Sunday, August 15, 2010

Stoneborough: List of Services

Are you traveling to Stoneborough? Do you need some type of resource or service? This list shows the quantity of various types of resources/services in the Halfling Commonwealth of Stoneborough.

This was an exercise I often undertook when constructing a new community. The table comes from the 2E World Builder's Guide, which bases the number of vendors of a certain type on "population blocks" consisting of 500 citizens. Stoneborough, with 4000 Halflings, has eight population blocks - enough to find single instances of even the rarest types of services.

By contrast, Thrym's tribe of 1500 on the glacial plateau would not have a lot of the more specialized merchant types, and it would have far fewer of even the most plentiful. (In fact, Thrym's hunter/gatherer tribe bucks the norms of a settled society and would have very few of these goods/services at all.)

In the creation of Stoneborough, many of the rare crafts/trades vendors and also in the NPC Services column became named NPCs. One reader of the blog wondered about the roles of Halfling women - one named NPC was Selkie Chandler, under whom Dreyka was to apprentice. Other named NPCs whose origins can be traced to this list are Hugh Poomphower, Singe Hothammer, Malcolm Glazier, Noses Nutcracker, and Tomfinias Windsock.

6 comments:

  1. Dragoman: Typically a native of the area, this is a person who works as a guide, interpreter, and assistant to people visiting the city. Honest Dragomen help negotiate prices, keep their charges away from swindlers and bad neighborhoods, and generally make themselves indispensable.

    example: When Buckingham Huntingford wrote his "Guide to Urg'n Doth". Demetrius served as his dragoman.

    Linkboy: Hiring torch-or-lantern bearers is usually easy in any sizable town, but finding linkboys who are willing to risk life and limb in horrible dungeons is a little harder.

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  2. linkboy! awesome.
    We're gonna need as many dragomen & women as we can for the Wildlander Days Festival that's for sure.

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  3. Dreyka assumes the Festival committee will arrange for sufficient ushers and greeters among the teenaged halflings of the Commonwealth.

    Much better background image Jeffrey! Starts to feel like Stoneburrow!

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  4. hey Jeff, what an awesome blog you've put together! i am especially fond of the new "subscribe via email" featyurrreeeeeee

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  5. Now, if only I can get google to take me off their AdSense blacklist!

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