Tarlis

Tarlis is a podunk backwater, home to maybe two or three hundred people on a good day. The place is small, stagnant, and aging, with most of its residents stuck here not by choice, but because they have nowhere better to go. The people work because they have to—laborers bleed the trees for pitch, farmers wrestle what little they can from the soil, and hunters scrape together just enough game to keep the village fed.   There is no real wealth in Tarlis, nor any great ambition. The village produces just enough to survive—barrels of black resin, sacks of barley, the occasional bundle of hides—but never enough to attract real trade. Tarlis sits far from the main roads, and travelers rarely pass through. When a merchant does appear, it’s an event—the kind where people shuffle out of their houses just to stare, even if they have nothing to barter.   The village has no governing body, no council, no real law—just the Elder, some weathered old soul who's been here longer than most and knows everyone’s business whether they like it or not. People listen to them when it suits them and ignore them when it doesn’t. It’s not a place of opportunity, not a place where anyone dreams of staying. Those who can leave, do. Those who can’t, endure.

Tarlis doesn’t have much to offer, but what it does have is pitch. The resin bled from the great trees of the Eolande is slow to harvest, foul to handle, and indispensable to those who need it. It waterproofs roofs, seals barrels, and keeps ships afloat. The villagers cut deep and collect what they can, filling crude barrels for the rare merchants who bother making the trip.   Farming is miserable but necessary. The soil is thin and rocky, forcing villagers to rely on barley, root vegetables, and whatever stubborn fruit trees can survive. The harvest is never abundant, just enough to stretch through the seasons.   Hunting provides occasional game, hides, and bone, but it’s no way to feed a village. The deeper parts of the forest are dangerous, and those who go looking for bigger kills sometimes don’t come back.   Merchants don’t visit often, and when they do, they don’t stay long. Tarlis doesn’t have coin to spend, just trade goods. When a traveling peddler does pass through, the villagers barter for iron tools, cloth, and salt. Anything more expensive is out of reach.

Tarlis grew slowly, shaped by necessity rather than planning. What began as a camp of pitch-harvesters eventually became a scattered collection of buildings, with a few key locations forming the closest thing to a center. At the heart of Tarlis stands the Old Cedar, a towering, weathered tree that marked the village’s first settlement. It has been scarred by time and pitch-harvesting, its lower branches stripped away long ago, but it remains a landmark and meeting place. When word spreads through the village, people gather under its boughs to listen.   Near the tree sits the town hall, a plain, unremarkable structure that serves as a meeting place, storage for records, and a general dumping ground for official matters. It is the closest thing Tarlis has to governance, though no one uses it unless they have to. The inn is the only drinking hole in town, a smoky, dimly lit place for bartering, settling grudges, and passing time. Travelers, on the rare occasion they exist, stay there if they have no other option. The library, once an abandoned building left to rot, was revived by a traveling scholar who chose to settle in Tarlis. She stocked it with books collected from her time on the road, restoring the space as best she could. The villagers respect its presence, even if most of them can’t read beyond what is necessary. The forge is home to two smiths, their forges burning slow due to scarce materials. One specializes in tools, nails, and repairs, while the other takes custom orders for hunting gear and weapons, though few in the village can afford anything elaborate. The Elder’s house, carved into the remains of a massive, ancient stag, is as much a relic as it is a residence. Some say the Elder was once a hermit before taking up his role, but no one asks too many questions.   Tarlis doesn’t have luxuries or artisans, but it has what it needs to survive. The beekeeper maintains a handful of hives along the tree line, producing honey and wax for trade and local use. The candlemaker turns whatever wax and tallow is available into the only reliable light source in the village. A loose collection of laborers and woodworkers handles repairs, expansions, and whatever construction needs doing. No one is a true expert, but if something needs to stand, they make it happen. The tanners and hideworkers only work when hides are available, producing crude but functional leather goods. The tannery’s stench lingers long after the work is done. There is no marketplace—trade happens in the tavern, on doorsteps, or whenever someone has something worth bartering.   The further one moves from the center, the more Tarlis thins into the wilderness. Farmsteads are scattered beyond the village, struggling against rocky, stubborn soil, their fields yielding barley, root crops, and little else. Hunting cabins and storage sheds sit closer to the tree line, where tools, pelts, and smoked meat are kept. The road out of town is dusty, uneven, and half-swallowed by the land. Few come in, and even fewer leave.

The Cursebreakers The Cursebreakers were never meant to be an institution. They formed out of necessity, a loose assembly of those the villagers already sought out when something needed fixing, settling, or resolving. The carpenter handles construction disputes, the smith keeps tools sharp and working, the priest of Mitra offers guidance (even if no one always wants to hear it), and the innkeeper keeps track of everyone who passes through. Together, they take on the problems that would have once been dropped in the lap of the village elder, who was never suited to the role.   Though their name lingers from a time when the town still thought in omens and misfortune, the Cursebreakers do not chase spirits or banish evil. They settle debts, mediate grievances, and ensure that Tarlis, in its own way, keeps running.

Tarlis was never meant to be a settlement—it was a camp, a stopping point where pitch-harvesters gathered before moving on. But some stayed, drawn not by prosperity but by the quiet isolation the Eolande offered. They built homes where there had once been tents, dug roots where the soil allowed, and carved out a life between the trees.   There was no great founding, no noble lineage tracing back to kings or heroes. The village grew because it was convenient, because it was safer to stay together, because the road was long, and not everyone wanted to keep moving. The first elder was chosen not out of wisdom or strength but simply because someone had to make decisions. Over time, the role became tradition, passed from one reluctant figure to the next, though the authority it carried was always limited.   Faith in Shirumel, the Mother Beneath, lingers, but mostly out of habit. It is said she bled the first resin from the trees, that the harvest was once sacred, that the old ways demanded blood in return. But those are just stories now, whispered only by the oldest among them.   Tarlis never planned for itself. It just happened. And for a long time, that was enough.

Tarlis is built from what the forest provides. The structures are plain, functional, and meant to last, even if they never look new. Cedar is the primary building material, harvested carefully to avoid stripping the land bare. Most buildings are constructed with thick, rough-cut timber, their exteriors darkened by age and exposure. The scent of resin lingers in every home, soaked into the beams and floorboards.   Roofs are steep and layered with wooden shingles or packed earth, designed to endure the heavy rains that turn the ground to sludge. Windows are small, fitted with shutters instead of glass, built to keep out wind and the damp more than to let in light. Stone foundations, pulled from the nearby hills, keep homes from sinking into the soft earth, though some older structures lean from years of slow settling.   There is little ornamentation. Carvings are simple, if they exist at all—patterns of knots, marks to keep out misfortune, the occasional sigil that no one remembers the meaning of. The few larger buildings, like the inn and the library, are sturdier but just as unadorned, their size the only thing setting them apart.   Tarlis was built to endure, not impress.

Tarlis sits at the edge of the Eolande, where the trees grow thick and close, their trunks dark with age and resin. The canopy filters the sunlight into thin, scattered beams, leaving much of the forest floor in shadow. The ground is uneven, tangled with roots, strewn with fallen branches, and damp where the undergrowth holds onto the last rainfall.   To the east, the land slopes downward into shallow, rocky soil, unsuitable for much beyond barley and root crops. To the west, the Eolande stretches deep, its paths winding and unreliable, shifting where the underbrush reclaims them. Those who venture too far find the trees swallowing sound, dampening their own footsteps until the silence presses in.   The nearest water runs slow and murky, carrying the scent of earth and resin. It pools in low places, gathers in ditches and shallow wells, enough to sustain the village but never enough to waste. When the rains come, the ground turns to sludge, and for a time, Tarlis feels like it is sinking.   The land here does not welcome, but it does not refuse, either. It simply is, unchanged and unbothered by those who carve their lives into it.

A temperate climate with mild, four-season weather. Summers are warm, winters are cool, and the forests showcase vibrant autumn colors.

The Eolande provides cedar for timber, resin for sealing and fuel, and bark that can be boiled down into tars and oils. Pitch-harvesting is the only trade that keeps Tarlis relevant, though it is slow, difficult work, and those who do it wear the scent of the trees in their skin long after they leave the woods.   Water is drawn from wells and shallow pools where the land dips low enough to collect the rain. It is never abundant, never wasted. The soil is thin and rocky, forcing the farmers to work with what they can—barley, bitter greens, root crops that dig deep where nothing else will take hold.   The forest provides game—deer, hares, lean-bodied fowl—but hunting is a necessity, not a sport. The hills beyond Tarlis offer rough stone for foundations and walls, but little else.