Arnford

Arnford is a fishing and ferry town of 3,200 folk, located on the Duntide River. The militia force of 150 is always present, taxing catches of fish and barrels of salted fish at market, even patrolling the river banks to charge fishermen as they bring in their catches! Arnford's once-thriving markets, importing livestock from the southern lands for sale to settlements west and into the Celadon, are now almost abandoned. Merchants and farmers turning up with livestock have grown used to having half of them confiscated in tithes and no longer travel here. The rich Arnford rolls, cloths dyed with plant extracts from the Celadon, are also virtually a thing of the past.

Arnford begins to resemble a ghost town, and some 15% of its people have already quietly left for Urnst or even the Gnatmarsh. There are abandoned farmsteads in the lands around, left by tenant farmers who could no longer afford the ruinous rents and tithes. Some have become bases for men taken to earning a desperate living by banditry.