[Region 1][Map 07][Location 02] Snapgallows

[SeerBlue]

part 3


Gimphor finished tamping his pipe and paused to set the leaf to light, drawing lightly on the stem until the bowl glowed cherry red.
“Three days later the yard marshaled out again, and two weeks after that we humped back in, it went on loike this for three quarters of the season, in and out below Keel's stickling eye and bobbing hand, through the full winter, planting, tending, and right on into Harvest time next.”
A slow smile crept over Gimphor's face, “Then one day four men wearing the Guild bosses livery trotted in ahorse, rode in the gate while us vanners was slogging out. Caused a good bit of confusion it did, but Old Man Keel payed them no mind, he just kept on tallying loads going out, by our numbers, you know.”
“Yes”, slurred Tab, a good swig of Castellar swirling about his mouth, “on your carter's cap.”
“Vanner's, carter's gots a brim” said Gimphor tapping his head, totally unaware that his cap, which he had worn for most of his life, now sat squarely under the foot of a burly Thanelander, soaked in warm piddle. “Caps, hmmm, well in a short bit, them liveried men are yelling up at Keel, he's ignoring the lot of them, hand just a bobbin above his naahhhhggggin” Gimphor blew out a large smoke ring and giggled, as did Tab.
“Them four start jostling their horses about, horses which didn't like the press of carter's nags around them one bit, and they git all skittish and set to rearing up. This sent vanners and carters slogging every which way, in and out the gate”.

“That's when I, and most others, new something weren't roight, you never went back in Keel's gate once he tallied you out, not 'til after you had delivered your load and humped another back.... Now there was vanners and carters either scrambling to git away from the horses, or staring up at Keel, his hand high over his head, bobbing away as always.....”

“Odd, most odd” intoned Tab, his hand fluttering above his head mimicking how he imagined Keel looked on his perch, no matter the weather.

“Dead odd” intoned Gimphor, mimicking Tab, mimicking Keel. “And that whats he was, dead, dead as you can git after most of a year perched out in Fentor weather, from the first snowfall to the next years harvest.”
“You say not” exclaimed Tab, his hand quickly dropping to the table to lift his glass, fully aware of the fact that mimicking the dead be number three of the unlucky nine sins. “Dead, all that time!”
“Yup” replied Gimphor, suddenly realizing that his hand still bobbed above him, so he batted at a ribbon of smoke quickly and then reached for his Castellar. “ Seems them liveried riders came half way cross Ansium, from the boss hisself, cause Keel's tally sheets stopped being delivered, last one they got was from the inbound hump before the snow storm I telled you of, or did I.”
“Hmm,” mused Tab for a moment, “I do believe you did.”
“Roight, then” said Gimphor as he tried to regain the thread of his tale, “oh yes. Any way, one of those horsemen sent a carter climbing up the ladder to Keel, to have a looksie, you know, but he didn't pick a very smart one, twere 'ol Onecup. So this carter clambers up and has a look about, pokes Keel a bit, and then another look, so the horsemen yells up “Well, is he dead?”
“Who” old Bertie Onecup yells back.
“KEEL” the horsemen bellows up.
“OVER DEAD” Bertie bellows down, and then he piddled off of the perch onto the horsemen below....

Tab guffawed loudly, fine Castellar spraying the table, Moikel poked his head in the leaf room door, shook it and disappeared.
“Ahhh, Gimphor, you've had me boot this whole time, haven't you now”
“What you mean, Tab,” Gimphor replied, positive he had not taken Tab's boot, ever.
“KEEL OVER DEAD, that's grand, and then he piddled on the liveried men and their horses, grand I say. As a keep, I've heard a tale or two, but never one loike that, I had no idea it was a boot pull 'til the very end.”
“What's a boot pull? You've got me fuddled, Tab”
“Why it's a joke, a tall tale designed to draw the listener in, to make them think it is true, until the very end, and then you “pull the boot”, or yank their leg, I think it is called in the outland, Gimphor, where perhaps all are bootless.”
“It ain't no tall tale, Tab, it's true, any carter out there”, Gimphor waved his hand at the door, taking great pains that it did not bob in the least bit, “ will tell you the same, it's as true as them stumbling corpses I seen today, I swear it!”
The smile slipped from Tab's face and he set his pipe and glass to the table. “Yes, those, Gimphor,” Tab looked deep into Gimphor's eyes.. “I believe you Gimphor, I do, that you saw corpses walk, and Keel was dead, all that time...”
“Tamp your pipe afresh, my friend, and refill your glass, and I will tell you a tell , it will have no ending loike yours, I assure you, its the Tell of the Mid-Tending Hop ....

At the hop....at the hop...


Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!

Well, you can rock it you can roll it
You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop

DANNY AND THE JUNIORS

More to come, as old Horsehair wants a tell of dancing skeletons, bahhing like sopped sheep interrupting a festival.....and so we shall search one out in the dusty annals of West Fentor.

SeerBlue

[Redrobes]

Thats awesome - as usual, it seems !

Its so bizarre to have mapped an area from nothing, patched it together like a Frankenstein of Cartography and then for it to spring into life like this with your text. I put a red dot down and now people are living there. They're real - and scared it transpires !

Brings a tear to the eye. Dare not post in case there is more to follow. I gives me an appreciation of how powerful the text can be. A picture might be worth a thousand words but no map could convey one tenth of that.

