The Silver Vale, often just the Vale, is the region around Argentum, a mountain-ringed basin about sixty miles wide. It is the only land still held to be consistently safe since the Starfall. The Light of the Silver Flame protects the valley floor, and beyond the mountains lie the Sorrow and the ruins of the world before the Starfall.
Description
The Vale is the city’s breadbasket. Miles of farmsteads and hamlets spread out beyond the city walls, patrolled by the Order of the Lantern. Six miles out of Argentum, past the houses and farms around the city, the land opens onto the rolling plains of the Vale.1 The Light of the Silver Flame keeps the air of the valley floor warm enough for farming and pushes back the gloom of the Sorrow.
The Vale has four distinct seasons. Its winters are cold, harsh and dangerous, and its summers mild and productive. The chill of the Sorrow is felt most in late autumn and early winter.
The protection is weaker at the edges of the Vale. Hecate, whose coven lives near the edge, told the party it always has been, and seems to grow weaker year over year.2 The Ruined Citadel stands just outside the protection of the watchtowers. Hazel, who grew up nearby, was forbidden her whole life to go that far out, and says that far enough out you start hearing things that aren’t there.3
Watchtowers
Five massive stone towers guard the mountain passes into the Vale: Thornwatch to the north, Silverwatch to the east, Roostwatch to the south-east, Moonwatch to the south and Daggerwatch to the west.
Settlements
- Argentum, the walled city at the center of the Vale.
- Crick's Bend, a small farming and fishing town north-north-east of Argentum, about ten hours’ walk by the Old Road and a country road.4
- Dell, the largest of the farming communities.
- Erhadell, a logging village in the north-west.
- Rivercross, a river crossing and minor trade hub in the south.
- Silverthorn, a hub for hunters and trappers near the edge of woodland, well to the north-east.5
Wildlife
Hazel scented coyotes and deer in the rough ground by the river near Crick’s Bend.4 Giant spiders can be found in the Vale’s forests, but they are incredibly rare, and are not native there.6
Society
Outside Argentum, stew is very popular, since it is easy to make and easy to keep going, and pretty much anything to hand can be turned into one.2 Spicy food is uncommon, though not unheard of. Peppers and other fruits and vegetables of milder climates grow in Argentum’s greenhouses, and are found in the rest of the Vale only when someone buys them in the city.7 Adventuring is not really a profession in the Vale, which is why Dorian Draken, a retired adventurer, stands out.8
Hecate understood that most of Rhysaene’s centaur kin had left the valley some years before, and Rhysaene had heard the same from her mothers.2 Many of the Vale’s eldest citizens left it in the Elder Exodus of 1564 PSF.9
Points of Interest
- The Sisters' farm, home of the Sisters of the Shattered Mother, in the woods five miles from Silverthorn.2
- The Standing Stone, where the Sisters ward the country around their farm against the Sorrow.2
- The Woodrun River, which the Old Road follows south of Silverthorn.10
- The Ruined Citadel, near the edge of the Vale.3
History
Session 2
Luma told the party she intends to map the whole world, and reckons the Silver Vale alone will take her thirty months.5
Session 5
The party left Argentum by the Old Road, escorting Anthusa Toguri north to a new home on the edge of the Vale. Reading the tracks where the path to Thornwatch forks off, Hazel took the traffic for more sightings of the Sorrow further into the Vale.4
Session 6
At the Sisters’ farm, Hecate told the party that the protection at the edge of the Vale was weaker year over year, and that the Sisters’ wards against the Sorrow had deteriorated.2
Session 8
Rhysaene dreamed of the open fields of the Silver Vale before anyone had settled it, thick with trees and wildflowers, with centaurs dancing through its fields and glades.10
Session 14
The party found that Eliath Drace’s sketch of a grove is a map of the Silver Vale, with the Ruined Citadel marked on it. Hazel had wanted to explore the citadel all her life.3
Session 16
Hazel and Temerity sparred in a copse on the rolling plains, two hours out of Argentum.1
Session 17
Rhea Larnas told Temerity that purification means purifying the Silver Vale, not the mage.11
Session 19
The tut-krogh caterpillars Madam Kulp breeds in Argentum are not native to the Vale, and as far as she knows are the only ones in it.7
Map
