Pevin
Pevin is smaller than Hob, consisting of a score of sod or stone houses with thatched roofs clustered around a small square. The decaying and collapsed remains of two dozen more dwellings form an outer ring around the village proper. To the west, a quarter mile off, several bells shaped chimneys rise up, only one of which is currently smoking. Those familiar with metallurgy recognize them as crude smelters used to refine iron ore.
The road continues through Pevin, leading south to a large stone structure a half-mile further down the road. Another track bends east, away from the river, leading off into the distance. The Keep itself is squat and square, with low stone walls, a tower at each corner and a taller structure rising from within the walls. Even at this distance it is possible to see that the walls are not in good repair; the tower on the northeastern corner has partially collapsed, along with much of the eastern wall.
No one seems to own the iron mines outside of Pevin. There was a lordling who ruled there, but I think no one has claimed that land for years. The mines are communal, probably, owned and worked by the local peasants. And it is not unusual that it was abandoned. At the start of this Cycle the north was much safer than the south; there are several colonies of the Princedom there, as well. You have to understand how much the times of Chaos hurt trade and travel; we are just on the process if expansion again, ten years on. The Principality is short on metals -- iron especially, although the mines up north are helping -- and Pevin has both the mines and the smelters.
Learned later: Pevin and Hob were once the foremost urban centers of a County, several Cycles ago. There was a great trade road that ran east to west, across a bridge that once spanned the Sarn in Hob. The mines of Pevin were renowned throughout the area for both the output and quality of the ore, and its iron was shipped to the great cities of the east and west. But Tamen collapsed, some say to plague, others to civil war, and the road to Kesig was cut off by bandits, ogres and worse. The Count and his family died in a fire in their Keep, according to legend, and their ghosts still roam the decaying halls.
For years the mines sat idle, the smelters cold. There was some digging, mostly to produce ore for the smithies in Hob and Pevin, but for all intents and purposes the folk in the area turned farmers and herders. Most of the mining that was done was not for iron but for a mineral, called praum by the locals, that could sometimes be found alongside the iron veins. About two years prior the mining camp began to swell -- some folks from Pevin moving back out, some coming from Hob to seek their fortunes and others from the surrounding countryside. The smelters were fired up again, so ore is obviously being produced. It was around this tie that roving bands of rough men and women, bandits by the look, began to frequent Pevin more and more, traveling along the ancient trade roads. Some of the townsfolk suspect that they are moving the ore to new markets.
Learned still later: During her time ministering the wounded Hira gleans some information about the basic power structure of Pevin. It, like Hob, is overseen by a Council of Elders, composed of five souls: Wilgrim Waverly is the chief councilor, a man in his mid-forties, tall and broad in stature. Wilgrim is a shepherd and farmer with a freehold just outside of Pevin and seems to be well-like and respected by all. He has a large brood; ten children in all. Andza and Carbeo An are sister and brother, both in their sixties. Carbeo is rumored to be addicted to Black Lotus, a drug not known to grow locally. This dependence is the reason his house has fallen into neglect and disrepair over the past few years. Andza is three or four years his elder and is said to be as sharp as a tack. She is also the sole -- as far as anyone can tell -- owner of the mines and has grown relatively rich running a dry goods store within the mining camp. There is a blacksmith named Betda Romes on the Council; her forge is located on the outskirts of Pevin. There are whispers that she is a witch, consorting with black powers that visit her at night. The final member of the Council is a priest named Cansa Wen, a half-senile doddering fool who maintains the village's lone shrine, devoted to some local god named Mekris.
Karag spends a second week skulking about and peering into shadowy corners. He hears and sees several interesting tidbits. Once, while lurking by an open window in Pevin's lone tavern, hears a whispered conversation about a man named Willen d'Azure, promised wealth, the sale of iron ore and hints of weapons and war. Another time he espies a quartet of men ride into town from the southwest. They are clad in blacks and browns, of dapper and distinguished cut, and all wear boots soled in red leather. The riders spend about three hours or so in the miners' camp before riding back to the southwest. Their horses ride somewhat slower, it seems, on the way out. Finally, while mosyeing around the camps he comes upon a circle in the grass, beaten down as if by many feet, some thirty feet in diameter. In the center of the circle he finds the remains of a fire; the charred sticks that are left are arranged in an arcane fashion that leaves his eyes watering and crossed if he examines it too closely. He also notes the smell of cinnamon in the air, ever so faintly.
Rumor: Some evil being -- a changeling or skinwalker -- roams the hills around Pevin, devouring the souls of those unfortunate enough to get in its way.
Imprisoned in the Pevin mine is a minor god called Nachthudhrasa, a small, local arachnid deity which was recognized to manifest in the grasslands and hills miles south of Rhea's Ford. The legends say that Nachthudhrasa is confined underground, bound by chains of silver and the influence of some sort of font of Law, and has been imprisoned so for the past six or seven Cycles.
