Wisenwood Town

Wisenwood Town

Small Town • Population 3000
Wisenwood Town has grown up around the ancestral seat of House Wisent, Wisenwood Tower. It has grown and shrunk several times over its long history, but has always had a population of smallfolk who tend to crofts and fields in the flatlands around it. Wisenwood Tower sits on a tall hill overlooking the town, with a large godswood behind it, the Weeping Gardens of Wisenwood. The town also features a garrison, which is home to the Wisen household guard, as well as the trained infantry the House fields. The town's road is less than a day's ride from the Kingsroad.

• Defense: 10 (Tower)
• Lands: 30 (Plains; Small Town, Road)
• Power: 12 (Trained Garrison, Trained Infantry)
• Wealth: 15 (Maester, Godswood)

History

X

The Town

The town is protected by twenty-foot curtain stone-and-timber walls with thirty-foot bastion towers at regular intervals. These bastions have simple wooden planking within them, and only three walls, with a zig-zagging narrow staircase that goes from the ground to arrow slits at ten foot intervals (making them effectively three-story affairs).

New Market

The outer edge of the town, most recently built and protected by walls in the last generation or so. It was created to expand the trade opportunities within Wisenwood Town, although it has only been partially successful - on market days, no more than three-fourths of the stalls and booths are taken up. Despite this, the inn and taverns here do a brisk business, and they are usually places to meet folks from far off.

• The Red Aurochs (Inn): Named in honor of House Wisent, the Red Aurochs (or Red Ox, as it's called sometimes) is a much larger place than the inn in Old Town, consisting of a central inn building and a separate stables surrounded by a small wooden fence. The main building's first floor is a tap room and bar frequented by locals and strangers alike, with the second floor boasting five private rooms and a large common room. The Red Ox can get very lively some evenings, and the garrison makes sure to keep an extra man or two in the area on nights when the inn is very full.

Old Town

The older portion of Wisenwood Town is larger, albeit more cramped. Most of the farming land once inside the walls has been turned into additional living space and shops, to allow for the growth of the town. By day, it is busy and industrious, with rumbling carts and horses, running children, barking dogs and all the noise of a small settlement; by night, it is very quiet, with only a few lights burning in its inns and taverns.

• Wisent Garrison: On the northern edge of town is the Garrison, containing an armory, barracks and mess for the soldiers of Wisenwood Town. Ser Ormun Ironsmith maintains quarters here.
  • Contents: Bulls' Barracks, Greencloak Barracks, Serjeants' Barracks, Master-at-Arms' Quarters, Master-at-Arms' Office, Kitchens and Mess, Drill Yard, Armory
• The Severed Hand (Inn): A much more humble establishment, the Severed Hand is located just off the practically-abandoned Old Market. It is smaller and more run-down than the Red Aurochs, but it is a long-standing establishment in Wisenwood Town. Many of the locals stop in for a meal or a cup of their specialty, old Maggie's heather beer. Still, it doesn't have many customers who stay the evening anymore.
• Cyril Coalman (Blacksmith): Cyril is the local blacksmith. Most of his custom is for horseshoes and other domestic projects, although he does passable work repairing arms and armor, and even crafting simpler weaponry.
• Mother Lyvia's (Tavern/Brothel): The kindly widow Lyvia runs a small taproom on the northern end of town. Lyvia's neighbors maintain the very polite fiction that Mother Lyvia was blessed with many nieces and daughters, who help her work the establishment. In truth, though, it is a brothel, practically kept in business by the coin of the men from the garrison. Though her establishment isn't fancy or upscale, it is clean, and some of the men from the garrison have been known to simply pay for an evening's companionship just for the bed and private room to spend a night in, away from the cramped barracks.

Tower Hill & the Weeping Garden

Tower Hill is a large rise of land, crowned by Wisenwood Tower. It has natural cliffs facing away from the town, and its northern edge is a dense tangle of oak and ash, with the occasional weirwood in it.

