The Hearthwardens - Revision history

Wvaske: Add Correspondence ledger (generated from the Correspondence table); founding letter linked to its own page

2026-09-17T19:40:58Z

Add Correspondence ledger (generated from the Correspondence table); founding letter linked to its own page

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:40, 17 September 2026
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	== The letter ==		== The letter ==
	''A wagon came up to [[Nuts Deep]] in the first week of the fortnight's downtime, carrying four people, a great deal of sawn timber, and Aldith Fenn, who had already begun asking the fort's cook what the well tasted of before anyone had greeted her. The letter arrived two days after the wagon did.''		''A wagon came up to [[Nuts Deep]] in the first week of the fortnight's downtime, carrying four people, a great deal of sawn timber, and Aldith Fenn, who had already begun asking the fort's cook what the well tasted of before anyone had greeted her. The letter arrived two days after the wagon did. It is kept on its own page at [[Scales Letter: Founding the Hearthwardens]].''

	<blockquote>		<blockquote>
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	* '''Tending earns goodwill''', recorded on the [[Council Disposition Tracker]] — and it extends to your '''associates''': the other cells and the [[Squires of Deez Nuts\|squires]]. A village you rebuilt will shelter them without asking whose they are.		* '''Tending earns goodwill''', recorded on the [[Council Disposition Tracker]] — and it extends to your '''associates''': the other cells and the [[Squires of Deez Nuts\|squires]]. A village you rebuilt will shelter them without asking whose they are.
	* '''They are unarmed and will stay unarmed.''' They go where you send them. If you were wrong about a place being quiet, they cannot fight their way out of it — they get taken. Write to [[Declan Winterhound\|Declan]] when you are unsure and he will tell you what he knows of the ground.		* '''They are unarmed and will stay unarmed.''' They go where you send them. If you were wrong about a place being quiet, they cannot fight their way out of it — they get taken. Write to [[Declan Winterhound\|Declan]] when you are unsure and he will tell you what he knows of the ground.

			== Correspondence ==
			''What has come to the crew in writing, each letter kept on its own page. The campaign-wide collection is at [[Correspondence]].''

			{{#cargo_query:tables=Correspondence
			\|fields=date=Date,_pageName=Letter,sender=Sent by,recipient=To,method=How it travelled
			\|where=cell="The Hearthwardens"
			\|order by=sortkey
			\|format=table
			}}

	== See also ==		== See also ==

Wvaske: S54 — Tend order on the razed village north of Neverwinter (via Harper teleport network, ~1 week); postings updated (allocation provisional)

2026-09-03T14:27:30Z

S54 — Tend order on the razed village north of Neverwinter (via Harper teleport network, ~1 week); postings updated (allocation provisional)

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:27, 3 September 2026
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	They carry no weapons.		They carry no weapons.

			'''Current order ([[Session 54 - Serpents at Boareskyr Bridge (2026-08-30)\|S54]]): Tend the razed village north of [[Neverwinter]]''' — the burned-out settlement the company found on the road back from [[Luskan]] ([[Session 52 - Nuts Deep and the Turnip Wagon Ambush (2026-07-12)\|S52]]), where cultists torched the homes and stripped the ash of every coin. Karma sent the crew to rebuild it and steady its people. Traveling by way of the [[Harpers]]' teleportation connections through the cities, they arrive in about '''a week'''. ''(Detachment allocation below is provisional pending the DM's roster call.)''

