Villages

While digging out a new cellar, the village elder discovers a barrow underneath his house.

He promptly runs away screaming, as a skeletal warrior clad in blue-greenish armour armed with a short sword, a big round shield and a fuckhuge pike marches out.

Turns out, he just dug into the final resting place of the founder of the first Paladin Order. Who was prophesied to have awoken from death when [Insert Ancient Evil Here] rose up against the world.

Problem is, [Insert Ancient Evil Here] rose up 1500 years ago, and despite the loss of over 1449 paladins, [Insert Ancient Evil Here] was defeated just fine.

Now this ancient paladin realises that sacrificing his sanctity and eternal rest for undeath was futile in the end, and he now has an eternity of being useless to look at.

>several hundred people
That's a full-fedged town or a small city in any pre-modern setting, m8.

Village elders are evil.
Goblin tribe was peacefull.
Cultists were just druids.
Kidnaped children were sent there by their parents to steal dragons gold.
You are third party that believed without doubth.
First two had those items they aren paying you.

>The Blacksmiths son is seen a quiet recluse. People often see him sneak away at night to do who knows what.

When the party investigates they find him fucking with the local lords daughter and her mother.

>The local Lord is viewed as a gentle and caring man admired by many.

He's actually a sadistic homosexual who purchases male slaves every now and then, keeping them captive in the basement of an old watchtower he owns and keeps as a storage for grain.

>The local priest is a known drunkard who is often found sleeping in the streets.

When the party investigates they find out that he's been trying to catch a thief all this time but always falls unconscious right before the roberries happen.

>The three local guards often capture smugglers going through the village.

They are in cahoots with the thieves guild of a nearby city and cooperate as enforcers to catch non-sanctioned criminals who get sent their way.

>There's an old wood-elf herbalist living on the dge of town. He's famed for his painful but effective miracle cures.

He's actually a native of this village who was born there before humans settled there. He hates the fact that humans pushed his people away from their home and is slowly sterilizing the non-elven population so he can invite his kin back home.

Vilagers are just high tier illusions local wizard(archmage of Pentacle, Grand Master of illusions) created secretly because he wanted other archmages to stop joking about his loneliness. He actually to shy to live with other people. And after all this years probably bit crazy.

No-one's suggested Hot Fuzz?

Villagers actually puppets controled by rats inside them. Rat colony tired from being exterminated by every passing adventurer create this sort of disguise for their society. They test guests by asking them to kill rats in tavern basement and locking those who agree.

They ask to join old harvest ritual devoted to Gods Beyond Our Time.
There is alot of drinking, singing and costume contest.

Revolution starts right after you mention that prices on grain goes down in the capital. They cchoose you as a leader and representer. Finaly someone to end this monarchy torture mechanism.

This. It probably has a market square, and upwards of a thousand inhabitants on market days.

A theocratic village is up in arms over the new head paladin. They were assigned a new paladin after the last one fell in combat with the goblin encampment a few dozen miles out. The new guy is a bugbear that comes highly recommended for dedicated service to the church.

>Rogue apprentice enchanter has taken up in an abandoned mill down the river. He's not bothering anybody, but someone should probably check on him.

>The sheep were all disappearing in the night. We figured they'd been taken by wolves or...worse. Now they're all back.

>Our trade is in vinegar. Its not glamorous, but every year at our fall festival we have a contest to see who can drink the most of it. The winner gets a cask of mead and a whole smoked pig.

>Somebody's been dumping stones in the river. Not sure who or why. Mind straitening that out?

>We had a flag made to comemorate the king's passing, but it blew away into the woods. His son is touring the fieldlands before his coronation and it'd be nice to have something to show for ourselves. We're not too concerned, but we should probably at least make an effort.

>We herd sheep here, just like the giants over the ridge in the neighboring valley. We get along alright, but they're not exactly talkative folks. Problem is, our sheep keep wandering into their flocks. They dont keep a good count of theirs, figure they must not care to account for such small creatures, but they dont take kindly to us trying to get a few back from them. You seem like sturdy types, mind nabbing a few back for us?

