The Village of Mistmill

By Graham Robert Scott

(Note: This article was written in response to a recent Ludi Magister article by Wallace Cleaves.)

I have to admit that in my own campaigns, I have tended to be biased in favor of either the wilderness or big cities. (For evidence, see my previous article on city population generators!)

Villages, hamlets, and small towns have largely been treated in my games as uninteresting specs on the map, to be bypassed on the way to adventures where worthy adversaries dwell: dungeons, mountain lairs, dread forests, or cities large enough to support active adventuring populations. Partly, this was due to my comfort areas: I live in today’s world, not yesteryear’s, and my literary area of study is Renaissance, not medieval, so my campaigns often use cities like Shakespeare’s London as at least partial insipiration.

Largely, though, this oversight was a failure in my own creativity, and Wallace’s recent Demiurge article on the medieval village, written with the sorts of insights one would expect from a professional medievalist, has sparked an urge to rectify that fault. Last week, I used the population generator to generate five rather distinct cities, all with large populations, but I noted that it could be used to estimate the class demographics of small towns or large countries. Time to test that!

I decided to design a setting that can harbor the sorts of adventures I now realize I’ve been neglecting: the seemingly quiet village, short on PC resources, long on folk tales, that might very easily go from seeming sleepy to feeling creepy. A place where PCs might have to sleep on the floor of a farmer’s home while the wind whistles outside, and where the “tavern” is whoever’s house just opened a new cask.

At the same time, as Wallace has elsewhere pointed out, D&D isn’t really medieval, so there will be differences—differences we should embrace, rather than ignore. A world with as many predators, monsters, and high-powered NPCs as the D&D worlds tend to have isn’t the same world our medieval villagers occupied. The town is likely to brush up against wildernesses that contain far more menacing things than sheep-eating wolves, and while the medieval villager suspected of witchcraft might have simply been a woman with an unfortunate nose, in the D&D village, she might actually be a spellcaster. So we can expect some villagers to be adventurers: some retired, some home-grown and not fully flown-the-nest, others stationed there by lords or government, still others just passing through or taking a break by helping out on a farm for a season. We can expect the village to need to worry about the occasional rampaging manticore, or whatever lurks out there. If the PCs develop rapport with the villagers, it’ll give them a high-stakes reason to care about that threat.

Starting the Engine: Basic Principles

So let’s imagine the small village of Mistmill, population 300. The population is small enough that there isn’t going to be a university, or a military garrison, or most of the other sorts of things that might attract adventuring classes. That means the cultural availability settings for most of the classes are going to go way, way down. The wizard, being an educated class, is now less likely than a sorcerer with a natural gift or a warlock who has made some sort of pact. Religion, though, is central to village life, as Wallace’s article makes clear, so the cleric and druid remain more likely than the wizard, too. Fighters are more rare than rogues because they’re expensive; armor is costly!

Almost immediately on running the engine, though, I found a hiccup (albeit a small one). Specifically, if you look at the results from the engine, you’ll see that when the number of adventurers of a given class is small enough, it seems to stop calculating how many exist at each level. It doesn’t say what level the two clerics are. So I’ll need to do a little debugging! In the meantime, let’s assume that when class levels aren’t indicated for a member of the population because only one or two exist, those adventurers are equally likely to be levels 1 through 6. Roll 1d6 or pick a number that fits the vibe you’re aiming for.

Once I had the breakdown of classes and professions, the next step was to fit them to the village demographics Wallace has listed in his article. Naturally, in some cases the two profiles might not fit together perfectly. That’s okay. You can always pick the options that seem most realistic, or coolest, or try to split the difference. Also, there’s no reason why a DM cannot round the NPCs indicated to the nearest available NPC from the Monster Manual, treating the 4^th-level fighter as a Veteran and 1^st– or 2^nd-level fighters as Guards, and so forth.

A Useful Social Concept: Fraternities

In trying to figure out who the adventurers were, what their roles in the village were, whether their adventurer capabilities are known or closeted, and how they learned them, I developed a principle that I wish I’d come up with earlier. I’m going to share it before I get to the town’s inhabitants because it deeply affects how they work and relate to each other.

In any culture, the adventuring classes will tend to work kind of like a family, but bound by culture, training, mentorship, rivalry, or shared experience, rather than by blood. Even when they don’t form adventuring parties, this pattern holds. A knight has a squire who becomes a knight who takes on a squire, and a kind of family line is created. Jedi take on padawans who become jedi and take on padawans. Sith have apprentices. In short, most adventurers don’t just become adventurers—they’re molded, coached, recruited, trained. And that means that the relationships can help you map out how the adventurers fit into the community.

