Adderfell

🔈 (AD-er-fell)

Adderfell is set on the edge of a small lake, below a towering waterfall. The most striking feature of the town, besides the stone walls obviously kept in good repair, is a cliff rising from the edge of the lake with a keep on top of it. Outside the walls, there is a stretch of reeds, willows, and cattails, among which you can see a glimpse of some wooden huts on raised piers. Along the walls as you approach, you can also see a number of wood and thatch buildings that have grown up near the town, many of which look pretty run down.

Adderfell is an old city, originally founded as the seat of the provincial governor when Addermarch was a Drankorian province, on a small lake that marks the height of navigation of the Aure. It is a center of trade and commerce, where products from the Aure river valley (chiefly apple brandy and cider, but also timber and metal) are gathered and shipped downriver by merchant houses.

Major features of the city include:

• The ancient Drankorian market plaza, a great square paved with white marble that seems to resist wear, and featuring a large fountain in the center, which magically replenishes itself. The old governor’s mansion, on the plaza, remains and is now a private dwelling.
• The central feature of Adderfell visible from a distance is a striking cliff rising in the middle of town. The land generally slopes down in rolling hills dotted with orchards towards the lake, but here there is a remnant of harder stone jutting out of the landscape, upon which the Earl’s manor is perched.
• The Earl’s manor, perched on a rocky outcropping above the city. While three sides of the outcropping are sheer cliffs, isolating the manor from the town below, on the western side (towards the walls) the slope, while steep, is scalable. Leading down from the manor is a switchback road carved into the side of the hill (also ancient), which passes through a series of barracks and meets the defensive fortifications of the main town gate. 
• A substantial lizardfolk community, living outside the walls in a swampy area of cattails and reeds.
• The large Temple of the Father, the patron deity of Adderfell.

Additional Notes

• Apples Everywhere. The area has several local customs devoted to unique ways of cooking and drinking apples. For example, a custom especially espoused by the locals who have lived in town for a while is to serve a glass of an apple cordial, sometimes poured over sharp apple or pear sorbet, both in between courses and as a dessert. In the busy dockyards, small market stands offering a hot meat pie and a glass of a low-grade apple brandy for lunch are everywhere. The lizardfolk have also adapted apples in their cuisine, and are known for seafood dishes incorporating apples or apple brandy, including a lake fish with apples specialty and freshwater mussels with apple brandy. This “lizard cooking” has a loyal following among some (although not all) the humans in town.
• Brandy Production. Much of the economy of Adderfell is driven by the three major merchant houses that, under license from the Earl, produce the famous apple brandy of Addermarch and control the brandy trade: House Caford, House Aedmor, and House Rawley. The warehouses, distilleries, and cellars of these brandy houses are all based in Adderfell, adjacent to the docks, where barrels are loaded onto ships for transport downriver to Eskbridge and beyond.
• Halflings and the Winter Market. The roads of Addermarch, excepting the old Drankorian provincial road from Eskbridge to Addermarch, are relatively poor, and rain, mud, and snow in the higher elevations make travel unpleasant and difficult from December to April. Many wandering halfling caravans have thus begun spending a large part of this time in settled camps on the outskirts of Adderfell. They usually arrive in late November or December, and stay until the mud season ends between mid-March and late April, selling trade goods and the like and spending the cooler and rainier parts of winter off the roads, which turn to mud. When the first traveling groups arrive, they set up a Winter Market on the outskirts of the city, along the lake, which is typically a big and exciting event, celebrated with feasts and performances.