Seacroft-on-Sea

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Population: 600
Village, with a population of 600-odd Humans; not to be confused with the town of Seacroft a few miles due south.

(Seacroft-on-Sea is located at the bottom corner of 05-020 on the Frontiers of Alusia map).

The village is located on the north side of an area of ruins (the remains of the town it once was), and is run down and very poor. There is no general store, inn or tavern; the last two inns built in the village were burnt down under mysterious circumstances. The locals shun outsiders, many seeming not to be able to speak Common.

The village is behind on its taxes to the Duke but given the state of the village and lack of trade the Duke holds little hope of things improving.

History

The original port of Seacroft was founded in 740 WK -- the year of Bolton's Peace - on the eastern side of Crofter's Cove some forty miles north-west of Seagate on the site of an older village (that predated the resettlement of the Carzalan region).

The small port, serving the western parts of the rapidly expanding Barony of Carzala, grew quickly and by the mid 50s had become a prosperous and bustling town. Seacroft's fortunes continued to grow until the terrible winter of 759.

That year, unusual storms raged through Confederation Bay and ravaged the coast of Carzala. On Yuletide night, enormous waves crashed into the Seacroft docks, destroying ships, piers, warehouses, and homes, and swamping much of the frozen down. The damage was catastrophic, leaving many homeless and financially ruined in the freezing winter, and sounded a death knell for the port.

While many of the residents fled to Seagate or to other family members for shelter, the city alderman relocated the town council to the village of Pineton, a few miles inland to the south, intending to ride out the winter and begin rebuilding in the spring. When spring came and the damage was fully surveyed there were arguments among the council whether the port could be revived. Interim housing was being thrown up in Pineton, businesses reopened, and the markets hosted there. By late autumn little work had been done on restoring the port and already residents were referring to Pineton as "the new Seacroft". Some of the port's residents did return to their ruined town and rebuilt as best they could, but the port's hey-day was over and it never recovered.

In summer of 763 the now town of Pineton officially changed its name to "New Seacroft", but over the next decade the "New" was quietly dropped, and when the original port town was referred to at all it became known in the town as "Old Seacroft", while the residents who had returned to the ruined site stubbornly clung to the original name. By 770 even Baronial documents referred to the new town simply as "Seacroft", and when the census of 771 surveyed the area after the death of Baron Bolton, the old port, now recorded as "Seacroft-on-Sea" was named one of the villages under the local control of Seacroft; an act hailed by residents of the town and soundly denounced by the residents of the former port.

GM Notes

  • A Guild party believes some sort of sea monster has a hold of some kind over the locals.
    • A Kraken on a cart was charming the locals into a odd water cult.