Rather than call these families (which could get confusing pretty quickly, since we also have blood-related families in the village), I will call these informal fraternities, with the term being used in a gender-neutral sense. Informal fraternities might very well be populated by women, founded by women, or headed by them, and in some cases below, are. Moreover, the fraternities are often connected to each other by rivalries or shared members. Note that none of the people in the village would use the term fraternity for their groups; it is simply a handy term for this discussion.

In populating Mistmill, I came up with a handful of such fraternities, or loose associations:

• The Lord’s fraternity: The lord is an adventuring class NPC, as are his sister, steward, the steward’s hireling, the former spy-turned-teacher, and the warden. They have adventured together in the past and sometimes still do. The former spy has noticed that several criminal groups have been training the Miller’s boy and is trying to guide him gently toward a better life, but if he seems determined to stay with the lifestyle, she intends to adopt him into this Lord’s group. The head of the Merchant fraternity was once a member of the Lord’s fraternity, but has since amicably separated. The warden also belongs to the Druidic and Hunters fraternities below as a shared member. The Lord’s fraternity is open, with villagers generally aware of their adventuring activities, though not necessarily aware of their different classes and abilities.
  
• The Reeve’s fraternity: The Reeve, his wife, and their henchman form a second, closeted adventuring fraternity. The Reeve’s wife has also sometimes trained and drawn on the help of the Miller’s boy, who has been mentored by members of several other fraternities and might ultimately join any of them or leave the village to freelance elsewhere.
  
• The Merchant’s fraternity: The Merchant and his daughter form an accidental and somewhat dysfunctional fraternity, of which the daughter is a closeted member. She has, meanwhile, been helping to train the Miller’s boy, who represents a kind of adopted member unknown to the patriarch.
  
• The Bandit’s fraternity: The bandit leader outside of town has two laborer part-time bandits under her wing.
  
• The Druidic fraternity: The two druids in the wilderness just outside of town form a fraternity with the warden, whom they share with the Lord’s fraternity and the Hunter’s fraternity.
  
• The Hunter’s fraternity: Two former soldiers and a former bandit now work as full-time hunters in the area, sometimes joining with the warden, whom they share with the Lord’s fraternity and the Druidic fraternity.
  

A few adventuring class NPCs are loners, unaffiliated with the above groups—but not many.

Populating Mistmill

Fitting the two profiles together, and playing around with the above fraternity idea, I come up with the following population for Mistmill:

• Mistmill features 277 non-adventuring villagers – at about 5 villagers per family, that’s about 55 families.
  
  • More than two hundred of the non-adventurers belong to farming, laborer, or fishing families – that is, involved in harvesting of natural resources. Another 28 belong to families involved in food production using those resources: the bakers and the millers in particular, each of which might be one family plus associated hired labor.
    • We can assume about a quarter of these villagers are under the age of 15.
    • Farming, fishing, and labor comprise in all about 45 families—and thus, roughly, an equivalent number of homes, though many such homes may be accompanied by barns and other structures. Assume two structures on average per family, for a total of 90 associated with this one class of NPC.
    • Many of these families would be locally powerful: Ten are virgaters, each prominent land-holders, most of them villeins to the local lord. Four members of this class are local aldermen, helping to govern the village; one is the mayor.
    • The aldermen and mayor may use the Noble stat block from the Monster Manual, even though they are not technically nobility.
      
  • Another 28 villagers are craftspeople and their family members, or about five families total. These people are skilled and largely free, but not as high-status as the villein farmers above.
    
  • Roughly 7 are merchants or transporters of goods – and since that’s roughly as large as a family, we might assume it’s all one family or perhaps two smaller families. Like the craftsfolk, these people are skilled and largely free, but not as high-status as the villein farmers above.
    
  • Three are classified as belonging to learned professions:
    
    • The village’s bailiff, who is the local lord’s unlanded cousin, well-educated and earnest. Use the Noble stat block from the Monster Manual for him.
      
    • Mistmill’s parson, or clergyman, who attended university in a distant city before moving here. This religious leader is not a cleric.
      
    • The parson’s wife, whose love of learning despite lack of access to university resources has made her both the village’s schoolmaster and local sage.
      
  • Three are classified as entertainers or artists. Now, there aren’t any standing taverns or playhouses, and most entertainment in the village is probably coming from other villagers with hobbies (acting, singing, playing instruments). Hence, any professional entertainers or artists in a village this size are likely to be passing through or scraping out a meager living while bumming floorspace off the locals, or else wearing the livery and bearing the endorsement of the local lord, often playing or performing for him or her. Let’s assume the following breakdown for this category:
    
    • 1 sculptor, a woman, resides on a ¼ virgate property, trading sculptures for local goods on a mostly part-time basis since she also needs to help out with managing the family farm.
      
