Gordin's Delve

This page contains all the scattered lore and bits of knowledge about the town of Gordin's Delve, either excerpts from the official Stonetop material or bits added by us that don't fit well in the narrative session pages.  

From the official material:

Gordin's Delve is a town sprawled down a mountainside in the Huffel Peaks, with everything from fine houses to ramshackle huts crammed together cheek-by-jowl. It's maybe three times larger than Stonetop, just under 1,000 souls.Most of them are either miners or people who support the mining industry in some way, but there are also loggers, smiths, tinkers, goatherds, and criminals of every stripe. They all serve the interests of a handful of feuding bosses who extract the wealth of the miners' labour to line their own pockets, and are perpetually locked in a state of anarchic struggle. This is where people end up where they have nowhere else to go. If they're lucky, they'll find a job doing backbreaking labour in the mines; if they're not, they'll be begging outside Sorrow's Gate for enough coin to survive another day.

This was once a Maker city, long since fallen into ruin. The town walls are old Maker ramparts which now protect the town from Hillfolk raids. Many of the buildings are built into old Maker ruins, or built out of their crumbled stones. Old Forge Lord tunnels stretch deep below the earth from openings in the mountainside, but many of them are collapsed or unstable now.

As a town, it's very unlike Stonetop. Smoke from the great Foundry fills the air, and the sounds of busy people and clanging metal are omnipresent. The Hillfolk have a superstitious hatred of the place, as they believe that mining metals is an act of violence against the earth, and would gladly see it razed to the ground if they could. Skirmishes between the Hillfolk and the Delve have been happening on and off for generations.

And some more character-specific lore, made as answers to questions from the GM

• Soren, you've been here on your travels. How long ago was it? What friends and/or enemies did you make here?

Gordin's Delve was one of Soren's last stops before he returned to Stonetop so he was there relatively recently.  I don't remember how long ago Soren's return was, a year?  multiple years?  However long ago it was, Gordin's Delve was everything he hated about Stonetop as a kid cranked to the max.  The expectation to fall in line with the powers that be, do your work and keep your head down, and the sooty air all rankled him.

Soren was on a hot streak one night in a gambling den run by one of the Bosses, who didn't take too kindly to the money Soren was winning.  While they couldn't prove he was cheating, he had to make a hasty exit when the Boss sent some goons to rough him up, leading him to flee to the seedier side of the town.  He was able to lose his pursuers by slipping into the back of one of the run-down huts.  He never gave his name, but if they recognize him he is sure they would want to provide the beating he barely escaped(Whether that is true or not I leave up to Dennis).

The hut he was hiding in was owned by Mahsa, an middle-aged woman who runs a very simple food service from the front of her humble abode.  Its simple but hearty food, her customers are mostly miners looking for cheap and quick food and the occasional outsider.  Soren frequented the place during the rest of his stay in Gordin's Delve, charming her with his unending praise for her cooking and swapping stories with the other guests who came there to eat and socialize.

• Stella, two questions:
  • When you travel, is it obvious that you're a Lightbearer in some way? Distinctive garb or regalia? Or do
    you prefer to travel incognito and blend in with the rest of the group?
  • You've never been to Gordin's Delve before. What are you most afraid of?

Q1,
Apart from her eyes being an obvious tell that she is a Lightbearer, Stella does usually wear a set of robes that would at least identify her as some sort of priest of Helior. When she wants to blend in she packs them away, but she hasn’t recently found many situations where specifically being known as a Lightbearer or representative of Helior’s faith would be detrimental. Especially since many people respect or are at least somewhat intimidated by the presence of a Lightbearer, she has been using it sorta like a mask to hide behind.

Q2,
This trip differs from the others she’s had so far because it’s a large, scary, unfamiliar town and she assumes that the dangers of openly being known as a Lightbearer among an obscure group of travellers would far outweigh the benefits. 
While close to or in Gordin’s Delve she would have her regular non-ceremonial regalia packed away, and would likely be wearing a hooded cloak and the simple black see-through eye mask that Olwinn used to wear while travelling. (which is somewhat too big for her)

Also going to add that the act of obscuring one’s identity is commonly regarded as sacrilegious among local sects of Helior’s faith. 
This is usually overlooked when the reasoning for obscuring one’s identity is deigned properly moral, but there have been instances where even priests of Helior have obscured their identity for morally sound reasoning and had their reputation ruined because of it.
This rule doesn’t formally exclude Lightbearers, but they do commonly travel with their face or eyes obscured, and Stella has heard of one known to hide their eyes at all times outside of ceremonial proceedings. Contrasting local customs, Stella has seen (in her study of Olwinn’s books) references to foreign sects of Helior’s faith in which it is proper and expected for Lightbearers to hide their eyes at all times except behind closed doors.

• Rua, you haven't been back here since you were a child. What are you most looking forward to seeing, or showing
  off to Betta?

First things first, Rua has mixed feelings about Gordin's Delve. He knows objectively it's not a good place to live, but it's his hometown. Plus he left when he was young, so he was mostly unaware of how corrupt everything was.

I think Rua's looking forward to seeing (and introducing Betta to) his uncle. He worked in the mines, and there was some terrible accident that left him crippled. He's been making his living as a tinkerer ever since. His wife is a blacksmith. Rua hasn't seen them since he left.

• Esme, the rule of law is less well established here than in Stonetop, but there would still be a shrine to Aratis
  and at least one Judge doing their best to stem the tide of lawlessness. What do you know about them?

According to Esme, the local Judge, Anarith Quinn is an affable, obsequious fool that takes harmony, one of Aratis' virtues, to extreme ends as he unendingly attempts to appeal to the 'better natures' of the rotating cast of bosses. He is almost always ignored and when he does 'mediate' deals, once it is time to put them into practice they are invariably discarded within a matter of days. The previous judges who made nuisances of themselves were eventually silenced, one way or another, but Anarith has been 'serving' the community for almost twenty years, having accomplished literally nothing beyond the occasional token participation but is provided a relatively luxurious lifestyle by the bosses in power (which he takes as a sign that he/Aratis is respected). Esme hates him. So much.