The Hamlet of Stannilode (STAN - nih - lode)

Businesses and Services

There is a "Cooperative Company Store" - a general dry goods store that sells mining tools, flour, salt, and other basic supplies (canvas, rope, lanterns, etc.). This store is run by the Karn family via the Cooperative; prices in this store tend to run at least three times higher than comparable prices in shops anywhere else in the Feywood. The only other places of business in town are the two taverns and the Cooperative assay office. A tin smeltery operation, nominally owned by the Cooperative, is set up outside the hamlet; visitors to Stannilode must pass this on their way to the village itself.

One of the taverns, the Hooded Lantern, is a "quiet drinking place" with little going on other than miners grabbing a poorly prepared meal and some cheap ale. The other, the "Swinging Pick", features gambling tables and a number of employees that provide "private entertainment" in one of the small bedrooms on the upper floor.

The assay office is where miners bring their ore for assessment and payment. Run by the Cooperative, the assayers here will grade the ore being delivered by a miner and assign it a value. 45% of that value is given to the miner; the rest is the "Cooperative share" - which means it goes into the Karn family coffers. The ore is then delivered to the smeltery just outside of town for processing.

Architecture

The village consists of a number of crude shacks erected to provide miners with basic protection from the elements when they're not actually at the mines working. The taverns, assay office, and General Goods store are all somewhat more sturdily constructed, and each of these is a two-story affair.

The smeltery outside town is constructed mostly of stone, but is built for form, not beauty.

History

The Iron Mountains have long been known to be a rich source of the metal ore for which they are named. But the range hides veins, pockets, and seams of other important materials as well.

In the year 2115CR, a prospector looking for iron came across something almost as valuable. A rich deposit of Stannite, an important tin ore, was discovered. This deposit was large, and it was rich with tin. And despite the importance of iron and the steel made from it for weapons and armor, tin retained its importance for the production of bronze and pewter. Before long there were a number of folk that had left Karnstown to try to make their fortune as tin miners in the nearby mountains.

As soon as it became obvious that the tin mines would be tremendously productive, and therefore profitable, the Karn Famiy started taking steps to ensure they would get their piece of the action. They established the Karnstown Mining Cooperative and convinced miners to join in order to provide themselves stronger collective bargaining positions over the price of ore or extracted tin, and to establish a sort of mutual insurance organization that would help out any individual member miner who fell upon hard times, or was injured in the mines. The Cooperative would build the smelter, and would handle selling of refined tin. It would also handle purchasing of supplies so individual miners would not have to trek back and forth to Karnstown.

At first, the cost of joining the cooperative was a mere 20% of tin profits, but within 2 years - after all the initial miners had committed to joining - this cost suddenly rose to 55%, with unforeseen costs cited as the reason. And, as new miners swelled the ranks of Folk in the growing hamlet, they were coerced into joining the cooperative by the Karn family agents that kept the cooperative running.

The collection of small miners' shacks, shops, and taverns remained an unnamed and unknown place on the map until the year 2120, when it officially declared itself to be the Hamlet of Stannilode.

Credits

Tokens and Character images, including side panel fey images, made by RPGDinosaurBob using HeroForge®
Banner image by RPGDinosaurBob using Flowscape on Steam.
Side panel forest images by Free-Photos from Pixabay