    • 1 painter, the young son of a smallholder with no land of his own, mooches space from the local merchant family, trading art for space and sustenance when not hiring himself out as a laborer out of desperation or hunger.
      
    • 1 singer-actor-musician-dancer who organizes and leads local entertainments associated with the town’s religious activities, borrowing space in the home of the local clergy. This entertainer is not a bard.
      
  • Finally, there is one man-at-arms, who statistically can be treated as a Commoner with leather armor, shield, and maybe some cheap weapons (club, spear, dagger). The man-at-arms is not an adventuring fighter. He works for the merchant family when goods are moved to market, but works as labor when not needed for such tasks.
    
• Mistmill is inhabited by 23 adventurer-class NPCs, each having a different reason for being in a small village like Mistmill. As I have noted elsewhere, roughly half ought to be women. Many of the adventurer NPCs might not appear to have adventuring skill from dress and demeanor. Some will be young, probably local, low-level, and just getting started. Others might be higher-level, older, and retired, in seclusion, or hiding.
  
  • 11 rogues
    
    • The local lord’s Reeve, a scheming grifter and 6^th-level rogue (Chaotic Neutral) whose self-profiting activities have thus far escaped notice.
      
    • The Reeve’s wife (Neutral, 10^th-level rogue), an easy-to-underestimate woman who grew up in a distant, large city as a grifter, thief, pickpocket, smuggler, and bawd. She married the Reeve before he occupied his current position and moved to Mistmill to hide out during a civil war in the city’s criminal organization. She has largely trained the Reeve in his adventuring skills and is, albeit quietly, the highest-level NPC in the town.
      
    • An apprentice rogue to the Reeves, 3^rd-level, who watches after affairs while the Reeves are out of the village on “business” (i.e., adventuring, often by treasure-hunting or breaking into tombs in other villages or area ruins).
      
    • The head of the merchant family (Lawful Neutral, 5^th-level rogue) was once an adventuring rogue and arcane trickster but after a heavy haul, retired from derring-do to become a merchant. He has previously adventured with the area’s lord, but now declines any further invitations. He suspects his bedtime stories about his younger exploits have led his daughter (see below) to her current practices and is struggling with the guilt. Unlike most inhabitants of Mistmill, he is acutely aware of the past of the Reeves’ wife. He grits his teeth and accommodates them as he must, but has so far resisted attempts to enweb him within their larger activities. He has not told the Lord of his knowledge of the Reeves in part due to a previous affair with the Reeve’s wife, which he fears coming to light.
      
    • The eldest daughter in the merchant family, 4^th-level, loyal to her family but with some psychopathic tendencies toward outsiders and rivals (alignment: Neutral with bouts of Chaotic Evil given the right triggers). They are aware that she may have killed some rather vicious former rivals from out of town, but pretend to believe the widely accepted story that their deaths were accidents. They are completely unaware that she first practiced on a former Mistmill alderman who refused to stop bothering her. DMs who don’t mind making her higher-level might use the Assassin entry in the Monster Manual, or else reduce the hit points by about half, the attack and skill bonuses by 1 point, and the damage-per-turn output to something closer to that of the Scout.
      
    • The son of the village’s miller, surrounded by fun stuff to climb and mechanics, has hungrily learned every starting trick he can from locals and those passing through. He is a 1^st-level rogue (Neutral). He’s shared by several fraternities, each of which has contributed a little to his training, and each of which sometimes attempts to influence him (some of them for his own good, but not all of them). The Merchant’s daughter has mentored him a little, as have the bandits and the Reeve’s wife.
      
    • A local hunter is a retired former bandit (Neutral, 9^th-level rogue), having actively practiced thievery when younger and more angry. (He hunts with two of the fighters below.) DMs may use the Bandit Captain stat block from the Monster Manual for his statistics.
      
    • Just outside of town, another bandit leader – this one actively practicing – lives in an overgrown ruin of an old tower, from which she runs a small band of trouble-makers. For her, use the Thug stat block.
      
    • Two of the farming laborers in the community do double-duty as bandits (use the Bandit stat block) during the night, preying on travelers, sometimes hitting roads several miles away.
      
    • Finally, a teacher working with the local schoolmaster (see under non-adventuring villagers) is a former spy of the realm (8^th-level rogue, Lawful Good) now retired with a small income from the crown. Having worked with and once adventured with the village’s lord, she has settled in Mistmill in part to act as a confidential advisor to him. The Spy stat block from the Monster Manual could be used for her statistics.
      
