Highmoon

The town of Highmoon is the largest population center in Deepingdale, and it is growing fast. Easygoing friendliness and tolerance is the daily tone of Highmoon. Most travelers who find trouble here go looking for it—or make their own. Travelers on the East Way find Highmoon a pleasant stop, and if they require mercenary guards or provisioning before or after a trip through Thunder Pass, Highmoon'’s supplies may well prove vital.

Highmoon'’s name comes from Highmoon Hill, the nearly forgotten name of the ridge on which the Tower of the Rising Moon was built by the half-elven hero Aglauntaras in the Year of the Wandering Wyvern (1022 DR). Always important as a stronghold from which Thunder Pass and the nearby ford of the River Glaemril could be controlled, the Tower attracted settlers to the safety of its shadow, particularly after the militant Alantar and Soryn elven families took up arms against all Fair Folk who were content to dwell in peace with humans. The Deeping Princess took over the Tower upon the death of Aglauntaras, ruling as co-regent of Deepingdale with his daughter Alanshara.

From that day to this, elves, half-elves, and humans have dwelt together around Highmoon Hill in a community of trees, winding lanes, small cottages, and splendid gardens. Such features are today being pushed to the lands around the town as the walls of Highmoon have been completed and buildings have begun to appear that rise three floors above the street. Already some of Highmoon'’s inhabitants talk of expanding the walls, —and visitors are warned that this topic is one that arouses strong feelings. It is best to keep silent and voice no opinion if one is asked about it. Though monster raids from the mountains and forays by Lashan’'s troops have both come within sight of the Tower, no army has assaulted Highmoon in centuries, so the protection of the walls may be more symbolic than vitally necessary. However, many folk in Deepingdale believe that their completion is the only thing that has kept Archendale from raising arms to annex its rich neighbor. Arkhenfolk, it should be noted, receive a rather cool reception in Deepingdale.

Farms still nestle in closely around the walls of Highmoon, and visitors can still see more trees and flowers within its walls than in any other town in the Dales. Cobbles are being laid in the streets for the first time, covering the last mud and corduroy (log-paved) stretches. Well over three thousand folk dwell here, plus the Swords of Deepingdale (Oak Company and Spear Company, both fielding 70 mounted elven archers), the 30-strong Tower Guard, and as many folk of the Tower household.

Places of Interest

Highmoon has grown rapidly in the last several years from a quaint backwater to a burgeoning city. With it's oldest buildings over three hundred years old, and the cobbled streets and granite walls being less than a year old, it is a study in controlled but rapid modernization. The following offer brief introductions to some of the most interesting sites in the town.

1. Rhautides' Tower

Main Article: Rhauntides' Tower

This small tower which stands atop so-called Spell Hill is the current residence of the archmage Rhauntides and his beautiful apprentice, Shaunil Tharm. The old wizard only sees clients on a by-appointment basis, and is generally protective of his privacy.

2. The Rising Moon

Main Article: Rising Moon Inn

This popular inn is cheap, warm, and cozy. It feels like guests are being made welcome in someone’s home by casual hosts who do not care if people put their feet up on the tables, so long as they enjoy being there and do not pick fights with other guests.

3. Silverhand House

This imposing stone manor is the headquarters of the Silverhand House coster founded by the retired elven adventurer Gaelin Silverhand 60-odd years ago (no relation to the Seven Sisters of that name). The tall, proud elves and half-elves of this organization run swift, well-guarded caravans east to Ordulin and west to Arabel from here, taking rare woods, resin, amber, and the finest beaver and marten pelts to long-standing buyers in those places.

Here the Silverhand House coster recruits mercenaries its members have seen and liked in action to begin the long and rigorous moral testing and training process that ends in discharge, full staff status, or actual partnership in the House. Here is also where its members buy good specimens of the wares they deal in from passersby, such as adventurers who have ventured deep into the Elven Court woods beyond Lake Sember.

This coster pays well and is open and fair in its dealings. If one in turn deals honestly with its members, they try to maintain an ongoing, lifetime trading relationship. This forthright, loyal behavior makes the coster members very bad to have as enemies and wonderful as allies; Silverhand House maintains a loosely affiliated adventuring company it uses to take covert action to avenge itself on any who cheat its members. Around the Dragon Reach Silverhand House has won a reputation for reliability second to none. “"Stay small and stay good"” is Gaelin’s motto, and his coster follows it.

4. Royal High House

This pair of crammed, barnlike shops on the East Way are together known as Royal High House, the home of Royal Provisioners of Highmoon. The “Royal” in the place’s name comes from the fact that the Deeping Princess started this business as a service to the humans she was enticing to her new settlement. Today, these shops cater to the caravan trade. They sell tack, tents, tarpaulins, tools, harness, and even new, ready-to-roll wagons. They claim the finest and most varied selection of traveling rations anywhere—, and it seems they have called upon the herb gardeners of the Dale to season their dried food so that it just might be the finest anywhere.

