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Karland's Sawmill
Blighted Timber, a Silent Logging Camp, and a Job Downriver
This location supports Karland's initial briefing and the expedition to Reiver's Right. Run the briefing before presenting the investigation details below. The sawmill can also be visited independently for timber purchases, freight arrangements, or local information.
The eastern edge of Old Macridi is dominated by the steady percussion of saw teeth, turning gears, and timber striking timber.
Karland's Sawmill sprawls beside Profit's Flow, its broad processing sheds opening directly onto a timber collection basin. Workers guide enormous trunks from the water with hooked poles while waterwheels, belts, winches, and saw frames turn raw Palakar timber into carefully sorted lumber.
Stacks of freshly cut boards rise beneath long, open-sided sheds, separated by size, grain, and quality. The scent of wet bark, sawdust, river water, and fresh-cut wood hangs heavily in the air.
For such a large operation, surprisingly little raw timber waits in the yard. Nearly everything that arrives during the night is processed during the following day's single shift, then moved onward to craftsmen, builders, merchants, or river barges.
One log, however, has been dragged well away from the others.
A dark stain runs through the fresh-cut wood.
Where pale sap should bead along the grain, something thick, black, and oily slowly gathers instead.
Karland's Sawmill is one of Old Macridi's largest and most recognizable commercial operations. The mill processes timber harvested under Macridi's long-standing agreements governing the use of the Palakar Forest.
The mill deliberately accepts only enough timber to maintain a single work shift running from dawn until dusk. During evening and nighttime hours, logging crews throughout the southern Palakar mark selected felled trees with magical lights and send them into Profit's Flow. A late-night collection crew at the mill secures the glowing timber at the river piers and stages it for processing the following day.
Other logging operations transport timber along established forest roads and smaller waterways feeding the main river. These routes connect remote harvesting areas with Macridi's timber trade, allowing wood to reach the mill without requiring every logging crew to work directly beside Profit's Flow.
Waterwheels provide much of the mechanical power needed to operate the mill's gang-saws, hoists, belts, and other heavy equipment. This allows a relatively small workforce to process substantial quantities of timber during daylight hours without operating the sawmill itself around the clock.
The system is efficient, and generations of workers have refined it around Macridi's conservative logging agreements with the Palakar Forest. Darkwood is among the mill's most valuable materials, though supplies are carefully controlled and much of the finest lumber is already committed to long-standing commercial contracts.
The mill is owned by Prophet Danum Karland (LN male human expert 2/ranger 4), an experienced timber merchant whose practical knowledge of the Palakar extends well beyond lumber prices. He knows its logging territories, river routes, seasonal conditions, old agreements, and the habits of the crews who work beyond Macridi.
That experience is exactly why the timber arriving at his mill concerns him.
The sawmill is a working industrial site rather than a traditional shopfront. Visitors are expected to remain clear of marked work areas, moving machinery, suspended timber, and the river intake platforms. Workers can usually direct visitors toward the appropriate clerk or foreman for purchases, custom milling, freight arrangements, or questions about timber.
Commercial business continues despite the troubling discovery. The black-streaked log has been isolated