Anshan

Approach to the Thorpe

Wind pushes low cloud across a wide, wet sky. The land sags. Ditches show water even where the lane climbs. Ahead, a narrow stream slides north past a huddle of houses. A mill’s wheel turns slow and stubborn, slapping the current; a boy with a stick-spear watches the weeds for frogs and pretends not to watch you. North side, a new earth-and-log berm scabs along the edge of town. South side, cottages lean and sink—one roof already gone under, like a bad memory being swallowed. The stone church sits square in the middle of it all, clean lines and hard corners, pretending nothing fails here. A crow calls. Somewhere a dog argues with the wind and loses.

Crossing the Bridge

The bridge is old timber gone soft at the edges. A hand-painted plank says: “One at a time.” The wood answers under your boots—deep, wet groans like something breathing. On the far bank, faces flicker in doorways and go away. Market stalls sit open but uninterested; nods come slow, if they come at all. Ground past the bridge gives a little with each step, a quiet, ugly squish—water-logged flesh under thin skin. The mill keeps its rhythm. The church keeps its silence. A hammer ticks somewhere on scaffolding, and then even that stops to listen.

A barely surviving thorpe clinging to a strip of higher ground where the Asbury meadows fray into the Fens of Tor. Marsh-hunters, leechers, herb gatherers, and eel-trappers eke out a living. A south-to-north stream skirts the settlement’s east verge; a waterlogged, decayed plank-bridge admits cart traffic from Penwick—but no true road continues east into the Fens. A single patrol trail hugs the stream north–south for Mounted Borderers and gatherers.

Thorp of Anshan Bridge by 3orcs

• Tone: sodden boots, thin smiles, and watchful windows; the quiet, prying patience of wetlands.
• Economy: marsh game (eels, frogs, snapping turtles), hides, leeches, rare herbs and fungi (marsh saffron, witch’s cap, puffball spore), rendered fats, smoked fish.
• Religion: a practical Cuthbertine sternness on market-days; road-prayers to the Dweller on the Horizon before long treks.
• Authority: Captain Para Roanik’s small Borderer detail holds the only real order; the “mayor” is a title nobody claims.

Getting there & layout

• Approach from the west (Penwick road): lane runs through sparse Asbury meadows before the ground sags. Hedgerows thin to willow and alder; water shows in the ditches even in dry weather.
• Stream: flows south → north along the thorpe’s eastern edge, feeding reed-beds and a mill-pond cove upstream.
• Bridge: a waterlogged, decayed wood bridge—bowed planks, spongy rails, pegs loose—still carries handcarts and light wagons if you dismount and lead. A posted plank reads (in a careful local hand): “One at a time.”
• Roads: none beyond the thorpe. No cart road crosses the Fens. A narrow patrol/gatherer trail tracks the stream bank north–south, half-boarded in places, flagged with ragged blue cloths so you can find it in fog.
• Defenses: stubby earth-and-log berms on the north face; the rest relies on water, mud, and watch-eyes. (Reflected in your prior notes.)

Notable locations

1. Mirewatch House

abandoned noble seat, quietly haunted

A once-comely manor now sunk on its haunches: lintels black with damp, roofline bending, rain-gutters torn like broken ribs. A cracked heraldic plaque above the porch has bled rust into the plaster. Wind goes through it as if the house has learned to breathe.

• Owner of record: Harl “Harry” Ashford, last living scion—now a vacant-eyed drunk who spends his days and nights at the tavern. For the price of ale, he’ll scrawl a letter of transfer to “whoever keeps the roof off my head and the bottle in my hand.” He does not possess the seal; it’s “somewhere in the house,” he slurs (true).
• Use Mirewatch as your “noble seat reclamation” hook, a place to sleep rough (ill-advised), or an anchor for a mid-arc restoration scene.

2. Alston’s Mill (working)

Stone base, timber upper, undershot wheel turning in a sluggish side-channel. Inside: flour bins, eel-racks smoking over a low trench, and bundled marsh herbs strung from rafters to dry. Praen Alston minds the mill and his brood; Sherina keeps the books and the blades. (Keep prior NPCs; tone down prosperity.)