Wineskins - —items rarely plentiful enough in any outfitting shop— - are to be had in profusion here, as are ready-dried kindling, horse liniment, slow candles, and a host of other usually unobtainable things. If something is necessary for camping, it is to be found here somewhere. The Royal High House’s on-the-street convenience costs you about 10% more than the average prices—, but if you are in a hurry, it is more than worth it.

5. The High Market

This large, open market is different from most others of its kind in that vendors have the use of a public bathhouse and privy at the east end of the market and that a huge variety of herbs and herbal concoctions (from flavored drinks to medicines) are offered for sale here. Merchants from Cormyr are the most frequent shoppers here in all but the coldest months; many fast caravans bring the wares of Marsember and Suzail here in exchange for good furs and herbs. Tressym, the winged cats found thick as thieves in Eveningstar, are very popular with the Deepingfolk, and many are brought here by Cormyrean traders— and the folk of Deepingdale also seem to have a taste for the sharper cheeses made in Cormyr. Sembian merchants compete for Deepingdale coins with elaborate games and blown glass items brought by ship from hotter lands, and minstrels often play in the market for the coins tossed their way. All in all, this market is a great place to browse—, and it is even carefully planted with hard mosses so as to be less muddy than most.

6. The Oak and Spear

The signboard of this inn shows a spear buried in the trunk of an old oak. The shaft of the spear passes through both an orc skull and a harp. The skull recalls a great local victory over an orc horde that poured through the Thunder Pass almost 200 winters ago, and the harp symbolizes good cheer, which is what this dimly lit, cozy drinking spot is widely known for now.

A mug of draft beer costs 8 cp or a good song; most minstrels and bards who pass through town make a point of stopping here. If you want quiet seclusion for your drinking, come during the day when harpists play gentle, washing-the-strings background music. The rest of the time this place is apt to be cheerfully noisy because each entertainer always tries to outdo the others.

A full range of ales, lagers and stouts can be had here as well as zzar, a few sherries, a brandy, and some wines, but most patrons do not bother. The draft brewed on the premises, Highmoon Dark, is justly famous across the Dragon Reach. It is a dark, smoky beer with a rich, nutty, almost bacon-like aftertaste. The Oak and Spear is the only place one can get it, so patrons drink it in copious quantities.

7. Andelmaus Logging

In this aromatic shop on the edge of the market, Andelmaus Logging sells odd-sized cuts of wood and special orders and buys timber from anyone who brings it in. This company specializes in supplying fine and rare woods to the cities of Sembia, and to get huge shadowtop spars or wagonloads of duskwood it has more than once cut more trees in the Dale than the foresters allow. (The owner paid the fines and charged them to her customers as “special fees.”)

The owner— - purring, catlike, totally unscrupulous coin-clutcher named Kessia, who is obviously at home in the most cutthroat Sembian merchant circles, is unrepentant but does not want to get run out of town. She buys timber here without asking questions as to its origin and runs heavily armed woodcutting wagon trains into former Sessrendale to cut trees along the western edge of the Elven Court woods. These teams cut down everything and trample what is left, and they take a lot, pushing the forest back year by year.

Consequently, the local elves do not like Kessia at all. Her guards and her purchased magical items keep her personally safe, but the elves made sure that Arkhen woodcutters were alerted when she tried to sneak a cutting team into the Arch Wood. Not a hireling, adz, ox, or wagon of that team ever returned to Highmoon.

Kessia is currently rumored to be hiring adventurers to explore for new places to cut wood. Locals hint darkly that what she is after is a private strike force so that she can arrange “accidents” to befall elves that stand in her way (physically or metaphorically) in the woods and other foes who decry her business practices.

8. Hanseld's Emporium

The whimsical half-elf who runs this shop is apt to be seen dancing along the roof ridge or playing a longhorn atop a pile of crates out back when a more, er, normal shopkeeper would be inside selling things—or at least watching to see that patrons do not just help themselves. But Hanseld is, well, Hanseld, and people, especially children, love him just the way he is— - the local source of free entertainment. Hanseld can outplay or out-sing a minstrel when he is of a mind to, but he is usually too busy closeted in a back room seeing to the personal needs of clients who have traveled a long way to reach his shop.

Most folk think that people come to the shop from so far because Hanseld’'s Emporium is the only place they can get the rare and exotic spices and curios from Impiltur, Chessenta, the Tashalar, and Calimshan that he sells—, to say nothing of the finely crafted lamps, tables, and lounges from Marsember and Selgaunt. But in truth all of those things can be had in Suzail, Westgate, and Sembia, and a lot of those clients he spends time behind closed doors with come from those very same well-supplied places.