[SeerBlue]

We thank you most heartily, as it is high praise from the Lands Creator, as you have been dubbed by the FHCO's...Honestly most of the stories are driven by the kids, they are so insightful and make me work at it. They pick little things out of the air and throw it at me,,"make a story out of that" they seem to say somedays Luckily we don't have a video camera or they would suggest (again) we tape a session of tells, which would reveal that SeerBlue owns a collection of very, very old muppets, a not so new Marvin the Martian puppet, a few japanese puppets and several oddling voices for the menagerie.
Yes the muppets and all are mine and they are older than my Daughter BumbleMouse, in fact I am pretty sure most are older than my oldest Mt Bike, which turns 20 at the end of june (A Cunningham designed titanium frame which caused me no end of import problems in England way back when,,,"it's worth 'ow much, oy, you Yanks is right off you are" or some such is what I heard over and over, until they finally let me take it home.) Ahh youth.
As the kids are keen to play in Thrubmorton Fen, and Carols husband has some friends who D and D a lot, we are going to compile a pdf they can show them, and say "our Snapgallows is roight Ficked, compared to your little realm"
I was told I should have chosen a better word than Fick or Ficked, meaning lovingly crafted., cool, and so on, especially as Lemur uses it now,,,,though the pronunciation varies, she is only 3 after all.

It will be a few days before another Lonnnng post goes up, I created Photoshop monsters, and we have to sort through their creations to find ones that fit what we have written,,,or rewrite a bit....Old Lisbet, of the purple topped wagon, also known as BumbleMouse, now looks like she has embraced the Punk culture of the Sex Pistols era, purple and orange whisps of hair protruding from beneath her hat. See below, PS'ed by BumbleMouse, and Ole Horsehair, or maybe Raske Elly, the Wyvern trainer....I don't know for sure but I will find out,,,,,once they read this,,,,from this original image
russell lee klika
attribution license

SeerBlue and the FHCO's+1

[SeerBlue]

Wow, I just realized, from looking at the original image when I checked the link, how much they did,,,,I am going to take Photoshop lessons from them,,,how did they modify the nose and chin. I only have PS elements or some such, I think they have CS2.....ahhh youth, and the parents who indulge their creativity....
I think I have to email my Mom, I am sure she has missed 20 or so birthdays
SeerBlue

[SeerBlue]

I have a new found respect for the poor souls we have dropped into West Fentor, as for the last three days I have been putting in a garden the old fashioned way, by hand,,,,,its only 60 by 30 feet so nothing major, but it made me realize that the citizens of the CWBP who work the land ain't got it easy...
Any way, as far as Snapgallows goes we have a good sized chunk of terrain modelled and I am now working the kinks out of dropping the buildings which the kids did in sketchup onto the terrain. Luckily the skp's "remember" their position so I just have to save them out in small groups or individually from the original file and import them into the one with the terrain. The first thing to go in was the walls and towers that are still standing, so here is a render.
The original is like 3000x2000 pixels, so this is scaled down.
SeerBlue and the FHCO's

Gwillam's Seat: an ancient artifact that sits upon the summit of a small hill north of Snapgallows.
It has rested there longer than Snapgallows, or Haughley before it, has existed.
Its true purpose is unknown, though it is said to have been once secured in the Vault of Restricted Artifacts, under the watchful eyes of the Circle of Wizards Society, (CoWS).
Rumour, or local legend, maintains that the very same Fick, who built Alfert Kiers gallows, is responsible for Gwillam's Seat being inadvertently deposited atop the hill, as his previous lot in life, before building gallows, was as the Fetcher in the Vault.
The Seat is the current resting place of the standing corpse of Alfert Kier, still headless, I am sure.

Sevener's Wall, the feeble attempt of the Seven Families to prevent their dead ancestors from entering the village and consuming the flesh of their descendants, as cursed by Alfert. Truly a greedy lot, instead of repairing the ancient walls which extend north of Snapgallows they settled on erecting a smaller barrier, scavenged from the decaying walls, against the Sevener's incursions.
(See the Wiki for more detailed info on Gwillam's Seat and the Seveners.)

The Marshalling Yard. Maintained by the Caravaners Guild. Here is the place that Vanners and Carters, along with their guards, arrive in and depart from Snapgallows with their goods. In order to properly tally arrivals and departures, entering is from the South East gate and departing is from the South West gate. ( See the story of Gimphor Lope, A WAYS ABOVE IN THIS THREAD, for information on Vannners, Carters and the Guild.)

[SeerBlue]

just a quick post of structures going into the terrain, the FHCO's haven't got fully to grips with Sketchups stamp tool yet, but as it is their first go we will keep the effect and fit the story to it. For this set of buildings, as I am sure the will figure it out.
These are the Caravaner's Guild offices, home to the different Talliers and Disbursers employed by various Guild members to oversee their business in Snapgallows.
SeerBlue

[Redrobes]

I forgot another superb resource of character images. On EnWorld there is a guy called Storn A Cook who is prolific with his insanely high quality characters, tho many are superhero types. Many (if not all) on there are released with a CC SA-NC-Attrib licence so you can repost.

Start here and have a tissue handy to mop the drool...
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=161795

[torstan]

Good call Redrobes, it's quite a thread.

[SeerBlue]

Great find Redrobes, I will have to let the Orc's stroll thru it.
Here is another update to Snapgallows, FHCO style, they have family coming from back East next week so they want something to show that has a finished look, so we knocked together a small section of the village, forced folks to take up residence, and discovered there is a vast system of tunnels underneath Snapgallows Village, used by the common folk to circumvent the control/petty rules of the Seven Families. (they were actually trying to drape paths and roads on the terrain in sketchup, dropped them underground, and quicker than Kier, we had a tunnel network.)
I will be quite busy this week, I think, finishing up the girls garden during the day, and writing tells for the new characters they discovered living next to Hebbies' Ale House....Personally, I like the name Odduck (pronounced odd duck) the Grand, now I just have to find out who he is and what his story be.
Any suitably odd wizardling tales out there.
SeerBlue

[SeerBlue]

Just a view to show that the tunnels are beneath the the ground.
SeerBlue