  • 2 clerics
    
    • Residing in the town as a long-term guest of the parson is a heroic, divine emissary, servant of the regional pantheon of gods (6^th-level cleric, Neutral Good, Light Domain), whose lineage may be angelic. He appears to be seeking something in day-quests into the local wilderness, but does not speak of his mission. Cautious and withdrawn, he seems more inclined toward observation than toward interference, though that may change as the situation changes. The parson is quite impressed with the visitor and interviews him nightly over dinner, taking notes.
      
    • The area’s lord resides with his younger sister (5^th-level cleric, Neutral Good, Tempest Domain), whose interest in the family’s rumored draconic lineage has led her to research dragon pantheons. Long ago, the incantations she attempted prompted responses from several dragon gods, whom she calls upon while adventuring with her brother. From time to time, they call upon her to take actions for them, and, figuring that’s how the relationship works, she generally obliges.
      
  • 2 druids
    
    • Near the village proper, deep in the area where marsh and forest merge, an ancient elven druid (Neutral, level 6) resides, accompanied by her human protege, a human widow from Mistmill (Neutral, level 2).
      
  • 4 fighters
    
    • The local lord’s Steward (4^th-level), Lawful Neutral (use the Veteran stat block)
      
    • Three lower-level fighters (for a starting point, use the Guard stat block from the Monster Manual). All three are former soldiers. Two are local hunters armed with longbows and spears (often accompanied by a former bandit gone legit, above), and one is a hireling of the local lord who accompanies the Steward, wearing chain shirt, carrying a shield, and wielding a mace.
      
  • 1 ranger
    
    • After she showed up to musters for a recent war, despite the call being for able-bodied men, the ranger (Neutral Good, 5th-level ranger) proved herself a competent and clever warrior, skilled with the bow thanks to her upbringing by hunters. At war’s end, she followed the area’s lord to this demesne and now serves as his warden, as well as a member of his occasional adventuring forays. She patrols the wilderness around the village, augmenting her salary with hunting. During nights, she stays with the druids as an apprentice, viewing their spellcraft as useful. Gruff, scarred, and unpretty, she is simultaneously admired and marginalized by the community she serves. DMs may use the Scout entry in the Monster Manual for her stat block.
      
  • 1 sorcerer
    
    • The local lord is, unsurprisingly for someone possibly descended from dragons, a sorcerer of 6^th-level. Although the terms “lord” and “sorcerer” in combination might scream evil, the lord in question isn’t terribly sinister. He is, however, aloof (Lawful Neutral), and his various inquiries (i.e. adventures) abroad often mean he is out of town.
      
  • 1 warlock
    
    • The mayor’s wife (Neutral Evil) has some serious ambitions for him that he does not necessarily share. To achieve those ambitions, she has struck bargains with alien forces and is a 3^rd-level warlock.

Adventuring around Mistmill

Plenty of openings exist for adventures in and around a village like Mistmill:

• The PCs could use Mistmill as a resting point between adventures in the area, with the DM carefully seeding connections between what is going on outside of the village and the intrigues inside the village, building up to a point where the village story and the outside story merge or synergize. Characters key to such a plot might include the druids, ranger, warlock, hunters, bandits, and visiting cleric. The Reeve’s and Lord’s fraternities might themselves play roles as potential obstacles or allies to the PCs’ attempts to resolve the entwined stories.
  
• The DM could mash up the usual fantasy genre with some murder mystery by having the PCs investigate a death of a traveler (perhaps one of their contacts) in the area around Mistmill, discovering quite a few suspects: the Reeves, the mayor’s wife, the Merchant’s daughter, the bandits, or some external menace being tracked by the warden.
  
• The divine emissary described under “clerics” may be monitoring an unfolding evil that the PCs will have to contend with.
  
• The mayor’s wife might summon some horrible evil to the sleepy village, at which point the summoned entity then begins stalking residents.
  
• Some horrible fate might befall the lord and his associated adventurers, and with those protectors missing, the village is now open to savagery from whatever spelled the NPC adventurers’ doom.
  
• The PCs could get caught up in a war or intrigue among the various factions, as the Reeves attempt to keep quiet their shenanigans while recruiting the Merchant family and bandits to their cause, and as the Lord’s retinue attempts to identify the culprits behind local criminal activities. The Druidic and Hunter fraternities might find themselves caught between the two larger groups. †

♦ Graham Robert Scott writes regularly for Ludus Ludorum when not teaching or writing scholarly stuff. Like the Ludus on Facebook to get a heads-up when we publish new content.