>The Jacobson's boy thinks he's got it in him to be a squire in the capital. We really need him around here. Wont be enough men around in a few years to raise new houses, what with the losses from the war. See if you cant talk some sense into him. Ill make it worth your while: he up and bought himself a fine lookin blade. Get him to give it up, and I promise it'll find its way to you.

Im just riffing waiting for something to run through at work. Anybody got any they like, or any suggestions on improving my technique in general?

There's a charming village nestled beneath a hill near a great stone bridge that stretches into a deep, ominous fog over a chasm. The bridge is the only way forward. The adventurers are greeted heartily by the villagers, and offer a wide array of goods and entertainment. They're almost too friendly. Any questions about the fog are dodged or laughed off as just a quirk of the region.

Once the adventurers are ready to proceed, they begin their trek across the bridge. They soon enter the ominous fog, unable to see past their noses no matter what they try, and any attempts dispel it with any kind of magic fail. After hours of walking, the fog finally begins to thin. The end of the bridge is in sight, and beyond it... the village.

The villagers once again greet the adventurers, exactly like the first time. Any items that they may have bought are back on the displays in the shops. If the adventurers display any knowledge from their previous stay in the village in an attempt to convince the inhabitants that they've been there before, the villagers will just laugh and ask how the adventurers knew, marveling at their uncanny knowledge but not really listening to the answer.

At this point the adventurers might decide to start doing a little investigating, trying to figure out what exactly is going on in the village. Any questions are met with laughter and the villagers proudly recounting the village's nearly completely unhelpful history. But should the adventurers begin stumbling towards the truth, the villagers will start to become distinctly less friendly, questions answered with curt nods or monosyllables.

And should the adventurers decide to leave the village the way they came, they'll reach the crest of the hill they climbed to get there and be greeted by the sight of a charming village nestled beneath a hill near a great stone bridge stretching into a deep, ominous fog over a chasm.

>Post any interesting quest hooks and plot hooks and and neat developments and rumors for villages that have several hundred people in them.

Village is forgotten by the king of the land, for generations it rots, young people leave it, there is no industry or commerce, its just dying.
Local bandits take over the place, the leader is a puppet they put in place, and they make it the center for their drug trade.
They make a lot of money, give jobs to many villagers, give prospects to the young people to climb up the military-like (perhaps they are deserters?) structure of the gang.
They renovate the church, build a bridge, purge off foreigners and minorities (other species like elves/dwarves if its fantasy), and overall appeal to the very traditionalist conservative villagers.

The king is sending you to bring the village back under the control of the state, to get them to start paying taxes again, to get them to surrender the druglord bandit leader (some alchemy thing perhaps).
You have to decide between the bad rightful king or the popular thugs, and either get the town folks on your side, or siege the town hall, or join the locals and defend against the small force sent with you by the king.

villager has been poaching in the lord's woods to feed his malnourished family, the guards are moving in to find him and hang him

Local tavern isn't getting much business due to a rumour about it being haunted, is actually just the new abode of a mischievous hob

Strangely big villager that has only moved there in the last few weeks with a woman. turns out he was actually the King's bodyguard but is now on the run with his secret lover. The price on his head is enough to feed our party for a long while

fuckin ratatouille turned ttrpg

shut up and post villages nerd

I really like your blend of mundane and magical, and the fact that any one of these prompts can be approached in any number of ways by good or evil leaning parties.

There was a thread where some guy played a village doctor. There were tons of good hooks there involving a village.

If anyone has it.

>gazebo

It depends on whether you mean simply residing within some village walls or palisades, or if you include all the nearby farms and ranches and so on. It also depends on if you use british parishes or some other basis for your town organization.

This is what I've been using because I like having my own systems for my fantasy games.

Farmstead.......

Because villagers murdering their neighbors in a series of elaborate accidents to win "best village to live in", in some sort of competition is both incredibly ironic and doesn't really suit the fantasy medieval aesthetic

>early 70s
>neutral paladin

Something here doesn't add up.

They were more into winging it in those days.

You and your band of peasants are cut down by the much more well trained, fed, and equipped knights.

>pointless gate/tower
Well I am triggered.

You should invest more in perception because it's not pointless, it's just from an earlier time when this place was more dangerous.

The village is clearly built on the site of an ancient ruined fortification with an earthen rise/ditch around it.

