Jörðgarð Map of Week #126 - South Junction

[Mark Oliva]

southjunction_3000.jpg

With the 126th Map of the Week we take a look at the quiet village of South Junction. It has little to offer adventurers, but PC groups well may spend a night in South Junction en route to other destinations. Therefore, we're supplying a map and basic information.

Key to the Map of South Junction

1. Crossroads Inn. The inn consists of the main building, a large stall and a shed. Everything in it is made of wood. The owner and innkeeper is the 44-year-old human male merchant Dalimil. His alewife and cook is his own wife, Irma, a 40-year-old human female artisan. The public room of the inn is a popular night spot with locals. It opens daily at 16 bells (4 p.m.). Irma is no master cook but she makes decent traditional Slovanian meals. She has two varying entrées daily, always at prices of 6 and 4 bronze pieces, and bread boards with sausage and pickle at 2 bronze pieces. She brews her middle quality lager beer in the Grain Belt brewery (see above). It sells for 2 copper pieces per quart/liter tankard. There is no inn reception. Room booking is handled at the beer tap. The simple single rooms cost 5 bronze pieces nightly.

2. General Store. Widow Brigita, a 64-year-old human female merchant, runs South Junction's only general retail store. Adventurers will not find this to be an exciting stop. One can buy only basic needs and supplies here, including some textiles but excluding footwear, produce and meat. She runs the store without employees. Her complex consists of the shop, two small sheds, a woodshed and an outhouse.

3. Agáta's Footwear. Agáta, a 50-year-old spinster and master cobbler, owns one of South Junction's bigger businesses. Her business manager is her husband, Bruno, a 52-year-old human merchant. She employs eight journeyman cobblers, all human male and female artisans; six apprentice cobblers, all human male and female commoners, and eight teamster-peddlers, also human male and female commoners. She is River County's last cobbler south of North Junction and east of Mine Docks. With a business scheme developed by Bruno, Agáta has taken full advantage of the lack of cobblers in southeastern River County and northwestern Grainland County. Her cobblers make custom shoes as well as boots and readymade footwear in fixed sizes. Her eight teamster peddlers travel to almost every thorp, hamlet and small village in southeastern River County and northwestern Grainland County, where they sell readymade shoes and boots at the local markets. All eight have been thoroughly trained to take precise foot measurements for those who want custom footwear. Those customers, even in the smallest hamlets, can order precisely-made footwear and reckon with delivery about a month later. Agáta and Bruno have trained their peddlers well enough that they guarantee a perfect fit. If a custom order doesn't fit, they will take back the shoes or boots and refund the customer's payment. The South Junction workshop has no retail operation. The self-employed market stand operator Filip, a 66-year-old retired journeyman cobbler who worked for Agáta, has the exclusive right to sell her shoes on South Junction's Green Market. Bruno and Agáta live in an apartment on the shop's 2nd story.

4. Northflood Creek.

5. Green Market. The name does not come from the produce orientation of the marketplace. It's called the Green Market because it's set up in a grassy meadow rather than on cobblestones or the like. Almost all of the stands offer farm products, including smoked and cured sausage and meat. There also is a stand that sells tap Grain Belt beer and another that sells footwear from Agáta's cobbler shop. Occasionally a distant peddler comes to town with other wares. However, the exotic items that adventurers sometimes seek never are offered here. People who have such things to sell know of better markets than this one where they can offer their wares.

6. Millstream.

7. Grain Mill. South Junction is by no means a milling center. Many of the smaller villages and even hamlets along the area's waterways have their own small mills, and the mill in South Junction is just another among them. The tiny mill has twin waterwheels, one to mill grain and one to press vegetable oil, but it handles only the harvests that are brought in from farms within 10 miles/15 km of town. The mill is owned and operated by master miller Mojmír, a 41-year-old human male artisan, and his family. They include Mojmír's wife, Johana, a 38-year-old human female commoner; son Hanuš, a journeyman miller and 20-year-old human male artisan, and daughter Marta, a 17-year-old human female commoner. Farmers who bring grain to the mill pay a 10% milling commision. The may leave the mill with 90% of the millage or take only what they need and leave the rest for sale on commission.

8. Village Smithy. Master Blacksmith Hana, a 46-year-old human female artisan, owns the smithy, which concentrates solely on the blacksmith work needed by locals. She is no weaponsmith and refuses to make or repair weapons or armor. Hana employs a journeyman blacksmith, the 28-year-old human male artisan Maxim, and an apprentice blacksmith, the 15-year-old human female commoner Markéta. She is responsible for making horseshoes and shoeing horses. Hana and her husband Otmar, the 45-year-old human male merchant who is local station manager of the Royal Trading Co., live in an apartment above the smithy.

