Two Ford

This village has a population of some 325 humans and a couple-score gnomes and dwarves. Almost the whole population makes its living in some service industry (inn-keeping, blacksmithing, selling rope, tar, tack and the like to boatmen), or as merchants, most often selling perishable produce from local farmers for sale in Greyhawk or Hardby. Some Forders work as menials on local manor estates.

Ore from Diamond Lake is also sold here, for dispatch to the same cities (it's actually cheaper to move it along the rivers than along the road to the Free City, even though the distance is much greater). There is a garrison of 24 men-at-arms, two junior sergeants, and a commanding sergeant-at-arms here. Two Ford is so named because there is a ford across the mouth of the Erg here as well as a little-used ford across to the farmlands of the western Plain of Greyhawk.

The indigenous population of Two Ford is a very strange bunch of people. Many years ago, a priest of Zilchus (who evangelized a very rare cult within his faith) converted almost all of them to his beliefs. His teachings revolved around the premise that goodwill and good service to others is the key to the favor of his patron deity. Since the village lives by trade (and has prospered), the elders of the village have faithfully indoctrinated their young in these tenets ever since.

As a result, all the Forders are extraordinarily polite and helpful, virtually never cheat anyone in trading, smile most of the time, and appear very peaceful and placid. They are also, of course, profoundly and terminally insular and boring, and some sages claim to have discovered a river-dwelling brain fluke that may explain their odd behavior. Garrison militia do not tend to be stationed here for long, and this posting is seen as a sign of considerable disfavor.