Most of the ruins have been picked clean as building material, but the old tower was mostly intact and at some point rebuilt.

Also post comfy villages artwork.

>cut down by the much more well trained, fed, and
Wrong The gate doesn't look older than the village.

Look closer.

You can clearly see that the wall is being built. They started on the gate first, but it looks like they are going to wall in the village.

Thanks sherlock. Now tell me where this pipe ash comes from and whether he was lefthanded.

>two completely opposite opinions.

Yeah the art is shit.

The wall isn't thick enough to be a proper stone wall.

A village that small would build a wood wall not a stone one.

>wall is being built
>it's paper thin almost as if it was picked clean for building material for the village
>zero sign of construction
>village already extends far beyond the tiny wall
>wall would be pointless to keep out the occasional bandits and sheep thieves

is right.

>zero sign of construction
It's rainy, they put their tools away for the day.
>village already extends far beyond the tiny wall
It's a work in progress user, the wall will catch up soon. (after the rain quits)

This place seems pretty comfy.

You realize that there would be literal piles of stone in place for preparation if that was in fact the case.

>Comfy
>Implying that the faggots in Wrenscote aren't up to something evil
>Implying that they aren't trying to summon a demon from The Hole
>Ignoring the river that (due to rains) is threatening to crest and wipe out the town

er....

Well.....um......

They put the stone away because of the rain. They don't like wet stone.

I heard the fish that old man Jenkin's gets from the hole make people sick anyway.

We can go comfier.

I've heard rumors that Jenkins gets his worms for bait.....from the graveyard. That dude is weird man.

The new pic looks sorta comfy, but I'm concerned that we're too close to the edge of the woods, you can see in the picture, that there is CLEARLY strange noises coming from deeper in the woods.

Can you go a little more comfy?

>the villagers are friendly enough, but most of them wear ungainly mittens and gloves regardless of the weather or their occupation, and there is a strangely high amount of them missing one hand...

The villagers were cursed. At night their hands come off and try to strangle their loved ones. They were mittens so their hands can't walk around on their fingers. Are you a bad enough dude to kill the witch and her army of crawling hands?

>At night their hands come off and try

My hand does weird things to me at night too.

Maybe my town is cursed?

asian farming villages, for variety

lol

This is NOT comfy.

WTF is that weird stone creature lurking in the bottom left corner? Look at it's unseeing gaze of evil!

The fence is broken, like something big and angry has stomped through it.

I see no people, and things are over grown.

This is a village of dead people, and the killer is resting........

The statue in the bottom left has been there for longer than the Elders can recall. It's their symbol of good luck, protection and prosperity.

Thing is, it's actually a golem originally built to protect the village.

And there's rumblings from further on down the valley.

>it's actually a golem originally built to protect the village.
>Built to protect the VILLAGE
>Notice that user didn't say it protected the villagers?
>Because the golem kills everyone that tries to live in the village

Now we're cooking.

Inside the great forest where the will o wisps play.

HOLY FUCK!

Notice the lack of people?
Notice the glowing balls of light? Those are spirits of the dead, still lingering....
Look at the mist in the background.....but wait, it's NOT mist. It's actually millions of tiny spider webs flowing in the breeze....
Look at the tear in the roof in the bottom right.
That's clearly a where a claw has ripped into the tree/roof.

Holy fuck, that's not comfy!

You fuckers are terrifying me with your "comfy" villages.

>Nobody posting the comfiest village around

You know not everything is defensive. Gates, walls, and even castles were often just built for looks, as a sign of familial prestige or civic pride, with no defensive purpose. Just look at medieval Bologna.

Holy shitbeans batman.....

Look at those roads and homes. Built all willy-nilly with no sense of reason. This is a village of madmen, who despise any type of order.

Totally not comfy

after recognizing the need to strengthen their economy or risk their population having to resettle, three small hamlets, two smaller thorpes and half a dozen farmsteads have finally merged into a medium sized village, clustered on several banks of a river in an enclosed valley, and are just beginning to make sturdier bridges and formally paved roads between them for trade and communication.

while each of the new neighborhoods retains their own specialized industry, they need to negotiate trade with a distant but large town to bring supplies and builders in to create a new central district where members of the various neighborhoods can meet and do business relevant to the village as a whole.

a general store in the former largest hamlet sends word with a passenger caravan- which nearly missed the sole road into the valley- that they need help, both for security for the new trade routes they hope to establish and for advertising their locally made goods.

