Albar
Town on the western edge of the Whitelands, on the plain east of the Dawn Range, below a pinewood.
Description
Albar rises on the plain east of the Dawn Range, where the farmland gives way to the cold steppe of the north. A dense pinewood shelters its back to the north, with a stretch of open steppe between the last houses and the trees. To the northwest, above the peaks, Mount Oruco smokes; on clear nights the glow of its crater can be seen.
It is some twenty houses with white walls and orange tile roofs, like those of the other villages of Felgrum, scattered without order along a winding dirt road. Between them lie small vegetable plots and low stone walls, and the last houses fade into the steppe with nothing to mark where the town ends. A road leaves to the west, toward the range.
Layout
The road widens into a small square with a well. On it stands the common hall, the largest building in the town, with a bell turret. On the eastern edge lies the graveyard, an enclosure with a low wall, gravestones and a few cypresses.
To the northeast, set apart from the town and the pinewood, a watchtower of stone stands on a rocky rise, square, with a small roof. From it the whole plain can be seen as far as the range.
People and culture
Albar is the human town nearest to the villages of the Drocani. They come down to sell and to buy; the townsfolk know them on sight and treat them with the ease of people who see them every day. In winter, Ardal relies on Albar for barter.