Eldenmoor

The oldest inhabitants of the Eldenmoor valley will tell you that the land here is old in a way that other land is not. That the stones in the walls of the castle predate the castle itself. That the forest on the eastern slopes has never been fully cleared, never been fully mapped, and that this is not an oversight but an agreement. That the river running through the market village has a name in the old tongue that translates, roughly, as the one that doesn't forget.

History

The history of Eldenmoor is the history of the valley itself, and the valley is old enough that the early chapters have blurred into legend. The first permanent settlement was the village, a cluster of timber longhouses beside the river ford, established by farming families seeking better soil and shelter from coastal raids. The castle came later, built on the promontory above the river bend by a lord known in local tradition simply as the Founder, who understood that the promontory commanded the river crossing, the road through the valley pass, and the sight lines in every direction that mattered.

The castle grew as the valley grew. By the high medieval period, Eldenmoor Castle had withstood three sieges, survived two fires, and outlasted the families of four separate lords who had each assumed they would be the ones to finally bring it down.

The Castle

What visitors notice immediately is an atmosphere of extraordinary endurance. The walls are thick enough that rooms within them have their own temperature, their own sound, their own specific quality of light. The great hall, with its high timber roof and its enormous fireplace, can hold the whole valley community at a feast and leave room to spare.

The lord's solar faces south and west, catching the afternoon light and looking out across the valley toward the tree line of the eastern forest. The view has not changed significantly in five hundred years.

The Village

The village of Eldenmoor is a working market town of perhaps four hundred souls, swelling on market days when the surrounding farms send their people in to trade. The market square is paved with irregular stone flags worn smooth by centuries of feet and hooves. The market cross at its center is old enough that no one is certain what exactly it was commemorating when it was raised.

The Blacksmith's forge is the loudest building in the village, which means it is also its heartbeat. The Apothecary and Herbalist has been selling medicines, tinctures, and the occasional remedy of more ambiguous classification since the fourteenth century. The Pier Inn is the village's gathering place, a full establishment with a common room, six sleeping chambers, a stable yard, and a reputation for a particular style of slow-cooked river fish.