Hollowhill

By day, this fog shrouded community seems to be a typical Flannish city, if perhaps even more ordered and disciplined than most. By night, this impression changes radically, as the city's true rulers make their presence known: The Court of Shadows, a powerful group of fey creatures. Anyone caught in the outside becomes their plaything, and no matter how desperate the plea, no citizen of Hollowhill will unlock a door or open a window after nightfall.

Politically and economically, the city is dominated by nearby Dartmouth. It remains marginally independent instead of being absorbed into the Calfron Protectorate because the larger city is reluctant to confront the Court of Shadows, not knowing how powerful these fey are - though anyone who can find out more about the Court's strength and weaknesses will be well rewarded by interested parties there. If he survives the discovery, that is.

The main export of Hollowhill are its large supplies of lumber which feed the shipbuilding industries of Calfron.

Religion

Hatramo, who helps the people endure their otherworldly secret rulers, and Kortus, representing the cycle-of-life of the predominantly agrarian and pastoral area, are the two largest faiths in Hollowhill. There is a steady trickle of firebrand priests from elsewhere who want to save the city from the fey, but most of them quickly vanish without a trace.

History

Hollowhill's history is suspiciously unremarkable. Over the centuries it grew slowly but steadily, and even its revolutions and other changes in its "official" government happened quietly, with a minimum of violence and bloodshed, thanks to the secret influence of the Court of Shadows. The most recent upwheal is perhaps instructive: After the end of the Liberation War, numerous unemployed mercenary groups roamed the region. One of the larger units, the Corbyn's Raiders under the command of one self-styled Major John Corbyn, decided to conquer the city of Hollowhill and set themselves up as its new rulers. The city surrendered without a fight.

However, during the next week the city was wreathed in a thick mist, day and night. First lone soldiers started to vanish in it without a trace, and no amount of searching and intimidating the citizens returned them. Then whole squads started to vanish. After this, the Major barricaded himself into the City Hall, but even there the mist entered and his soldiers were dragged out by unseen monsters. After this, Corbyn and his remaining soldiers decided to try and make a break for it and escape the mist, but after they left the city limits no trace of them was ever found. The citizens of Hollowhill just barricaded themselves into their own homes and waited for the screams to stop and the mists to vanish...