The Hearthwardens

The Hearthwardens are the works crew of the Scales of Eldath given to Karma on her elevation to Balancewarden. They calm villages the Cult of the Dragon is working on, gather what she asks them to gather, and rebuild what has been broken.

They carry no weapons.

Current order (S54): Tend the razed village north of Neverwinter — the burned-out settlement the company found on the road back from Luskan (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

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.

Karma,

The wagon should have reached you before this letter did, unless Aldith took the river road, in which case it did not and I am sorry for the confusion. She maintains the river road is faster. It is not, and I have stopped arguing about it.

So — Balancewarden. It is a good rank and you have had it coming for a while. I have handed it to a fair number of people over the years and most of them arrived believing that peace is a thing you declare at people. You already know better than that, which is why the Scales are sending you four workers and a load of timber instead of four healers.

Aldith Fenn runs them. She stays at your fort and does not travel, which suits her, and she has a habit of turning up with the exact thing somebody was about to need. I have never worked out how she does it and I no longer ask. The other four go wherever you send them. There will be a fifth as your name carries further, and a sixth after that.

Three things they can do for you.

The first is settling a place down. I want to explain this one properly, because it is the least obvious of the three and it is the reason I fought for you to have them.

The Cult does not only burn villages. It works on them. It puts a story in the right mouth in the right tavern and then it waits, and the fear does the rest of the labour, so that by the time anyone arrives with a sword the village has already decided who it blames and what it is going to do about it. That costs the Cult almost nothing. Frightened people are cheap and there are a great many of them.

The Hearthwardens are what we have found works against it. Send them into a place the Cult has started on, and they sit in the common room and say the plain true thing over and over without getting angry about it, and they are still there in the morning, which the Cult's people never are. The trouble is that when this succeeds you will not get to watch it succeed. A village that does not turn looks exactly like a village that was never going to.

The second is gathering. Tell them what sort of thing you want — the kind of thing, and roughly where it might grow — and they will go and look. Yessa is very good and the rest have learned enough to carry a basket without ruining what is in it. Be honest with yourself about what you will get. Common and uncommon they will bring you steadily. Something rare turns up now and again, and when it does it is a matter of luck and the season rather than of anybody trying harder. Asking twice does not make it grow.

They gather. They do not hunt, and they do not cut things out of carcasses. If you want that, it is your friend Keyleth's people you want, and there is no shame in the asking — it is simply not what these hands do.

The third is tending, and it is the one I would spend them on if I were you.

Send them to a place that has been hurt and give them a week. They will not nurse it. They will get the roofs back on, re-dig the well, put the walls up, and — this is the part that matters and the part people forget — they will teach the place to finish the rest of it themselves and send word for whatever else it needs. A village we make dependent on us is a village we have failed. A week is enough. It has been enough for thirty years.

At the end of that week the place is standing, and it also knows who came. That is worth a great deal and it does not wear off the way a payment wears off. A village your company has put back together will feed you, hide you, and send word up the road when strangers start asking after you. It will do all of that for your people as well — the Harper girl's agents, the Gauntlet's soldiers, those squires of yours. Nobody will ask whose they are. They will simply be treated as yours.

On moving them: hours to cross a town, three to five days to cross a region, ten days or more to cross the coast. While they are travelling they are building nothing.

Now the part I have to put in writing.

They have no weapons and they are not going to be given any. I have been asked for that more than once and my answer has not changed in thirty years. The moment a Hearthwarden carries a blade, every door on this coast closes to them, and the open doors are the entire worth of the thing.

Which means the judgement is yours and not theirs. They will go where you send them. They will go somewhere you were told was quiet, and they will start unloading the wagon, and if you were wrong about quiet they have no way to fight their way back out of it. They get taken. They get caught up in what is already happening there. Dangerous country stays dangerous for people who turn up meaning well, and meaning well has never once been protection.

So be as sure as you can before you send them, and when you cannot be sure, send to me and I will tell you what I know about the place.

Eldath keep you. Mind the roads, and tell Aldith the river road is not faster.

— 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. Arrives with precisely what was about to be needed, by means nobody has established.

Hearthwarden	Trade	Currently posted
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.	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
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)

What you can order

Order	What it does	How long
Mollify	Send them into a place the Cult has started working on and the work does not take. They sit in the common room, say the plain true thing without getting angry, and are still there in the morning.	While posted. You will not get to watch it succeed.
Forage	Name the kind of thing you want and roughly where it might grow, and they go and look. Common and uncommon come steadily; rare turns up on luck and season, not effort.	Days to weeks by distance and quarry.
Tend	Rebuild a hurt place — roofs, well, walls — and teach it to finish the rest itself. It ends standing, and it knows who came.	One week. Thirty years says that is enough.

Standing rules.

• Complement: four workers under Aldith Fenn, who is counted apart. A fifth as your name carries further, and a sixth after that.
• Moving them: hours across a town, three to five days across a region, ten days or more across the coast. While travelling they build nothing.
• They gather; they do not hunt. Nothing is cut out of a carcass. That is Talonfall's work.
• Tending earns goodwill, recorded on the Council Disposition Tracker — and it extends to your associates: the other cells and the 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 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.

Date	Letter	Sent by	To	How it travelled
Hammer 3, 1489	Scales Letter: Founding the Hearthwardens	Declan Winterhound	Karma	Two days behind the wagon that brought the crew and the timber up to Nuts Deep

See also

• Scales of Eldath — the wing; standings are tracked on the Renown Tracker
• Declan Winterhound — the Scales representative who sent them
• Council Disposition Tracker — where goodwill is recorded
• The Nightingales · The Anvil · Talonfall · The Broken Latch · The Dawnwatch — the other companies' cells
• Karma