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Old Macridi Locations

Karland's Sawmill

Profit's Flow, Blighted Timber, and a Forest Going Wrong

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 belts, winches, and saw frames turn raw Palakar timber into carefully sorted lumber.

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.

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 Macridi's most iconic commercial sites. 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 in the southern Palakar place magical lights upon selected felled trees and send them into Profit's Flow. A late-night crew at the mill collects the glowing timber and stages it for processing the following day.

The system is efficient without requiring the sawmill itself to operate around the clock, and generations of workers have refined it around Macridi's conservative logging agreements with the Palakar Forest.

The mill is owned by Prophet Danum Karland (LN male human expert 2/ranger 4), an experienced timber merchant whose knowledge of the Palakar extends well beyond lumber prices. Karland understands that the forest's waterways, root systems, fungal networks, wildlife, and old magic form an interconnected whole.

That belief has recently put him at odds with Macridi's more bureaucratic elites.

The mill has recently received a small but increasing number of darkwood logs whose otherwise sound grain is streaked internally with black, oily, foul-smelling sap. The substance gums saw teeth, ruins blades, stains nearby lumber, and appears to have formed while the trees were still alive.

The affected trunks do not come from a single cutting site. Karland has compared collection marks and logging records and believes they originated from several different parts of the southern Palakar.

That worries him far more than a spoiled shipment would.

Something is affecting living trees across an area large enough that ordinary disease, careless logging, or isolated sabotage no longer seems like a satisfactory explanation.

Reiver's Right lies downriver of both New Macridi and Old Macridi. Most of the visibly blighted timber reaching Karland's mill originates elsewhere in the Palakar.

This is precisely why New Macridi dismisses the camp's sudden silence as unrelated.

Karland disagrees. Rivers are not the only things connecting a forest. Roots cross watersheds. Fungal networks spread beneath the soil. Underground water moves independently of surface currents. Old magic follows neither roads nor commercial boundaries.

Karland does not claim that Reiver's Right caused the blight. He believes its sudden silence may be another symptom of whatever is happening to the Palakar—and that ignoring simultaneous problems because they occur in different places is dangerously shortsighted.

Mill Services

Common Lumber — Market price by grade and quantity
Seasoned Hardwood — Market price
Custom Milling — 5 sp and up
Timber Identification — 2 sp per sample
River Freight Loading — 5 sp per commercial load
Darkwood — Limited availability; existing contracts take priority

Karland has lived and worked in Old Macridi long enough to know nearly every important business, institution, and proprietor. If the characters ask where they should go, what a particular establishment does, or who might know something useful, use the following responses.

Location	What Karland Says
Karland's Sawmill	“You're standing in it. We take Palakar timber, square it, grade it, and send it where it needs to go. Normally I'd tell you the forest provides better wood than anywhere in Druma. Lately, I'm less certain what it's providing.”
The Gilded Ledger Tavern	“Best place in Old Macridi to hear what people are actually saying rather than what they put into a report. Loggers, bargemen, traders—buy the right person a cider and you'll hear half the forest discussed before the mug's empty.”
The Iron-Root Apothecary	“They know Palakar plants better than most people who spend their lives studying books about them. If you're heading into the forest, stop there first. Antitoxins, poultices, venom treatments—and lately they've been seeing some things they don't much like.”
Fanciful Inquiries	“Sorzmig Koob sells curiosities, but don't mistake the clutter for foolishness. He knows the old paths, the fey territories, and more forgotten stories about the Palakar than most people know current ones. If you need a map or want to know what lives beyond it, ask him.”
The Watchmaker's Loft	“Precision work. Fine gears, waterwheel mechanisms, surveying instruments—the sort of things people only notice when they're wrong. If something mechanical around Macridi is behaving strangely, the Loft can usually tell you why.”
Best Fit Furnishings	“Expensive chairs for people who enjoy reminding you they can afford expensive chairs. Don't dismiss the craftsmen, though. They know timber. They've worked enough darkwood to notice changes in grain or color long before most merchants would.”
The Salty Bark Tannery	“You'll smell it before you find it. They handle most of the heavy hides coming out of the surrounding country. Boots, leather armor, river gear. More importantly, they see animals from all over the Palakar, so when the wildlife starts changing, they're among the first to notice.”
Assembly Institute	“That's where Old Macridi turns arguments into policy. Trade councils, municipal business, contracts, disputes—the lot of it. If you want the official position on something, that's where you'll find it. Whether the official position is useful is another question.”
The Veridical Scriptorium	“Records, contracts, property claims, trade tallies, old agreements. Dry work until the day you need something someone signed thirty years ago. If there's written history concerning Reiver's Right or an old arrangement with the Palakar, they'll have the best chance of finding it.”
Sanctitude Saunas	“Mostly a place for Kalistocrats to wash away the inconvenience of touching the same world as everyone else. But the baths draw from local underground water, and the attendants pay very close attention to its smell, color, temperature, and purity. If something has changed below ground, they may have noticed it before anyone else.”

Contract Terms

Advance Payment: 30 gp upfront for supplies and preparations in Old Macridi.
Completion Bounty: 200 gp upon returning with definitive proof of what happened to the workforce at Reiver's Right.
Special Provision: Full reimbursement for any anti-blight supplies or medical preparations purchased from local proprietors.

Sawmill Challenges

Challenge 1: Examine the Blighted Timber

Karland has set aside several affected logs for examination. From the outside they appear healthy, but fresh cuts expose dark streaks running through otherwise sound wood.

A character can examine the timber to determine what the corruption might reveal about the trees before they were felled. Other characters can Aid when appropriate.

Check Nature DC 16 or Crafting DC 17

Critical Success The corruption developed while the trees were still alive and appears to have spread gradually through their internal tissues. The surrounding wood shows no ordinary rot, insect damage, or disease that would explain it.

