The adventure goal in Hightown is to acquire enough information to foray into the Deep Forest in search of Kristagna, the lost castle of the Astronomers.
Hightown stands in the foothills of the High Divide. The mountains loom mightily to the east. At the west end of town you can stand atop a hill and look out across the vast western forest, now tinged with the earthy reds, yellows, and golds of autumn. The stocky wooden buildings of Hightown are centered around the always-active, if uncolorful, marketplace. A waxing moon hangs, barely visible in the morning air, over the western forest.
The players should ensure that their characters are in Hightown. Because Hightown is a major stop on the Leather Road, players can easily arrange for their characters to be there. They might travel with a caravan, be traveling to friends in the west, or be leaving Crosspoint for reasons of personal safety. (There are only two directions to go if Crosspoint is no longer hospitable: west or south.) Scholarly characters might be taking advantage of the library at Biblyon, north of Hightown. Such characters would easily come down to Hightown for supplies, or perhaps to help a Biblyon merchant acquire supplies.
Hightown Pass is the only way across the mountains between West Highland and East Highland without traveling far north and back down again. The pass still rises an easy 3,500 feet above sea level, and Hightown, on the lower western side of the pass, is still 2,000 feet above sea level. Dawn comes late to Hightown: the sun does not rise above the mountains for an hour after it would if the mountains weren’t there.
Characters from smaller towns to the west are likely to view Hightown—with its relatively varied culture and relatively larger population—as a large town. Hightown sees merchants from both east and west, and occasionally even from the south. It has a political culture which, if not thriving, at least exists for the sake of the market, unlike the political cultures of smaller towns which are usually far more authoritarian.
While Hightown is smaller than Black Stag on the west end of the Leather Road, Black Stag is an insular and homogenous town. Hightown, especially its market, will contain things that Black Stag residents might never see. Many of those things will, however, be crated up.
Characters from Crosspoint will, on the other hand, see Hightown as the quintessential boring West Highland town, at least until they find a more boring one. Crosspoint already gets everything from West Highland that Hightown has: almost by definition, anything that passes through Hightown arrives at Crosspoint or shipped from there.
- Hightown Market
- As you walk about the market, smells hit you more than colors or sounds. The Hightown Market is not filled with the brightly colored fabrics of Crosspoint, nor the bright vegetables of most markets, but with crates, barrels, and pallets. You smell the sharp smell of newly-made leather; the sickly-sweet smell of autumn’s first cider pressing; the smell of horse is everywhere.
- The Song of the Astronomers
- The song is necessary as part of the backstory. Work with the other players—at least one character needs a strong reason to seek out the lost castle. They might catch snippets of the song first, words like “lost gold”, “Illustrators” and “Astronomers”.
