Tillmans Corner
Tillmans Corner is a small group of buildings and shops all owned by Emory Tillman, a 38-year-old Human from the Town of Belmar in the Ward of Rolar. He settled within the city of Zimnii Gorod about 9 years ago, setting up a horse and donkey purchasing business that has expanded to include a tavern and inn, a brewery, a farrier, a wagon shop and a river barge landing.
This small complex of buildings are some of the few permanent stone and timber structures to exist in Zimnii Gorod. They are occupied year round by 18 residents that all work and live within the complex. Being relatively newly constructed, the buildings are a mixture of design and purpose that lends a unique asthetic to the area. Most are not expertly built, but instead are constructed of local material by eager but untrained hands. Roofs are made of thatch, bark or turf. Walls are sometimes built of roughly cut stones, natural rounded river rock or stacked sod blocks.
Tillmans Corner is located on the eastern edge of the Zimnii Gorod when the population is at its highest, but when the season is over (beginning in mid-February), it is a fairly isolated complex of buildings in relation to the rest of the settlement. It is located on the north bank of the Caldar River near the mouth of a fast-flowing little stream (called the Corner by the locals). Directly on the riverbank are three large, well-built docks of covered pilings driven into the river bottom. These docks can load and unload barges of up to 60' in length and are used by the owner to mover livestock purchased from the Junn Harr herders to be shipped back east to markets in the Kingdom of Cobal.
Purpose / Function
A complex of shops and buildings focused on the purchase and shipping of livestock from the steppes to the Kingdom of Cobal. Ancillary operations, such as a farrier, an inn, a brewery and a wagon shop, are all owned by the same man: Emory Tillman.
Design
Almost a tiny village in its own right, Tillmans Corner was not a planned community. Buildings were built as they were needed, with very little (if any) consideration towards esthetics or appearance. Features that worked were kept and repeated while features that didn't were removed, improved or ignored entirely.
Sensory & Appearance
The area Tillmans Corner occupies is a high bank of the Caldar River. There are two natural springs at Tillmans Corner, the larger has a stone shelter built over it with an old iron gate to keep out vermin and provide a "cooler" for specialty meats for the inn. The area has many cottonwood, poplar and sumac trees and the soil is fine, dry and quite sandy. The most common rock sources are dry banks and bars on the river's edge, and were the trees and shrubs give way to grass, the grass is a deep-root variety common to the rest of the steppe region.
Denizens
Besides the owner, Emory Tillman, Tillmans Corner is home to 17 other full-time residents. Among them are Zayn Smithers, a Dwarven smith and farrier; Crosby Wagoner and his daughter, Maisey, both Halflings from the far west of Cobal; and Aryus Cervisius, a Gnome master brewer and his small family.
Architecture
The complex is an eclectic mix of designs, due more to necessity than purpose. Materials are found or procured and new structures are built or existing ones modified. No two structures are even remotely similar in architecture or construction materials. Roofs might be thatched in prairie grass, covered in cottonwood bark or long strips of still-growing sod. Doors might be made of oak, wattle or old leather.
Defenses
While defense is an important aspect of life at Tillmans Corner, it was not much considered when the place was laid out. No walls exist and the only building with a tower has had many tall cottonwoods grow up and obcure its view of the surrounding countryside. Doors are often constructed of simple woven sticks or are made of stretched leather. What can be counted on, however, is the undeniable fact that every resident of the Corner is armed and capable of defending themselves and their homes. All are capable swords hands, and many are exceptional archers. Even the young adults carry and can use knives and spears, should the need arise.
Founding Date
224
Type
Market square
Parent Location
Owner
Characters in Location
