Alfield

Alfield is a small rural town, slightly smaller than Trostenwald, in the Marrow Valley in the Western Wynandir region of Wildemount. The town is under the rule of the Dwendalian Empire and is a trade stop on the Amber Road between Trostenwald and Zadash. The town suffered much loss of life and was severely damaged by fire during a gnoll attack.

Layout
The town was an open farm village with occasional waist to shoulder height partitions. With open fields to the south, the town was flanked by clusters of trees on the eastern and northeastern sides.

Two main streets bisected the village in its central square, one going from the northwest to the southeast, and the other going west to east.

Candle Glow Inn
Located in the central square this building was ransaqued and burnt down during the gnoll attack. Tadius owned the inn.

Feed and Mead Tavern
Not the most comfortable establishment, this inn was where the party was put up by the crown's guard for their help in fighting the gnolls and would have their stay paid for as long as they were helping deal with the aftermath of the gnoll attack. Having two rooms for rent, the party was put up in a room with four twin sized beds.

The owner of the tavern was an ornery, salty looking old dwarf with tousled white-grey hair and a single tuft of a beard that dangles down towards the bellybutton before ending in a ring of gold. He was noted for having poor sight, looking above or at a persons shoulder when talking to them.

Menu
For the cost of 3sp, the inn offered a top-shelf drink in a deep green corked glass bottle. Poored into a shot glass the liquid was a deep sea teal green, and

(do you drink it fast or slow? – Depends on how much you like to dream”)

Top shelf price: 3sp (Mollymauk paid him 1gp)

Has a very smoky, oak barrel flavour to it first when it hits your tongue, and then it burns into a very medicinal/ herbal, almost enice (Hennessy?) with burnt charcoal.

Gnoll Attack
Approaching the town at night from the south, about half a mile from Alfield the party noticed several flashes of orange light and the curl of flames spreading from rooftop to rooftop. They saw a handful of buildings on the eastern side of the village that had already been consumed by flame.

Quickly making their way closer to within a few hundred feet of the western side of the village, the party saw a few hundred people running out of town into the fields.

After a brief battle, many gnolls escaped with a cart full of various loot and the corpses of villagers they had slain, and almost all of the village's meat supply.

Gnoll
Humanoid creatures stretching up to about seven feet tall. They had muscular torsos, thin dog like legs, extended neck with spots of fur, ears curled upward, and a dog-like snout. They were strong able to rapidly dart and leap across areas. They communicated in yips and growls and had a hyena-like laugh. As well as their bite, they used spears and longbows. They wore hide armor over mangy fur was coated in thick oily liquid smelling of acrid rotting flesh.

Gnoll Witherling (Undead Gnoll)
With clumps of fur, sloughing off dried flesh, and exposed bone, these undead skeletal gnolls had part of their skull pushing out of their snout. These porous gnolls shambled alongside their living allies during the attack of Alfield and had gnashing teeth, claws for tearing flesh, and a heavy wooden club.

Gnoll Pack Lord
This thicker more heavily armored gnoll was the leader of the pack attacking Alfield. They wore ornate scale mail armor with thick bony spines that were woven into the shoulders, the back of their large helmet, and the sides of the armor. These 1.5-2 feet long spines may have served a defensive purpose or perhaps only been an ornate adornment meant to look scary. This gnoll wielded a longbow, and a large 2-handed glaive with an ax-like hooked blade with spines affixed to the edge of it. It also carried a large shield making its armor class 16.

Casualties

 * Village Straggler. 100 feet outside the village, while people were running out of town, this young human man with scrappy tattered brown hair, and a bit of blood dripping down his face was shot by a gnoll in the back by an arrow. A gnoll then proceeded to leap onto his back and bite and tear out a chunk of flesh from his shoulder before dragging the corpse back 200 feet into the depths of the burning village.
 * A crown's guard that had been hunkered down behind a wall with Watch Master Bryce Felid. They wielded a crossbow and had been exchanging volleys with the gnolls during the attack. They were killed when they took an arrow to the back of the head.

Villagers

 * A family of five halflings that had run out of the town during the gnoll attack.The family included a mother dragging two younger children and a father running beside his eldest daughter who was in her teens. The father wore simple farm clothing, a leather cap, and had a handlebar mustache.