains may be spied. The town developed around the St. Alvoir’s church, and there is also a chapel of convenience (really a tower redoubt) at the town’s primary gate.
The town is walled, with the walls rising from the ridge’s perimeter, but no moat is necessary because of its lofty position. Mortonfell’s streets are cobbled throughout. Because of space constraints, the town market is broken into several sections, with the largest being at the gates of the main church.
St. Alvoir’s Cathedral is tall, angular, and fortified. It houses the oldest working clock in Aorlis, installed in the church tower. It also is liberally painted with Montague Manver’s hellscape murals, the church’s stone gargoyles are among the most imaginative in Aorlis, often making well-known historical personages the butts of jokes and criticism. The church cemetery is known for the Miracle of the Moving Graves as witnessed by Si. Henriette Colwell.
There is a cloister attached to the minster which houses Morlite canons. The town also includes a small, ordinarite monastery where the monks gamble, keep prostitutes on staff, and hold lewd competitions. There is a friary where the friars live in excess, greedily buying properties, fine clothes, and expensive horses. Alvoir the Rule is Mortonfell’s patron saint.
Mortonfell citizens are protective of their social privilege, but liberal minded. Culturally and temperamentally, Mortonfell is more a part of Kaldur than Gwyfned. This is because it ties directly into the Kaldurian travel and economic sphere, but there is no direct way to reach this town from Gwyfned.
There is a tradition of literacy here, where only the poorest cannot read. This is called carol town because the mechanical clock is used to coordinate caroling bells for every monastic office of the day. Local industry includes printing and bookbinding. The booksellers are well stocked with many editions of all the books published in Aorlis. The leading literary star is Raginolf DeRolfe, author of the whimsically ribald Faery Tales for Naughty Children. There is no university here, but there are four or more freelance scholars who teach professionally.
Mortonfell is under royal forest law, and in the Kingswood District. In the city green, there is an old oak tree the locals avoid. It grew in the place of an old gallows, and many witches were hung here. When they were buried, the tree was planted among them, so it grows from the witches’ remains.
This town is also the site of the magical working of the 5th Gate of Cognizance in 1200, as led by Beatrice Sebold, and fully half the practitioners disappeared. Some say an affronted angel destroyed them, and others that these spell-casters escaped this world and traveled the 5th Gate to a realm of higher vibration.
Mortonfell is an important town, one for the invention of the mechanical clock by Redvers Sallow in 1132, and two for the development of the moveable type printing Press by Valentine Innman in 1111. Mortonfell was the home for 13th century painter Montague Manvers, who covered the town with murals and oversized paintings of hellscapes and the graphic horrors within. They are oppressive and inspire fear, and they are very imaginative about the horrors awaiting sinners in the afterlife. His son still runs the Manver’s Studio and carries on his work.
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