Not really. A village may have several hundred people in it, but it's probably more spread out and rural than a town would be. It really depends on what the locals figure constitutes a town or how close or far apart it can be, which varies a lot.

Either way, several hundred is FAR from "city" in any setting. Even the ancient world had cities of hundreds of thousands. Rome's population at its peak was over a million.

>there will never be a software to make comfy villages
Why do all programmers hate role playing tools so much?

>half-starved halflings
Halflings don't exist in any of the settings I DM. Fuck those bastards. Completely fucking useless as a race. Gnomes are better than them, dwarves are better than them.

Delete Halflings.

...

now THIS is a sleepy forest village.

That's beautiful.

I wouldn't call 4 houses a village. According to GURPS that ain't a village.

There's farmsteads in the land around the moat/town. This is probably a thorpe as suggested, a collection of farmsteads that have a single central, well defended keep. Probably hydrophobic monsters or risk of foreign incursion are common, as the land is on a border with a dangerous place. The keep is to defend when the next skirmish breaks out, while the soldiers signal a nearby garrison.

>Village is forgotten by the king of the land, for generations it rots
This always bothers me. Why is it always the king?

The king does not bother with every town in the realm, hell he doesn't even bother with all the provinces. That's what the Dukes are for. And every Duke has at least a Count managing every County(that probably has a couple of villages maybe a bit more than a couple).

So it always bothers me when people or stories revolve around peasants and kings. Ignoring the whole nobility hierarchy inbetween them. Why do people ignore it Veeky Forums? It annoys me to no ends. Counties are owned by Counts not by Kings!

I bet playing a game that was sort of inspired by Blue Velvet and/or Twin Peaks would be fun. You know, the sleepy idyllic little farming village harbors some weird dark secrets right under the surface and the players have to suss it out.

Pic related: village density in ye olde merry England.

...

So every nigga has its own crops?

Who determines how much land each peasant has? What happens to the poor folk that decided to build his house in non farmable land?

...

What do the numbers even mean though? So the most populated village has over 10 people?

Means there's over 10 villages in the hexagon you nerf herder.

we need more games with this. :D

Pretty sure that's the number of villages in each hex

Sheeeeet. 10 villages in merely 50 miles? Just how small is the UK?

son where did you learn how to read

tiny. find a map.

Because they have no idea how medieval society worked?

the entirety of the UK is smaller than Michigan

because the nobility is just as misunderstood in the US as the role of a functional government is?

Because fairytale kingdoms are extremely small?

A grave up at the old churchyard is said to be visited every year on a holiday by a figure dressed in a long black robe. The figure didn't appear last holiday, and some say the sickness that has fallen over the village is somehow tied to this.

The old folks say that the one-eyed dwarf who runs the local mill arrived when they were children during a war. He refuses to make armor or blades. A broken axe hangs above his threshold.

They say the duke's son ran off with a common maid. Some say he took up in the army, though he was no more than 14. His best friend, the man-of-arm's son, woke screaming shortly after he left, and has been whitehaired and mumbly ever since.

There hasn't been a single living child born in the village in a generation.

The Inn is built from the stones of an old garrison tower built in the hinterlands. On nights of the full moon those beneath the roof of the Inn are said to have dreams of what happened in the garrison.

A field southwest of town were once the site of a massacre. The grains grown in those fields bleed as they are picked.

This village in the outlands was once home to a great wizard. It is illegal to eat meat, tan hides, or trap for furs... this has come about since many of the animals around the area can speak. None know if the animals are human subjects imprisoned in animal forms or the byproducts of magic leaking into the water table.

Death is said to visit Old Lady Maren, widow of the great landholder, every new moon. Some say that the Old Lady Maren is a witch, others say that the old woman saved Death's life. Still others claim Maren sharpens Death's scythe on the shadows of the New Moon.

There is a tree that bears fruit even in harshest winter. The land is rich here. A group of trappers turned a furrier's camp into an industrious little hamlet.

No one knows why the Martins hate the Oswalts. Some say love, others murder.