	== The letter ==		== The letter ==
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	! Hearthwarden !! Trade !! Currently posted		! Hearthwarden !! Trade !! Currently posted
	\|-		\|-
	\| '''Rilla Bexley''' \|\| Carpenter. Halfling, fast, and openly contemptuous of anyone else's joinery. \|\| [[~~Nuts Deep~~]] — ~~putting the barracks right so [[Elturel]] will garrison it~~		\| '''Rilla Bexley''' \|\| Carpenter. Halfling, fast, and openly contemptuous of anyone else's joinery. \|\| In transit to the razed village north of [[Neverwinter]] — '''Tend'''
	\|-		\|-
	\| '''Dunmar Holt''' \|\| Mason and well-digger. Dwarf. Believes most problems are drainage. \|\| [[~~Nuts Deep~~]] — ~~the well and the inner walls~~		\| '''Dunmar Holt''' \|\| Mason and well-digger. Dwarf. Believes most problems are drainage. \|\| In transit to the razed village north of [[Neverwinter]] — '''Tend'''
	\|-		\|-
	\| '''Yessa Greenwold''' \|\| Herbalist and forager. Finds things growing where there is no reason for them to grow. \|\| The Chionthar valley		\| '''Yessa Greenwold''' \|\| Herbalist and forager. Finds things growing where there is no reason for them to grow. \|\| The Chionthar valley
	\|-		\|-
	\| '''Brother Padrig''' \|\| The voice. Talks crowds down, and can say the same dull true thing forty times without tiring of it. \|\| A village ~~on the eastern road where~~ the ~~Cult has been busy~~		\| '''Brother Padrig''' \|\| The voice. Talks crowds down, and can say the same dull true thing forty times without tiring of it. \|\| In transit to the razed village north of [[Neverwinter]] — '''Tend''' (and the plain true thing, said nightly)
	\|}		\|}

Wvaske: Add the standing-orders table

2026-08-29T19:31:53Z

Add the standing-orders table

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 | '''Brother Padrig''' || The voice. Talks crowds down, and can say the same dull true thing forty times without tiring of it. || A village on the eastern road where the Cult has been busy
 |}
 == See also ==
@@ Line 67: / Line 85: @@
 * [[Declan Winterhound]] — the Scales representative who sent them
 * [[Council Disposition Tracker]] — where goodwill is recorded
-* [[The Nightingales]] · [[The Anvil]] · [[Talonfall]] · [[The Broken Latch]] — the other companies' cells
+* [[The Nightingales]] · [[The Anvil]] · [[Talonfall]] · [[The Broken Latch]] · [[The Dawnwatch]] — the other companies' cells
 * [[Karma]]
 [[Category:Campaign]] [[Category:Factions]] [[Category:Renown Feats]] [[Category:Rise of Tiamat]]

Wvaske: Blockquote the letter; delivery preamble; rewrite Declan's voice to the style rules — plainer, less metaphor

2026-08-29T15:50:59Z

Blockquote the letter; delivery preamble; rewrite Declan's voice to the style rules — plainer, less metaphor

Show changes

Wvaske: Create The Hearthwardens — Karma's Scales of Eldath works crew

2026-08-29T00:26:54Z

Create The Hearthwardens — Karma's Scales of Eldath works crew

New page

'''The Hearthwardens''' are the works crew of the [[Scales of Eldath]] given to [[Karma]] on her elevation to '''Balancewarden'''. They calm what is being stirred up, gather what is needed, and rebuild what has been broken.

They carry no weapons. This is deliberate, and it is not negotiable.

''The letter below came with a wagon, four people, and a great deal of timber.''

== The letter ==

Karma —

Balancewarden. It suits you better than it has suited most, and I have handed it to a fair number of people who thought peace was something you announce.

It isn't. Peace is a thing you '''build''', and it is mostly carpentry. So the Scales are not sending you healers, and they are not sending you guards. They are sending you four people and a wagon.

Aldith Fenn runs them and stays at your fort — she is the one who knows what a place needs before the place has finished explaining. The other four go where you send them, and there will be a fifth as your name carries further, and a sixth beyond that.

=== Mollify ===
Send them into a village and the village does not catch fire.

I want you to understand what this is actually for. The [[Cult of the Dragon]] does not only burn places — it '''works''' them. It puts the right story in the right mouth and it lets fear do the labour, and by the time anyone with a sword arrives the town has already decided who to blame. Frightened people are the cheapest weapon on the coast and the Cult buys in bulk.

