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.

Candleglow Inn
Located in the central square this building was ransacked and burnt down during the gnoll attack. Thadius Candleglow 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 tightly jammed in.

The owner of the tavern, Passedon Tecroot[spelling] "Croot", 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. Poured into a shot glass the liquid was a deep sea teal green, and when drunk it had a very smoky, oak barrel flavor on the tongue, though this was quickly followed by a very herbal and charcoal medicinal burning taste.

Broad Barn
Located on the western side of town this place was where basic supplies could be acquired.

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.

Reaching the villages central square the party engaged the gnolls in battle. Though this brief battle ended when two of the party members went down, leading to the gnolls escaping back to an east-northeasterly direction. Smoke and fires of the easter quarter shielding their escape, the gnoll took three carts full of various loot, corpses of villagers they had slain, captives, 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 patchwork hide and leather armor over mangy fur that was coated in thick oily liquid smelling of acrid rotting flesh.

Society
Traveling in small roving hunting packs of half a dozen at a time, these humanoids were generally seen on the outskirts of civilization. Although known to be easily provoked into violence, large-scale raids against points of civilization were generally too dangerous for their small packs.

Aggressively hungry creatures, gnoll would eat what flesh they could get a hold of, though they had been known to be opportunistic hunters, keeping to small game and the occasional person who had wandered too far from their fields. On occasion when food was scarce the gnoll would turn on each other, devour the flesh of the dead and piling up* the bones.

Worshiping dark powers the gnoll were seen to have banners made of flesh with the mark* of a demon lord of the abyss called Yeenoghu. Through rituals, they performed to this entity the gnoll were able to take the corpses of the fellow gnoll they had consumed and raise them up as undead warrior in their service.

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.