The true draw of his quaint little shop to the steady stream of foreign visitors that he gets almost every day, remains part of his mystery.

9. The Leaves of Learning

Main Article: The Leaves of Learning

The Leaves of Learning is the only major temple within the town of Highmoon, dedicated to the worship of the gods of learning, chiefly Oghma, but to a lesser extent Deneir, Milil, and Gond as well. It occupies a prominent spot, sharing the crown of Highmoon Hill with the Tower of the Rising Moon, just across the way.

10. The Tower of the Rising Moon

Main Article: The Tower of the Rising Moon

Truly the oldest structure in town, the tower (actually a three tower keep) is the center of government for both the town and the Deepingdale itself. It is the residence of the Deeping Lord Theremen Ulath, and the meeting place for the Council of the Dale.

11. The Lord's Barracks

This walled compound of armory and barracks buildings has its own gate in the town walls opening directly into the caravan campground so that army forces can charge into that ever-changing tent city in an instant if need be. The gates and walls of this compound are alertly guarded all day and night through because more fine weapons are stored here than in all the other Dales combined. (Swordpoint in Archendale can boast more arms, but not better arms.) The town watchmen, who patrol the streets and market, operate out of the barracks and the Swords are based here, though at any given time half of them are out in the Dale on patrol. Visitors are not encouraged to nose about here, but the admirer of fine horseflesh is in for a treat when a mounted East Way road patrol sallies forth: Many Swords soldiers like to coax their horses to rear up and dance, flinging their hooves out in fighting strikes, as they emerge through the gates,

12. Caravan Compound

Formerly a camp for hired workers constructing the town walls, this muddy chaos of buildings is now the center of an ongoing horse market and caravan camping area. It has all the untidiness so happily missing from the High Market, but it also boasts frequent and heavy watch patrols to keep things far quieter and more law-abiding than in most such caravan grounds.

This campground is where to go to see caged monsters from far lands, jugglers, contortionists, and freaks of nature (usually these last are subtly shapechanging dopplegangers or simply races normally unknown in the Dales region). This area is where the shadier business deals in Deepingdale are made. This is also where most ordinary hireswords pitch their tents, awaiting a patron to pay them to guard things or kill things.

13. The Silver Shield

The mirror-bright hanging shield of this wayhouse is the first thing travelers approaching Highmoon from the east see. It heralds a house of quality—, pretentious quality. The Starnar elven family, who run this inn, mean well. They go for spotless cleanliness and. expensive furnishings that scream luxury and money. However, the service is so haughty and slow and the rooms so cold that the disappointing final effect is one of being unwelcome.

The 13 sp per night per head fee does not help, either, when everything from a tall glass of chilled mintwater to stabling is extra. A careless traveler can easily run up a bill of 15 gp or so for an overnight stay with a bath, evenfeast meal, drinks, and the like.

Still, for snobs or folk with so much money that they want to be rid of its irksome weight, this is surely the cleanest and most exclusive lodging in town. The careful traveler who dines, drinks, and stables a mount elsewhere than the Silver Shield will enjoy a stay of average cost at an inn that is a very clean and pleasant but otherwise average— and pretends to be much, much more.

14. Darian Stables

An always-calm, patient former warrior from far Impiltur, Alamus Darian breeds, trains, and sells horses here and at a much larger ranch well down the Glaemril. He is considered an expert trainer and a fair judge of diseases and injuries, but he never buys horses. He sells tack and harness, trained riding mounts, and draft animals for average prices. He charges 1 sp per horse examined for consultations about equine health, but he does not travel to look at any beast further away than as far along the East Way as one can get while still keeping the Tower of the Rising Moon in sight.

15. Bunstable Street

16. The Deeping Run

17. Stallion Lane

18. Acorn Lane

19. Torlar's Street

20. White Arrow Way

21. Glaemril Ford

This unremarkable ford of the Wineflow, a tributary of the Glaemril, located just north of the town walls is mentioned here because of a strange magical power it possesses that is said to be the blessing of the Laughing Princess: From time to time, random folk crossing the ford are cured of all diseases and hurts—, and a random wizard spell comes into their minds for them to cast later without incantation or material components. This usually befalls non-wizards, and some of them are momentarily beset by yet a third property of the ford: They levitate straight up into the air for a few breaths.

Several priests and mages, including the nearby Rhauntides, have investigated the ford, but they have found no cause or source for these odd but consistent occurrences. Some folk of the Dale even talk of forming a club, —or worse, a cult— of people who have been “blessed by the ford.” Despite queries put to various sages and Danali’'s Index, the origin of these manifestations remains mysterious.

22. The Harps at Highmoon