Hearthwardens are the answer to that. Put them where the Cult is working and the work does not take. They will sit in the common room, they will say the unexciting true thing over and over, and they will be there the next morning, which is more than the Cult's people ever are.

You will rarely get to see this succeed. That is the nature of it. Nothing happening looks exactly like nothing happening.

=== Forage ===
Tell them what you are looking for — '''name the kind of thing''', not the thing itself, and where it might grow — and they will go and find it. Yessa is very good and the others have learned enough to carry a basket properly.

Set your expectations honestly. '''Common and uncommon they will bring you reliably.''' Something rare turns up now and then, and when it does it is luck and season and Yessa's nose, not effort. Asking harder does not make it grow.

And they gather. They do not hunt. If you want something cut out of a dead thing, that is your friend Keyleth's people, and there is no shame in it — it is simply not what these hands are for.

=== Tend ===
This is the one I would spend them on.

Send them to a place that has been hurt and give them '''a week'''. They will not nurse it. They will rebuild the roofs, re-dig the well, get the walls back up, and — this is the part that matters — they will teach the place to finish the job itself and send word for whatever else it needs. We are not in the business of making villages dependent on us. We are in the business of making them able.

At the end of the week the place stands. It also '''knows who came'''. That is not a small thing and it does not fade the way a bribe fades. A village that Deez Nuts put back together will feed you, hide you, and send word up the road when strangers start asking after you — and it will do all of that for '''your people''' too, for the Harper girl's agents and the Gauntlet's soldiers and those squires of yours. They will not ask whose you are. They will just know you are.

=== Moving them ===
Hours across a town. Three to five days across a region. Ten days or more across the coast. While they travel they are building nothing.

=== What you must not forget ===
They have no weapons and they are not going to get any. I have been asked, and my answer does not change: the moment a Hearthwarden carries a blade, every door on the coast shuts to them, and the whole worth of them is that the doors open.

Which means the danger is yours to judge, not theirs. '''They will go where you send them.''' They will go somewhere you were assured was quiet, and they will start unloading the wagon, and if you were wrong about quiet they cannot fight their way back out of it. They get taken. They get caught up in things. Dangerous country is still dangerous to people who arrived meaning well.

Be sure before you send them. That is the whole of the responsibility, and it is a real one.

Eldath keep you, and mind the roads.

— ''[[Declan Winterhound]]''

== The crew ==
'''Aldith Fenn''' — Eldathyn, resident at [[Nuts Deep]], and not counted among the four. Runs the yard, the wagon, and the supply lists. Has an unnerving habit of arriving with precisely what was about to be needed.

{| class="wikitable" style="width:90%;"
! Hearthwarden !! Trade !! Currently posted
|-
| '''Rilla Bexley''' || Carpenter. Halfling, fast, and openly contemptuous of anyone else's joinery. || [[Nuts Deep]] — putting the barracks right so [[Elturel]] will garrison it
|-
| '''Dunmar Holt''' || Mason and well-digger. Dwarf. Believes most problems are drainage. || [[Nuts Deep]] — the well and the inner walls
|-
| '''Yessa Greenwold''' || Herbalist and forager. Can find a thing growing where there is no reason for it to grow. || The Chionthar valley
|-
| '''Brother Padrig''' || The voice. Talks crowds down, and can say the same dull true thing forty times without tiring of it. || A village on the eastern road where the Cult has been busy
|}

== See also ==
* [[Scales of Eldath]] — the wing; standings are tracked on the [[Renown Tracker]]
* [[Council Disposition Tracker]] — where goodwill is recorded
* [[Monster Harvesting]] — what the Hearthwardens are ''not'' for
* [[The Nightingales]] · [[The Anvil]] · [[Talonfall]] · [[The Broken Latch]] — the other companies' cells
* [[Karma]]

[[Category:Campaign]] [[Category:Factions]] [[Category:Renown Feats]] [[Category:Rise of Tiamat]]