Reiver's Right — Location 11

Carpentry Shed

Built for Somewhere Below

The carpentry shed smells of sawdust, pitch, and freshly cut pine. Workbenches run beneath racks of handsaws, augers, mallets, planes, and measuring jigs. Offcuts cover the floor, and several unfinished pieces remain clamped exactly where their makers left them.

Most of the finished lumber is strangely uniform. Short heavy beams are stacked beside thick braces, wedges, cribbing blocks, and square frames built to the same few measurements over and over again.

Whatever the larger pieces were made for, Reiver's Right needed a great many of them.

The Carpentry Shed provides some of the clearest physical evidence that the camp's timber was being diverted into the Lower Works. The bulk of the pieces being produced here are not furniture, building trim, wagon parts, or ordinary logging equipment. They are standardized structural components designed to be carried into confined spaces and assembled quickly.

Automatic Confirmation

If the party has already concluded that Reiver's Right contains a hidden underground excavation, no check is required. The purpose of the larger lumber is immediately obvious: these are tunnel supports, braces, cribbing, and framing components.

This location should reward players for connecting earlier clues. Once they have identified the pattern, do not make them roll simply to confirm what they have already reasoned out.

Challenge: Understand the Carpentry

Characters who have not yet identified the Lower Works can study the dimensions, cuts, and repeated construction patterns to determine what the components were intended to support.

Primary Check Crafting DC 15, Engineering Lore DC 14, Mining Lore DC 14, or Labor Lore DC 15
Critical Success The character immediately recognizes a complete system of underground support components: short beams for confined passages, angled braces for resisting lateral pressure, cribbing blocks for supporting unstable loads, wedges for tightening frames in place, and standardized timber sets designed to be installed repeatedly as an excavation advances. Clue: Reiver's Right was not merely reinforcing a cellar or repairing foundations. These pieces were being produced for sustained tunneling or underground excavation.
Success The dimensions and repeated patterns make sense as structural supports intended for confined underground spaces. Clue: The camp was fabricating tunnel or mine shoring in significant quantities.
Failure The character can tell that the pieces are structural rather than decorative, but cannot confidently determine where they were intended to be used.
Critical Failure The character assumes the standardized pieces were intended for ordinary retaining walls, dock repairs, or heavy camp construction.
Production at Scale

The repeated dimensions matter as much as the shape of the lumber. Measuring jigs have been nailed directly to several benches so workers could reproduce the same pieces quickly without marking each one individually.

Bundles of completed braces are tied together in identical sets. Chalk marks on the wall record batches rather than individual projects, suggesting continuous production over a long period.

This was not a carpenter improvising supports for an emergency repair. The shed had become a small production line supplying a recurring need.

Challenge: Estimate the Scale

The amount of waste lumber, completed components, and repeated batch markings can reveal how extensively these supports were being used.

Primary Check Crafting DC 16, Engineering Lore DC 15, or Perception DC 17
Critical Success The character determines that the shed has produced far more shoring material than any visible structure at Reiver's Right could require. The batches indicate continual replacement and expansion rather than a single construction project. Clue: The hidden work site must be extensive and was still growing shortly before the camp went silent.
Success The volume of finished and consumed timber greatly exceeds the needs of the visible camp. Clue: Large amounts of structural lumber were being sent somewhere else.
Failure The shed was clearly busy, but the character cannot estimate how much material it produced or where it went.
Critical Failure The character underestimates the production volume and assumes the excess material accumulated over many years of ordinary repairs.
Halven Dorr's Darkwood Inspection

The smaller stack of finished hardwood is darkwood, kept separate from the ordinary pine and structural lumber. These boards were not intended for the Lower Works. They were being selected for precision work on behalf of Orvik Brasshand.

Several pieces bear compact chalk inspection marks in the same hand. A small notation on one board reads H. DORR. Another has been marked with a short line and set aside from the accepted pieces.

Halven Dorr had been sent to Reiver's Right to inspect and purchase finished, seasoned darkwood suitable for Orvik's precision commissions. He was an outsider to the logging camp and had no official role in the Lower Works.

Anyone examining the rejected pieces closely notices faint discoloration beneath the grain. It is not the obvious black sap seen in badly blighted timber, but thin branching shadows appear inside portions of the wood when viewed along the freshly planed edge.

The arrangement suggests Halven was personally examining the shipment rather than relying on the camp's grading marks. Some pieces had been approved. Others had been rejected. The work was never completed.

Challenge: Examine Halven's Darkwood

A character who takes time to compare the accepted and rejected darkwood pieces can determine what Halven was looking for.

Primary Check Crafting DC 15, Nature DC 16, or Forestry Lore DC 14
Critical Success The character realizes Halven was screening the darkwood for subtle internal defects rather than ordinary workmanship. The rejected pieces contain faint branching discoloration beneath otherwise sound grain. Clue: Halven had noticed that apparently usable timber from Reiver's Right could conceal early signs of contamination.
Success The rejected boards show unusual discoloration that is absent from the pieces Halven approved. Clue: Halven was deliberately separating questionable darkwood from clean stock.
Failure The character recognizes that Halven was grading the wood carefully but cannot determine why certain pieces were rejected.
Critical Failure The rejected boards appear to be ordinary lower-grade timber with cosmetic imperfections.
Halven Was Here Recently

Halven's inspection station looks interrupted rather than abandoned. Chalk lies beside the sorted boards, one unfinished piece remains on the bench, and several darkwood boards have been shifted into separate accepted and rejected stacks.

This provides physical confirmation that Halven Dorr reached Reiver's Right and was still carrying out his assignment here. It does not explain what happened to him afterward.

If the party is already investigating The Clock That Came Home, this clue should reinforce the mystery rather than solve it: Halven arrived, began his work, noticed something wrong with some of the timber, and then disappeared.

Connection to the Lower Works

Several finished bundles of structural lumber are marked only with simple chalk notations such as L.W., Lower, or batch numbers matching the abbreviations found on repair tags in the Smithy and assignments in Hendrick's records.

If the party has already connected L.W. to the Lower Works, this requires no additional check.

Halven's darkwood should remain visibly distinct from these shipments. His presence here was legitimate commercial business occurring alongside the concealed excavation, giving him an opportunity to notice activity he was never meant to see.

The evidence here should feel cumulative. Hendrick's records describe the work, the Storehouse supplied it, the Smithy repaired its tools, and the Carpentry Shed manufactured the timber supports needed to keep it operating.

No Mandatory Encounter

The Carpentry Shed works best as an investigation location rather than another combat scene. Its purpose is to let the party look at something mundane and realize exactly what it means.

If you want an environmental hazard here, an unstable rack of heavy finished beams can serve as a separate Level 1 collapsing-lumber hazard. Keep the hazard in its own HTML card so it can be added or removed without changing the investigation scene.

What This Location Should Establish

The Carpentry Shed should confirm that the timber camp itself was being used to support the concealed excavation. Reiver's Right supplied more than labor and cover: its logging operation provided a constant source of beams, braces, cribbing, wedges, and frames for the underground work.

It also establishes that Halven Dorr successfully reached Reiver's Right, inspected darkwood here, and had begun rejecting pieces that showed subtle signs of contamination before he disappeared.

By this point, a party that has followed the evidence should no longer be asking whether something was happening beneath Reiver's Right. The remaining questions are where the entrance is, how large the Lower Works are, what the Golden Hand was trying to reach, and what Halven saw before he vanished.