Lykusglen

Ruler: None Economy: Trade, wagon works, locks, buckles, cattle, slate and marble quarries Militia: None, there is but a single constable and those under him to keep the peace Points of interest: The Lykan Springs. The Market, Wagonworks, Tyar-Besil
Lykusglen is a way stop hamlet of 600 folks standing atop a low ridge serving as the westernmost edge of a region of monster-infested hills. Lykusglen became a settlement in the first place thanks to a drinkable spring that fed a sizable pond ideal for watering horses, oxen and pack mules. Today, Lykusglen is a busy trade town. It’s the site of a farmers market, a successful wagon works, a buckle and lock factory, and a cattle market that attracts buyers from all over the North. An east-west trail meets the Long Road at the pond, running west to the logging community of Kheldell and east to Humble Hill Outpost and eventually Greenmoor. Another trail leads to quarries in the Sumber Hills and to ruins of stone keeps long ago belonging to adventurers and local ranching communities now lost to monsters and outlaws called the Haunted Keeps. In recent years, new quarries have been opened on the northwestern edge of town. So far these have yielded up great slabs of marble much prized in Freehaven for facing large new buildings and repairing older edifices. Lykusglen is also a center for stonecutters quarrying slate on the fringes of the Sumber Hills. While Lykusglen remains prosperous, dark omens are appearing. The heart of the Sumber Hills has become far more dangerous, with monsters lurking seemingly everywhere and travelers advised by locals not to go into the hills berry-picking or hare-hunting these days, though the children traditionally did so daily in both summer and fall. Interestingly dwarven bards still sing songs of one of the first settlements in the Sumber Hills was the underground city of Tyar-Besil, a part of the dwarf kingdom of Besilmer. Tyar-Besil was left to ruin nearly four and a half thousand years ago after the king of Besilmer died in battle. The Sumber Hills were left alone until the Knights of the Horn started clearing the area of its native inhabitants in the dying days of the Godswar. The Knights attempted to set up fortresses in the hills but were stopped by Uruth Ukrypt. These events eventually played a part in the Orcfast War, and the Trollwars until around three hundred years ago settlements started springing up around the Sumber Hills, creating the roads and trails that bisected the hills to this day. Currently, the area is awash in rumors of a sinister force that strikes by night from the nearby hills. Some say it is the drow reaching the surface. Several shepherds have seen strange figures watching them from distant hillsides in the wild fields east of town where they have traditionally grazed their flocks. Banditry is on the rise, and the weather seems to be getting more severe and more unpredictable. Quarry workers used to cut by torchlight when orders were backing up but do so no longer, shunning the pits by night. They are spooked by rumors of dark-robed figures in stone masks lurking in the darkness beyond the torchlight. The townsfolk fear that dangerous times are at hand, but no one seems to know exactly what to do about it. The fact that this hamlet has no mayor, only a constable to keep the peace, has led many in the North to believe the amount of loose lips and stories streaming from the place is a concerted effort to draw adventurers to the place to solve the problems there. Otherwise, it is a place best known for its nourishing, though otherwise un-noteworthy food, called crumble-cake, moist loaves from nuts, chickpea mash, chopped roots, greens, turkey and wildfowl scraps, all baked together.

Type

Hamlet

Location under

Ethigoviel