• House Wisent Stables: A separate stables sits lower on Tower Hill, with space for quite a few horses. It also has living space for the House's Master-of-Horse, Ser Garwyn Blackhorn, and plenty of space in the stables for the stablehands and ostler, as well as servants and men of visitors to the tower.

Wisenwood Tower

Wisenwood Tower

Ground Floor

• Cellars: The cellars are half-buried, and remain quite cool year round. As such, they often house sleeping servants at night during the warmer months. The walls here are stocked with drink, bags of root vegetables and plenty of cured meats, much of it hunted by the lord.
  • Staff: Whent, the Cellarer; plus one of the Kitchen helpers.

First Floor

• Kitchens & Main Hall: This grand chamber is - in the old style of such fortifications - both preparation and dining hall. The family rarely dines here, however, save when there are guests. As such, the servants have most of the run of this area. With its grand hearths, it is often quite warm, and as such serves as the bedding-down place for many servants at night. Lady Elizabel actually heads up most of the cooking, due to her highlands upbringing.
  • Staff: Mother Ablia, Housekeeper and Assistant Cook; Tisa, Maergery, Lyra and Rhaine, Kitchen helpers and maids.

Second Floor

• Solar: A warm, pleasant room with ample natural lighting, the Solar is where the family is usually found. The lord's desk is kept near the entrance, with seating for the house's women to do their embroidery and other household work beside the hearth. The southern portion of the chamber has a fair-sized table where the family take their meals.

Third Floor

• Heir's Chambers: X
• Daughters' Chambers: The household's daughters share a room and a large curtained bed here. Nanna Snow also sleeps here, in a smaller bed shoved off into one of the corners.
• Maester's Chambers: House Wisent has prepared one of its few chambers for the sole use of their new maester, outfitting it with a decent bed with thick coverlets and furs, a desk and shelves for the books and other possessions he brings with him.

Fourth Floor

• Garret: The garret has been turned into the Lord and Lady's chambers, and the nursery (though there are no younglings in it now). The chambers are always kept locked, as the household's moneychest can be found here.

Roof

• Rookery: The southeastern tower, originally basically unused, has been refurbished to act as a basic rookery for the ravens that House Wisent's new maester is bringing with him.

Surrounding Countryside

Wisenwood Countryside

New Gate

A small area referred to as New Gate has sprung up just outside the New Gate. Made up mainly of fieldhands and other laborers, it does feature one building of note, directly beside the New Gate: a guestinghouse.

• Danyl's Guestinghouse: This sizeable building is still smaller than a normal inn. Half the building is given to Danyl and Misha, his wife as their living quarters. He is a laborer, and she brews beers and a small quantity of mead from the bees she keeps. The other half of their building is made up of a handful of rough pallets, arrayed around an indoor circular fireplace. These pallets, with rough, thin blankets and straw-stuffed mattresses, are provided to those travelers who come to the gates of Wisenwood Town after dark, only to find that the guards do not open the gates until daylight. For a few coins, such travelers can claim one of the eight pallets offered by Danyl. If they arrive early enough in the evening, they may even be able to get a meal for another coin, and some of Misha's excellent stout.

The Weeping Gardens

Just northeast of Wisenwood Town is a tangle of old growth forest, thick with elm, oak, ash and weirwood. At its center is the walled-in Weeping Garden of Wisenwood, where a small spring feeds a cultivated gardens that's been maintained by House Wisent for generations. The center of the garden is the Old Wise Man, a heartwood tree with a smiling, wizened-looking face cut into its trunk. Ribbons of all kinds of colors, some new and bright, others faded and threadbare hang from its branches, due to the local tradition of tying a ribbon to the Old Wise Man when asking for a boon from the Old Gods.

Bull's Crossing

Bull's Crossing is a small hamlet made up mostly of cattle-crofters and a single tanner. It is mainly made up of herders and their wives, who make cheeses, butters and creams for the townsfolk, selling them in the markets there a few times a week.

• Fovel Tanner: The tanner is also the best source of leather in the area, specializing in very soft, butter-supple leathers perfect for fine clothing. Lord Wisent has been known to deliver the hides of deer he has hunted in the past, to have them made into extremely fine buckskin for clothing.