3. Church of the Cudgel (St. Cuthbert)

Square, sturdy, stone—by far the best-made building. The curate Waldere Elvery still keeps candles and stern homilies, but attendance is thin except on levy days and funerals. A wayside shelf out front holds a small horizon-disc for road blessings.

4. The Bog & Barrel

A low, smoke-brown house of beams and stone that leans into the weather. The common room smells of malt, cabbage, and damp wool. Ailred runs the bar with a vinegar rag and a counting eye. Harl Ashford holds court here, trading stories for drink and flashing the crumpled land letter like a playing card.

• Rooms: creaking boards, damp bedding, and a rumor that “one bed never dries.”
• Cellar: rat-gnawed sacks, a boarded culvert opening toward the stream (half-forgotten smugglers’ hole), and a sour-reek that comes and goes with the tide of marsh air.

(Replaces “The Jolly Farmer,” preserves your interior flavor.)

5. Mounted Borderer Station - Anshan & Rising Watch-Tower

Timber stacks, rope hoists, and a half-raised platform over a stone foundation. Captain Para Roanik runs a taut yard; most bunks are empty because most boots are out on patrol. A bounty board lists recent raids and animal attacks, with notes pinned by reed-splinters.

6. Swine Pits - Anston

Low sheds, deep mud, loud opinion. Kornel Tesár (Cuthbertine, stubborn, dependable) keeps the thorpe in bacon and boiled leather when times are lean. Pigs won’t go near Mirewatch’s back fence after dark.

7. Old Aggy’s 'Marsh Witch'

A shop of bottles, bones, leeches, and truths with a price. Aggy knows reed-paths, fungus patches, and which “bog-lights” are liars. She calls Mirewatch “the House that Hushes.”

Hooks

• “Buy the House for a Drink.” Harl will sell Mirewatch tonight if someone buys his evening—then tomorrow morning he swears he never did. (Because the Whispers pressed on the memory.)
• “Bridge at Dawn.” The Bog & Barrel posts a note: “Need hands to plank the bridge before the next cart crosses.” (Stirges or a snapping turtle test the crew mid-job.)
• “Old Names in Wet Ink.” The church ledger shows three families marked “gone east,” ink blurred as if written under a leak. Waldere asks you to find their graves—or prove there are none.

Drop-in mini-encounters

• Marsh-harvest brawl: eel-traps tangled, tempers hot; settle with fair splits or watch knives come out.
• Leech-barrel spill: A cart up-ended near the bridge; recovering slick, angry leeches becomes a panicky skill scene.
• Quiet on the porch: PCs who wait in Mirewatch in absolute silence feel their breath steam and watch dust fail to fall; on round 3, a Fen-Whisper brushes by.

Mechanical morsels (5e-friendly, adjust to tier)

• Fen-Whisper (reskin of Specter with “Sound-Drinker”): gains advantage on Stealth in silence; loses it near continuous noise; vulnerable to radiant.
• Bridge (skill challenge): 3 successes before 2 failures to lead mounts and stabilize planks (Athletics/Survival/Animal Handling DC 12). Failure: one mount slips; roll Dex save or suffer prone/soaked gear complications.
• Foraging (herbs/fungi): Survival DC 12; roll a d6—1–2: culinary, 3–4: medicinal, 5: rare (sell 2d6 gp here), 6: witch’s cap (Aggy trades valuable intel).

What’s true (secrets)

1. The Whispers were born when a bell-line fell silent during a flood vigil; the house “learned” quiet and liked it.
2. The signet in Mirewatch’s study opens a coffer at the church (old rent tithes—a modest fund).
3. The culvert beneath the Bog & Barrel opens toward the stream. Someone uses it to move untaxed eel-oil at night.
4. Old Aggy has a reed-map to an ancient ferry-stone the Borderers swear doesn’t exist.