The Unseen Servant forums

Jesselton is very isolated and has been for much longer than Robin has been alive. There are three villages of Halflings in what they call The West Shire. All are within a few miles of each other. Jesselton is the farthest south, with Lakeside on the western side of Skanny Lake north of Jesselton and Coldfoot on the eastern side of the same lake. He has only ever been to Coldfoot once and doesn't personally know anyone other than Mazie who has been anywhere other than inside The West Shire. She is from Jesselton, originally. He has been told that she traveled to Slateholm as a young woman to learn how to makes potions and such and has stayed. She returns to Jesselton two or three times a year to bring her wares and to collect components...and to tell tells of the "outside world" to the locals.

Well, that's not entirely true. Once a year an expedition to the coast is made by the halflings of Jesselton to collect salt for the next year. They travel north around Skanny Lake stopping at Lakeside for a night or two and then down the river to a bay where there are large sandy beaches. There they build temporary collection pens to hold the sea water until it evaporates so they can collect the salt that remains atop the sand. The last trip was about 8 months ago and returned with a tale of several tall ships being sighted sailing south along the western coast. He has never made that trip, that was on his list of things to do next year.

The halflings have a deal with the Barklings to trade salt for safe passage up to the coast and back. Until coming over to Slateholm he had never actually seen a Barkling, but he had heard tell of them his whole life. He thinks the halflings of Lakeside and Coldfoot have more dealings with the dog men, but he isn't sure.

About other creatures Robin doesn't know much. Robin has heard tales of Goblins and worse down in The Gash, but no one goes down there, so they could just be stories. The Kobolds he does know about. They are small nasty creatures that live in caves and dug outs into the hills south and east of Jesselton. They only occasionally come up to Jesselton to attempt to raid and steal, mostly when hunting is bad and they are desperate for food. This time, they might have shown up at Jesselton due to a band of Goblins occupying the lands south and east of The Gash...or so he overheard from the village elders as they talked among themselves. He has already told you what he knows about the Gnomes.

In his father's lifetime Jesselton was attacked by creatures called Orcs, who were beaten off, but not before the halflings took many casualties, including his father. Robin's mother died in childbirth a couple of months later and he was raised by the community.

Robin has heard stories about the distant past, too. Stories about ancient cities, now in ruins, that scatter the countryside. He doesn't know how halflings fit into that past, though. The tales never include his kind in those cities, maybe they have always lived in the three villages of the West Shire.

About the monstrous creatures, well the conventional wisdom is they are a plague imposed on the lands as punishment for some great sin or other. The darker tales say that they are the descendants of normal people, humans, halflings, dwarves and elves that were twisted and made into evil creatures. His mentor taught him that there was more to it than conventional wisdom indicated, but these monsters were indeed a plague and a curse and were the result of a war between the gods. Those that won we know, those that lost must never be named!
But those Lost Gods are not gone, they are still lurking out there somewhere like a hidden infection raging through the body of the world.