Barony of Delantar

Julkoun

(Village 250): This village, once known as Shining, is upstream, or northeast, of the Laughing Hollow. It stands on the banks of the River Shining, or Delimbiyr. As it is located roughly halfway between the two, it looks to Daggerford and Secomber for supplies. However, it is home to farmers of independent mind.

Julkoun, for whom the village is now named, gave the hamlet of Shining new importance some 80 winters ago when he built a large stone mill and a shrine to Chauntea. Julkoun is long dead, but his gristmill is, still run by his descendants and has been joined by a cloth-yard mill that produces whole cloth for sale in Waterdeep or Amn.

This pastoral village of about 40 homes holds busy farmfolk, pleasant gardens, low stone-and-stump walls and hedgerows, and many strong manure smells. Its grassy streets are often full of grazing goats, sheep, and cattle. Julkoun is notable for an inn of surprising excellence and for some interesting local legends.

Places of Interest

Julkoun's Old Mill

Flour Mill (Gristmill) This huge, impressive stone mill and warehouse grinds, stores, mixes, and bags hulled or crushed grain, flour, and seeds. It is always busy, and employs over 60 folk, almost all of them descendants of Julkoun. Cats, kept to keep down rodents, and small sling-wielding boys, whose job it is to drive off birds, are everywhere, and the mill always has enough output on hand to sell a traveler a belt sack or enough human-sized sacks to fill six wagons. The prices aren’'t below those elsewhere, but the product, carefully scrutinized by the mill staff, is “as good as Goldenfields' ”—and that’s high praise from Amn northward. The senior millers, Alaslagh Eljulkoun, Taunner Eljulkoun, and Irythyl Eljulkoun, sometimes buy nuts for blending, to make nut flour. Irythyl’'s dark eyes miss nothing, and local rumors whisper that she'’s a Harper.

Shining River Mill

Cloth-Yard Mill: This barn-like wooden mill still looks new. Run by four millers for absentee Waterdhavian owners, it produces a coarse brown looseweave little better than homespun in appearance, but valued for its toughness, It’'s often used as the base material for sacks or tarpaulins that are made prettier and more watertight by a layer of finer material. The mill also produces a finer, smooth gray material known as "shimmersteel" for its overall hue and habit of catching the light. It is much favored in the Coast lands for use in cloaks and hoods. Bolts of cloth come out of this mill. Although the millers will sell scraps to passersby, they’re not tailors, and aren'’t interested in selling small cuts or amounts for the making of individual garments. Locals sometimes combine funds to buy and share a whole bolt of Shining River cloth.

The Jester's Pride

Inn: This excellent inn is named for the Jester of Julkoun and is akin to a halfling hole or a druid’'s roothouse in appearance. It'’s dug out of a hillside and planted over with a rock garden and rough stone walls. The roots of trees overhead curve across the ceilings, and many little round windows let in the light to the south. Dwarves, gnomes, and halflings all feel at home here, and those who don’'t detest caves and damp, earthy smells should also enjoy the charming tile-floored passages, which jaunt up and down in gentle slopes. The cheery service and luxurious furnishings should delight anyone. The inn is run by the Yevershoulder halfling family, who have found no less than six delightfully impish— and breathtakingly beautiful— half-elven ladies to serve at the inn as chambermaids.

Secomber

(Small Town, 900): Secomber is a small town that acts as a de-facto border town between the relatively peaceful Western Heartlands and the more savage North along the Sword Coast.

It sits atop three stone hills on the banks of the southern-running Unicorn Run river and the western-running River Delimbiyr. Directly south of the town is the dangerous High Moor. To the north, along Secomber Trail is Uluvin.

The town is populated primarily by humans, but almost as many halflings call the place home. A small clan of dwarves lives in the area as well, as do extended families of the other common races of Faerun.

Uluvin

(Hamlet 30) Most traders dealing with Delimbiyr Vale avoid Uluvin, instead using the Delimbiyr Route west from Secomber, meeting up with the High Road south of Zundbridge. It’'s a dusty, spartan place with few trees, thirsty throats, a bad tavern, and a surprisingly pleasant and clean inn. Uluvin'’s a sleepy place where peddlers sell trinkets and folk turn out to chat with travelers to hear the news.

Places of Interest

The Black Bull’s Tail

This isolated roadhouse has no competition —and it shows. The beer is watery, and there'’s nothing else but old wine and whiskey. The echoing taproom has the charm of a warehouse, but the rentable drinking rooms in back are more welcoming. Some travelers use these as sleeping accommodations, though they’'re intended as meeting and revel rooms.

Where the Maiden Dances

This is a well-appointed inn for such a sleepy village. The staff has manners equal to the best anywhere. The furnishings are old, and the rooms are small, but everything is clean. The inn’'s name comes from an ancient elven grave under the floorboards and a ghostly image seen infrequently at night. This figure is a lone, barefoot, dancing elven maiden in a long gown. The sight is said to be breathtakingly beautiful, but only those who have had too much to drink claim to have seen her.