A woman in the caves is said to shed tears that revive the dead.

How small are we talking about?

I like your answer more than mine!

We tackled this issue at university just today. Roughly speaking a villager was lucky to see his king once in his lifetime if his village was 50-60 miles from the residence and that's not from a medieval but early modern times perspective (~16th-17th century). So fairytale kingdoms would need to be considerably smaller than that.

Most kings in medieval times were always traveling, so he might have visited some locations more often but those still were exceptions.

The children of the village tend a pot of stew. The adults bring goods to put in. The pot must never be emptied or the flame go out. Ever.

All babies born here have 6 fingers and toes.

Every night the laughter of men, women, and children can be heard outside the walls of every home in the hamlet. Do not go outside.

All wine turns sour, beer goes skunked. Whisky turns to water. A drunkard crossing into town is sober. Dammit, we just want a drink.

Villagers tell strangers their darkest secret upon meeting them. No one knows why, they just feel compelled.

A man is hanging from the sycamore tree gallows. He's been hanging for 10 years, still not hung. The rope won't cut. The man won't stop moving. The tree is immune to axe or ox pulling. He used to dance the air, til the villagers weighed him down and wrapped him up in sackcloth. Now you can only hear the choking as he sways in the breeze.

The local constable came into town 15 years ago an adventurer. He went into the caves up North of here with five fellows. He came back a year later, refuses to leave. Won't say what happened. He's got enough scars and that missing arm, tells me something did.

Alfred Tamarind is celebrating his 150th birthday today. No one knows why he's still alive, but every drunk and damsel has a story for it.

Rain refuses to fall on a house in the middle of town. Water dries up if you pass by. No one's gone in in years. No one's come out in longer.

>A man is hanging from the sycamore tree gallows. He's been hanging for 10 years, still not hung. The rope won't cut. The man won't stop moving. The tree is immune to axe or ox pulling. He used to dance the air, til the villagers weighed him down and wrapped him up in sackcloth. Now you can only hear the choking as he sways in the breeze.

That's some dark shit man..... I like it.

The way the houses are arrayed makes no sense. Whoever made this has clearly never seen a farming village in their life.

"Them Garfields are hard workers. They say that boy of theirs, Jon? They say he fell out of a tree picking apples, broke his damn neck. His ma came, she's a good bonesetter, but never heard nobody coming back from a neck break. She kept that boy home for a week, and he came back out a harder worker. Hasn't grown since though. Man of 20 looks 14. But he's a hard worker."

The women of the mountain village are all stunningly beautiful. Some say that they're not human, but I say they just grow prettier up in that high air.

There are no shadows cast in the hamlet of Brightday.

The butcher used to be a baker. That was til his hands started bleeding. No wounds on his hands, but it won't stop. Guess the gods chose his profession for him.

The village awaits the birth of a miracle. A seventh son of a seventh son. Strange folks have been arriving, camping out around the village, staying in the roadhouse. They say the King's magician is coming to witness.

A child was born speaking. Curious. His first word as he came out of his mother was one. Then two. Three. He is normal, all his fingers and toes. Every few days he speaks, just the one number. Then it became weeks. Then months. He grew up strong, if mute, tends to a huntsman's kennel.

A month ago he started screaming, rolling around. A week ago he said Five Hundred and Seventy Five.

Three days ago? Five Hundred Seventy Four.... Five Hundred Seventy Three...

Ehh. Have a lot of strange little hooks, oddities. But I'm gonna stop so I don't clog up the thread.

Thanks. Not sure what an evil party would be doing in a cozy village though. Sure wouldnt want them starting shit.

>not cheering on Urgok, Lord of Bone as he quaffs a gallon of full strength cider vinegar to win a suckling pig
>not kidnapping that little fucker who has been throwing stones in the pond
>not massacring the giants, putting their giant heads on stakes to tell other giants the sheep trade is off limits to their kind
>not hobbling the squire-to-be and mentally dominating the hottest woman in town to be his wife and keep him happy

I for one would love to see the happy town of Woolsheart, kept cozy by ANY means necessary.

>Not making the barrow a piece of the warrior-king's soul due to a simple typing error and then just fucking rolling with it.

user, for shame.