Nerton

A small agricultural community, that primarily provides produce to the citizens of Teller Town but some of their foodstuffs also go upriver to places like Spinify Village when the barges move that direction. While they provide many different items, their most exotic export is Lufa, a gourd that has a fibrous interior that when dried provides an excellent scrubber for body as well as dishes.
Nerton is a small central village, with large garden plots adjacent to each home, plus larger fields that surround the town. Most of the lufa is grown in the individual garden plots, as they are a bit finicky and take more hands on care.
Each spring, the inhabitants twist grasses into little nests or baskets, where they place one or more lufa seeds. These are arranged in their homes near the places of most sun, and kept watered. Once they are several inches tall, weather permitting the village gathers in the central square to request the blessing of the Divine upon their upcoming efforts as well as fecundity of the plants. Then they plant them in mounds in their gardens.
Making a ceremony of the planting helps the village to remember the importance of this crop. It is their luxury export, and the item that creates the greatest influx of income.
Other gourds are also grown, and colorfully painted for decoration and use locally and exported.
As the gourds reach maturity, the villagers gather with their harvest and do the needed prep work to prepare the lufa for export. It's a great time to work on a common project, visit as a group and view the results of all their work over the summer.

Defences

There is a low stone wall around the village, with some areas of the wall surmounted by timbers, but there are few human or natural predators in the area.

Industry & Trade

Primarily agricultural, gourds, grain, cotton, some grapes.

Infrastructure

There is a central storehouse just off of the main square, the town elder's home is next to it. The central square is cobbled, but the rest of the village has dirt roads and paths. There are two official entrances to the village, one on the north and the other on the west towards the majority of farms. Because the area of agriculture has expanded over the years, there are two unofficial places on the south and east where stones have been removed from the wall to allow foot and cart travel.

Assets

Central storerooms for materials to export. Carts to take the produce to the river for the barges to move further.

History

There are two, perhaps three proposed origins for the name of the town.

• A corruption of New Town
• A corruption of Near Town
• The founder was named Ner or some variation of such.

No one knows for sure, and no one really cares these days.
The town was founded some generations ago, when settlers from other villages wanted to strike out on their own and gain new lands, their old villages having no more land to farm within reasonable distance of the village.
At some point it was discovered that with some extra care, the lufa gourds could be grown in the rich soil of the area and it became a valuable export once the inhabitants of Teller Town discovered their benefits.

See Summercamp 2020 for all my articles.

Type

Hamlet

Population

about 500

Inhabitant Demonym

Nertonese

Location under

Egg Island