 Dark
Hollow
 HIS
small village gets its name from the tree-cloaked valley where Feldar’s
Trail (from Fallentree to Mossbridges) crosses the Hlintar Ride.
Dark Hollow has always had a fey, dangerous reputation across the
Vast. Folk see it as a place where faerie dragons frolic, brownies
and other woodland beings play pranks on intruders, and many crazy
would-be wizards dwell in little ramshackle cabins in the woods
and try to devise spells that will allow them to rule the Realms
– spells whose experimentations often prove disastrous for
anyone nearby
In such a place, monetary treasure is paltry: wizards never have
enough coin for the very expensive business of working magic and
are often reduced to selling potions in order to put bread (and
a little cheese) on the table. Some merchants from Ravens Bluff
and Hlintar do a brisk business in selling these hedge-wizards spell
components and fragments of artifacts or broken magic items, buying
up potions in return for their trouble. Adventurers often find this
a lucrative trade but a dangerous one: thieves are always alert
for such valuable loot-so much so that guarding a travelling ‘magic
merchant’ is a steady job for some adventurers in the Vast.
More than one thieving band has found Dark Hollow’s reputation
to be a convenient cover for stashing loot, choosing a wizard’s
woodpile or compost heap to bury a pot or well-oiled sack of coins.
There’s just one problem: recovering it, That kitten playing
on the woodpile may very well be a familiar who guards its master’s
property diligently (including the stash, once it’s been put
in the woodpile). A familiar might also report the ‘donation’
to its master moments after the thief has left, so the wizard will
have long since spent the coins before the thief returns for them.
From The Everwinking Eye: Treasures of the Vast,
Part One by Ed Greenwood (Polyhedron #88, October 1993) as revised
in The City of Ravens Bluff.
Dark Hollow has an inn known as the Sunflower Inn and a single temple
dedicated to Chauntea, Mielikki, and Silvanus. Narrow, overgrown
trails lead from the village into the forest, but most residents
rarely enter the woods. Only a few scattered farms are nearby.
The Sunflower Inn at Dark Hollow
Dark Hollow boasts a single, two-story inn which sits
at the crossing of the Mosstree Trail and Lion’s Walk. Stables
are available behind the establishment. A watering hole for locals
and a stop-over for the infrequent traveller, the Sunflower Inn
is owned and run by a pair of rotund halflings, Sindney and Muriel
Goodfellow. The food is good and portions are large. Ale and mead
are home-brewed, yet there is no wine on the menu.
The inn’s main room is rectangular with eight round tables
scattered throughout. Alicia, the adopted daughter of Sidney and
Muriel, serves as a waitress. A long wooden bar with a dozen stools
stands against the back wall and is tended by Sidney. To the left
of the entrance, an open wooden stairwell leads to the rooms upstairs.
Eight rooms are available for rent, each containing two twin beds
and having a lock on the door. A local boy, Bill, works within the
tables behind the inn.
Sidney is a former adventurer who retired and married his childhood
sweetheart. In time, they moved to Dark Hollow and opened the Sunflower
Inn. He still feels camaraderie with adventurers although he realises
that not all of them are scrupulous. He is a good host, but an overly
protective father.
Muriel is a good hostess but she does not approve of adventurers
or her husband’s talk of his adventuring days. She is glad
that he got some sense into him and gave up that life before he
was killed. Muriel disapproves of Alicia’s admiration of those
types and keeps a careful eye on her at all times.
Muriel and Sidney found Alicia as a baby on their doorstep. Unable
to find her parents, they adopted her and raised her as their own
daughter. Since the age of fourteen, she has worked as a waitress
at the inn; she is now eighteen.
Alicia has grown up hearing her father’s stories of his adventures.
Although she has never met an adventurer, she is in awe of them.
While she can be playfully flirtatious with very charismatic adventurers,
her father keeps an ever-watchful eye on her.
Bill is rather shy, and only answers questions asked of him. He
is a hard worker and never causes any troubles. He likes horses
and feels more comfortable around them than he does people.
The Village Shrine
The only temple within the village, this shrine is
found just down the street from the Sunflower Inn. Ample gardens
thrive behind this hexagonal, one-story structure. The interior
of the wooden building is sparse. Within the main chamber, the side
walls are painted with murals depicts scenes amongst nature. A few
rows of simple wooden benches face the rear. The chamber has open
arches leading to the exterior gardens from the rear. Before the
three arches, a statue of the venerated deities is found:
Chauntea,
depicted as a middle-aged woman with long hair wearing long robes.
Leaves, vines, and flowers are entwined through her hair and about
her body. This statue is found before the center archway.
Mielikki
is shown on the left as a young woman in leather armour.
Silvanus
is found to the right, carved as a long-limbed young man. He wears
scale armour, the scales of which are shaped like oak leaves.
The shrine is maintained by Clarence Evergreen, a druid of Chauntea.
When encountering a priest of the one of the three venerated deities
visiting Dark Hollow, he welcomes the priest to sleep within the
gardens behind the temple.
Clarence is fairly new to his position as the sole priest at the
shrine being there for about a year. He is eager to talk to anyone
who comes in and readily welcomes other priests of related religions
(Lathander, Eldath, Lurue, Shialla, etc.) in addition to the deities
represented at the shrine.
From Quatlebar by Gary Labrecque (1999) [ Much
of the below information is liberally paraphrased and quoted.] 
Consult the guide to the best inns and taverns
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