Success The black sap was present before the trees were felled. This is not contamination caused by transport, storage, or the sawmill.

Failure The character confirms that something is wrong with the timber but cannot determine when the corruption began.

Critical Failure The unusual grain and oily residue make the source of the damage impossible to identify with confidence.

Challenge 2: Compare the Logging Records

Karland keeps careful records of where contracted crews cut timber. He has already noticed that the affected logs do not all come from the same place, but the characters can help him look for a broader pattern.

The records combine cutting locations, collection marks, crew assignments, and the dates on which particular loads entered Profit's Flow.

Check Survival DC 16 or Society DC 17

Critical Success The affected logs came from several separated cutting areas rather than a single grove or logging crew. The pattern strongly suggests a problem spread across part of the Palakar rather than one localized source.

Success The character confirms that the blighted timber originated from more than one logging area. No single crew, grove, or shipment accounts for all of it.

Failure The records are too scattered to reveal more than Karland already knows.

Critical Failure The character finds no reliable geographic pattern in the available records.

Challenge 3: Negotiating the Contract Terms

Primary Check Diplomacy or Society DC 17

The party attempts to leverage their position as independent contractors to secure better equipment or additional hazard pay from Karland before setting off downriver.

Critical Success Karland is thoroughly impressed by the party's professional acumen. He increases the completion bounty to 140 gp and writes a personal credit voucher for Morwenna at the Iron-Root Apothecary, covering up to 10 gp in health supplies.

Success Karland agrees to provide one river-barge transport tokens, securing free passage downriver if the party manages to hire local river transport.

Failure Karland stands firm on his original offer of 100 gp, citing tight mill margins caused by damaged equipment.

Critical Failure Karland grows frustrated by what he perceives as mercenary greed during a town crisis, reducing the upfront advance to 10 gp.

Challenge 4: Pressing for Historic Lore

Primary Check History or Nature DC 18

The party asks Karland about the history of Reiver's Right, probing his memory for details regarding the camp's past and an infamous previous disaster.

Critical Success Karland reveals that Reiver's Right is named after an ancient Macridi Blade warlord and sits directly atop pre-Earthfall burial mounds. He recalls that during an infamous incident decades ago, when a previous crew vanished overnight, survivors spoke of severe subterranean shifts and crimson fluid bubbling from fissures in the ground.

Success Karland explains that Reiver's Right was eventually reclaimed and put back into service to support roughly fifty workers, but its position on the river bluffs makes the surrounding ground prone to strange tremors and root collapses.

Failure Karland provides only basic operational details about the camp and suggests that the Veridical Scriptorium may hold better historical records.

Critical Failure Karland misinterprets the questioning as hesitation and curtly reminds the party that frontier stories are no substitute for seeing the situation themselves.

Sidequest

Macridi has already dispatched couriers seeking answers from the Court of Endless Revelry, the Cedar Court, and the Court of Seasons. None have returned with a response.

Karland does not ask the party to abandon the Reiver's Right investigation and search the entire Palakar for them. Instead, he gives the party the names and identifying marks of the missing couriers and asks them to remain alert during their travels.

Objective: Discover evidence concerning any of the missing couriers while investigating Profit's Flow and Reiver's Right.
What to Look For: Each courier carried a brass Macridi message tube bearing both the settlement seal and the sigil of the court they were sent to contact.
No Detour Required: This sidequest should reward attentive exploration rather than demand a separate expedition. Evidence can appear naturally at later Palakar locations.
Reward: Returning reliable information about a courier earns 10 gp from Karland. Discovering the fate of all three should qualify as a larger story accomplishment later in the adventure.

After hearing the party's conclusions—or once Karland is satisfied that they understand the seriousness of the situation—he formally offers the investigation.

Travel downriver along Profit's Flow to Reiver's Right. Determine what happened to the workforce. Investigate the spreading blight. Report directly back to Karland.

New Macridi considers the camp's location evidence that it cannot be connected to the problems upstream. Karland considers that assumption exactly the sort of comfortable conclusion that allows a forest-wide problem to become a catastrophe.

He encourages the party to prepare before leaving: Fanciful Inquiries knows the Palakar, the Iron-Root Apothecary can prepare them for wilderness hazards, and the Veridical Scriptorium contains older records concerning Reiver's Right and Profit's Flow.

“One last piece of advice—don't plan on walking the bluff trails unless you fancy a three-day slog through overgrown brambles and hostile fey groves. Your best bet for fast travel is by water. Head down to The Gilded Ledger Tavern near the southern gate road. There's a river barge captain, Captain Sella Varn, who's currently drowning her sorrows at the bar. Her flatbottom barge is the only ride leaving town downriver for the next several days. If you can convince or pay her to take you, you'll be at Reiver's Right in a fraction of the time. If you miss her, your only alternative is trekking out along the North Road on foot, which will cost you precious time and test your steel against the forest trail.”

Karland should be the character who pulls the Macridi material together without solving it for the players.

The Salty Bark Tannery suggests something is affecting animals. The Sanctitude Saunas suggest something has reached underground water. Best Fit Furnishings shows that living trees can become corrupted through their roots. Fanciful Inquiries knows the fey have grown strangely quiet. The Assembly Institute can demonstrate that the disruptions make little sense as ordinary commercial sabotage.

Karland sees the pattern.

His mill provides one of the clearest pieces of physical evidence: healthy-looking Palakar trees are carrying corruption inside their living wood. His records further suggest that the affected timber is not coming from one isolated grove.

None of this proves that every strange event in the Palakar has the same cause.

Karland simply sees too many unusual things happening at once to accept coincidence as an explanation.

Reiver's Right has now gone silent as well.

Karland does not know the answer.

That is why he hires adventurers.