9. Royal Trading Co. Station. South Junction and its station are minor stopping points for Royal Trading. Most teamsters stop to exchange a bit of cargo, spend the night in the Crossroads Inn and then continue on. The complex consists of a warehouse where station manager Otmar, a 45-year-old merchant, has his office, and a wagon house. The teamsters keep their draught horses in the inn's stable. Otmar employs a human male commoner as a laborer. Otmar and his wife the blacksmith Hana, a 46-year-old human female artisan, live in an apartment above her smithy (Location No. .

10. Village Hall. Burgomaster Felix, a 68-year-old human male merchant-warrior and retired military officer, has his office here. Felix also is deputy commander of the village watch, a crew of 12 human male and female fighters. The commander is the unmarried 34-year-old human female warrior Pavla, who has a room on the 3rd story of the Crossroads Inn. The watch is stationed in the village hall, and it has a small local jail in the cellar of the building. Crime is rare in South Junction. The jail usually is used only to dry out drunks overnight. The village employs a treasurer-clerk, a human female merchant, and two laborers, human male and female commoners. The stable, across from the main building, houses the horses of the watch. The burgomaster and his 69-year-old wife Ema, a human female healer, live in a large house on Castle Hill. Marina urges villagers to learn to take care of their minor problems themselves, but when someone is seriously ill or injured, she still will employ her talents. She is the only healer in South Junction.


11. Marina's Wagons. Master wainwright Marina, a 40-year-old human female commoner, repairs wagons of the Royal Trading Co., but her main work is making and repairing farm wagons, carts, wheelbarrows and the like. She employs a human male artisan journeyman wainwright and an apprentice, a human female commoner. Marina and her husband, Eduard, a 39-year-old human male fighter who is a member of the village watch, live in an apartment above the wagon works.

12. Æsir Tower Ruin. Atop the northernmost tip of Castle Hill one finds a ring of large stones embedded in the ground that doubtless once formed the base of an Æsir tower. However, nothing more is known about this site in South Junction.


13. Junction Livestock. Master thief Zikmund, a 42-year-old human male fugitive from Windland, sells and trades horses. When he trades fresh horses for tired animals, he insists upon a 10% comission. He also will do all he can to lower the estimated value of the horses he receives and to exaggerate the value of those the customer receives. Considerable haggling is necessary to close a reasonable deal. Zikmund lives alone in a rented room on the 3rd story of the inn.

14. Baron Čeněk's Castle. Čeněk, a 50-year-old human male warrior who distinguished himself as a military officer in battles against orcs in the north, now rules the area around South Junction for Count Arnošt, who once was his military commander. Čeněk has a totally peaceful barony, one that requires little work on his part. But he still attempts to keep a responsible eye upon it. Corruption plays no big role with the baron or his barony; the barony lacks the wealth and resources upon which corruption thrives. Čeněk lives in the castle with his wife, Miloslava, a 47-year-old seer. Her magical eye does much to ward the barony from harm. However, Čeněk never asks his wife to use her magic for him. What she does with her talents is her business, in his opinion. If her deeds help the barony, he is grateful. When he needs works of magic, Čeněk calls upon the court mage, the 37-year-old human male wizard Milan. He lives in the tower on the castle grounds, the erstwhile keep from Æsir days. The baronial adjutant, the 49-year-old scholar Elena, also lives in the castle, along with her mentally disabled husband Norbert, a 50-year-old human warrior. He was struck by a magical spell from a dark rider draug in a battle in northern Slovania several years ago. No one has succeeded in neutralizing that effect to date. Baron Čeněk and Miloslava have two adult children. Both work as merchants in the employ of Distant Trails Trading in Windland.

You can get this map in two versions:

1. The Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 version in FMP format, fully editable (33 MB) from the Jörðgarð website.

2. As a JPG flat map of 3000 Pixels x 2250 Pixels (2,4 MB), available above.
Both versions are released for personal and commercial use under the Open Game License Version 1.0a, which you can read on the Jörðgarð website at:

The Jörðgarð World

Next Week: South Junction: The Crossroads Inn

[foremost]

Wow, must have taken a while to type up that key! Cool reference though, really added to the map.

For criticism, I think the roads might need some improvement; especially on what appears to be the main road, the edges are dead-straight and the bricks perfect. In a small town, as you described this to be, there'd be no way they could maintain or lay those roads that well. Heck, they're better looking than my state's highway! From my basic (basic) understanding of computer maps, everything is an object or a pattern, so it might be harder than it looks to fix something like that. But I also know computer mapping has a wide scope and, if you can detail the stream that well, the roads could be improved.

There's also the road diversity: like four different types of road here: the stone bridge (MASSIVE blocks), the main road (perfect bricks), the lesser-road (rocks), and then a driveway-looking road. I think the map would benefit from using only one type of road, if possible.

The HD of this map astounds me by the way.

[Mark Oliva]

For criticism, I think the roads might need some improvement; especially on what appears to be the main road, [SNIP] if you can detail the stream that well, the roads could be improved.

Good points. I think some of this map was made in just a bit too much of a hurry.