Pontaubert

Home — a wheat-farming village of some 260 souls on the River Tialline, centred on the Esseness brook and living in the far shadow of the tower-city to the northeast. There are orchards and clay pits, goats and sheep for milk and wool, and timber enough from the surrounding Griesbois.

Pontaubert keeps a polite peace with the things that share its valley: Tialline, the nymph of the Tialline Combe out in the fields; the industrious, overfed beavers whose dam made the north pond; and Masseinelle, the cryptlord of the drowned graveyard, who keeps the dead abed in exchange for tribute and company. Matters too large for the village council are referred, in time, to the feudal lord at Vauclerc — though it has been years since anyone bothered.