Having left the Agranninan holdings (operators of the Rauros hill track and Hosts of the Rauros Spring Fair and Hammer Toss Days) the party will wait a day until a river trader completes her fall trading with Matron Agrannian. Finished goods (hinges, brass fixtures, rivets, steel pigs, grommets, tools and bales of wire in a variety of thicknesses-Check Our Specials! are traded for currency, a bunch of finished oak parts (some wardrobes) furs, furs, fresh vegetables and some late season fruits, more furs and a lot of serious haggling.
The trader's name is Blorin (Ungramidaer) and she and her crew have PLENTY of room to take some folk aboard their small single masted barge, the Doer. Ryde pays for the passage to go as far as the Trade Town of Banghall-on-the-Deeping, which is achieved after some damn nice sailing weather; cool days and crisper nights as the boat cruises along the wide swoopy river. The terrain here is mountainous, and there are a few stages where mules aid the trip, and some where tumplines and some short stout bodies do too. Blorin is eager to be home before the ice flies, and her crew are as well. There are several (OK twelve) stops made on the trip back. Some are at small landings on the river bank, some are in the deep pools below fierce crags-where punts relay their cargos from jetties clinging to small gates in rockfaces to the Doer, as it lays to in the shadows of the fiords.
Still and all, good time is made, for the crew know the river well, and sail on (or haul on) despite darkness or infrequent rains. The party passes a nasty cold around for a while, and Llwyd gets a nasty rash from a plant, which is later treated by Mariam. It is eleven days later that the ship docks at Banghall-on-the-Deeping.
BOTD is a small fortified town, which is enclosed by a larger, unfortified town, which is an enclosed series of fairgrounds separated by palisaded wooden fences. These are empty now, and a large amount of the stalls, half timber houses and pens and stalls are barren. The town enclosed by the walls is very inhabited, however. The town is on the banks of the Rauros and the shores of the Deeping.
The Deeping is a vast, bottomless, freshwater lake, with waters so clear, so pristine, that the shipwrecks in 100' of water are clearly visible on a sunny day, festooned with Lake Trout and Pike. The lake reaches north and west, its shores are out of sight. It is ringed with mountain ranges. The mountains are rambling, himalayan style ranges. Some of the mountains have glaciers. Most of them have their peaks obscured by fluffy, white clouds.
You have never seen so many short people. There are dwarves of all persuasions and colorations, and even some smaller folk (Gnomes?) among them. This is one of the High King's trade towns, with a charter and exemption so that ALL clans can trade here without clan taxes or duties, and his Kindred and his Housecarls enforce the Ban on any Clan Feuds within a royal domain. There are clearly marked dolmens which indicate borders. Ask Ryde to read them for you.
Ryde sez:
(go find a copy of Titan by John Varley, that's close to what the finely detailed version of the Tethamagrion mark looks like)
"Well, sometimes it's simpler to make a hexagram with spokes if you're in a hurry, but the circle in the middle is important because it denotes the center of our own link to the dwarven fathers, the points outside denote our relations to the other six fathers and their clans. It also helps to remind us that we're part of the machine, a cog of sorts that keeps working. After all, the chain may lift the stone, but the wheel must turn the chain."
"The one with the seven keys hanging from a thaler, that's the mark of the baliff. Y'see the one with the wings? That's the Dhrauthodavros clan, they're surprisingly good with spears. Oh, that one there is the mark of King Tenebrion himself. Hmm, I wonder how his nephew held to his fostering? Oh, I didn't tell you? Durwar was fostered at Belegost and for a time my own son, Hyrca, was fostered with the King. Burreff, my other son, seemed more suited towards staying with Gilly. It was Hyrca recognized me when no one else did, but being an infant could not say so. It's probably for the best. By the way, I hope you all like mushrooms."
"What? I'm sorry, I can't tell you THAT. That's a secret..."