Torm's Hill

Torm's Hill
General Information
Constructed	Before the Calamity
Current leader	Klasara Bandy and Nez Pilch (at the end of the Calamity)
Location Information
Plane	Material Plane (Exandria)
Continent	Gwessar
Region	Rifenmist Peninsula
Societal Information
Population	1200 (at the end of the Calamity)

Torm's Hill was a settlement in the Hallowroot Hills, the foothills at the southern end of the Stormpoint Mountains of Gwessar, during the Calamity.

Description

Torm's Hill was originally a stronghome, a large, dwarven-made, stone "cottage" built into the hill and covered with sod; grass and trees grew on top. It featured a huge fireplace. During the Calamity, a briar wall was grown around it. Around the time of the Divergence, there were goat pens, natural footpaths, a town square that had been spontaneously created, and a tall stone with Dwarvish runes helping to mark the location of a secret chamber for the storage of ale and salted meats. Deep in the forest and among the foothills of the tall mountain chain, it was hard to see.

Near Torm's Hill was a small river called the Larksbrook that flooded with the rains brought by the Stormlord to the region in the closing days of the Calamity. There was an improvised cemetery between the Larksbrook and the town.

Society

The citizens of Torm's Hill were mostly refugees, running away from the war and/or the regime of the Strife Emperor. Although founded by hill dwarves, by the time of the Divergence they weren't as present, as the most common ancestries were humans, halflings, and goblinoids, with some gnomes and half-elves, and scattered members of other races like tiger-folk and kenku.

Notable people

Name	Type	Description
Klasara Bandy	NPC	A halfling woman, and co-leader with her wife.
Nez Pilch	NPC	A goblin woman and co-leader with her wife.
Luz	NPC	A tiefling cleric of the Moonweaver.
Bulray	NPC	A bugbear who used to worship the Strife Emperor.
Ondetra	NPC	A water genasi woman.
Bowdley brothers	NPC	Connor, Owen, and Rowan, three young halfling thieves that love to drink and are considered slightly insane by their neighbors.
Otto and Taveen	NPC	Allies of Fiedra Marrow and Crokas, and members of the Roach Gang.
Gond Gulfsome	NPC	A bugbear, former prisoner in Rybad-Kol.
Coswald	NPC	A green dragonborn, former prisoner in Rybad-Kol.
Celeste, Celwyn, and Celdria	NPC	Blue dragonborn family, former prisoners in Rybad-Kol.

History

Torm's Hill was named for the hill dwarf smith whose family built the home there. Garen had either a vision or a memory of visiting the community with some of the other mountain dwarves from Uthtor at least once in its early days. At the beginning of the Calamity, a group of goblins took over, but they left to join the Strife Emperor's armies. Covertly, some halflings moved in, built a large briar wall around it, and started a community of usually two to three dozen people led by two matriarchs, Klasara Bandy and her goblin wife Nez Pilch. Eventually at least two more structures were added around the original home.

More than a year before the Divergence, the parents of Rei'nia "Nia" Saph and Liana passed through Torm's Hill. Liana went out to find their parents, and had agreed to meet her sister at Torm's Hill before going their separate ways. She joined a traveling party (which included Erro Mordaurum, Starmian Fiddleflask, and Gond Gulfsome), but on the way to Torm's Hill, followers of the Strife Emperor captured them and took them to Rybad-Kol. Erro had passed through Torm's Hill a number of times, getting to know Klasara and Nez (and telling them that their settlement wouldn't last), before he was captured.

Liana made it to Torm's Hill, and waited many months for her sister, not knowing that Rei'nia had been captured and imprisoned. Eventually, she received a vision of her parents at Snowgrave Pass and left to try to find them there, instructing Luz to tell Nia to remain at Torm's Hill.

In the days immediately surrounding the Divergence, many refugees fleeing the ash-choked Beynsfal Plateau found their way to Torm's Hill, which was taking in survivors. About 1200 people had already flooded in, and among this diverse group were many goblin peasants who had been forced to farm for the Strife Emperor's strongholds on the plateau. In addition to tents stolen from the strongholds, many ramshackle structures had just been erected around the original ones, and the makeshift encampment was overwhelmed and disorganized, when Rei'nia, Gond, and several other companions arrived. One of those companions, Garen, found stores of ale and salted meat in a secret chamber, helping to ensure survivors would be fed, and then helped to dam a nearby stream of runoff that threatened part of the encampment. Soon thereafter, however, a group of seven hobgoblins loyal to the Strife Emperor—but far enough afield that they hadn't eaten in three days—arrived and tried to cow the settlement into submission. However, some of Rei'nia's most capable companions, starting with Erro, began resisting the hobgoblins and inspired many others to join in, a handful at a time, until they overwhelmed and killed the invaders.

After things calmed down, Torm's Hill was left to expand and use the resources of the valley nearby. They were also prepared to organize some form of defenses in case they were attacked again.

References

Art: