Quick places: Westing mine

Town built around and in a mine owned by the Westing company. Exports orichalcum ore. Over half of population lives in tunnels. Led by Mayor Gwannon - not a company man.

Has the mine proper, headed by Boss Slaghorn (gnoll male), as well as about fifty itinerant miners and haulers. They stay in the cave or surface bunkhouse, respectively (both run by a kind middleaged man, Julint). There is an elf woodsman (Etla), a priest of Fengrid (Abraxas, human male), and five guards for the company under Slaghorn’s command. In the tunnels there is a brewery (run by a female triton, Lanola). Outside, and tanner (Belkor, male gnoll) and a leatherworker (Laren, optimistic young human man).

-Gwannon is haunted by buzzing when he sleeps and is paranoid that Lanola is letting her wasps into his house. It’s actually a guard with a noisemaker - Slaghorn is trying to drive him out.

-Mining has extended farther away from the town to continue following the ore vein, so there are many empty tunnels between the active dig and the dwellings. Some facts/rumors of their uses:

>There is a demonic shrine, covered in gold and ore dust. Anyone who finds it is hunted down by its undead guardian (actually the hermit, see below)
>Some of the wasps have escaped and prey on those lost in the tunnels (see Lanola)

>Something like a gnoll has been sneaking around the tunnels (suspect Belkor obviously, is actually one of the crazed miners. See below)

-Laren is Julint’s nephew. Each will do anything to protect the other. He has also taken a liking to Belkor, who is generally avoided by most of the town. They will often be found drinking together.

-Lanola is an accomplished alchemist and has made her own version of gorgon wasp brew, which is actually pretty good. She keeps her wasps in a warded off area of the tunnels that most people know about. Her real intent is to study an antidote to petrification. Her right hand which she keeps gloved has turned to stone as a result of self-experimentation. So far her closest product is a draught which turns one into living stone. She will teach cheap potion recipes if the trouble with Gwannon is cleared up (choose three lvl1 spells, when brewed into potions you get two for one).

-Etla fells trees and fashions rafts for transporting the ore downriver. He keeps to himself generally but if bought a wasp brew will tell something of the local area - the hermit’s hut, locations of two hidden mine entrances, a riding lizard nest, and an area upstream where he spotted rush (signs of ore) which he has kept secret from the Westing men.

-Miners in a freshly cut area start going crazy after a month or so there. The new vein they have tapped into has some kind of spores which affect the mind - a fossilized slaad is within. Slaghorn has been switching them out and sending them away to keep it quiet, but one miner has wandered off into the tunnels. In another week he will transform into a slaad himself.

-The hermit in the hills has a long tangled head of silver hair and beard, and is generally ignored, though he stops in about once a month to trade for supplies. He always has skins and small metal goods like nails or a knife. Is an aasimar paladin, who has been melting down his plate armor to buy supplies. He is wracked by guilt over the loss of the boy he was entrusted to guard, whose skeleton lies where he was trapped by a boulder while exploring a mine entrance near their hut. The hermit has decorated the corpse and the rocks around it with bits of orichalcum and the filigree from his armor. Will defend this shrine like a madman, and can be found there every night. If confronted peacefully he will give his sword and beg for it to be delivered to the boy’s parents in Accra.