The World of Abadonya

The Breadbasket Behind Closed Gates

Riverbend Farms stretches for miles along fertile floodplains and managed irrigation channels. Wheat, barley, root vegetables, orchard fruit, cattle, and preserved grain leave the estate in organized convoys bound for markets across Keynew.

Despite its economic importance, the estate is intentionally isolated. There is no public marketplace, no traveler district, and no open hiring square. Trade connected to Riverbend is conducted in Mendiville, where merchants negotiate quantities, prices, and transport before contracted wagons are permitted onto the estate.

The Man Behind Riverbend

Baron Gouliyard owns the majority of the farmland commonly called Riverbend Farms. His wealth comes less from ceremony than from control of grain, livestock, storage, and seasonal labor. A failed harvest in Riverbend can be felt in city markets hundreds of miles away.

Gouliyard is known as private, exacting, and intensely protective of his property. He rarely hosts outsiders and prefers to conduct business through agents in Mendiville. Even nobles traveling through his lands are expected to obey estate rules.

Among farmers and caravan guards, one saying is common: "The Baron does not sell from his fields. He sells from his ledgers."

Travel Through the Estate

Travelers are allowed to pass through Riverbend Farms along the recognized road corridors, but they are never left unattended. At the estate boundary, armed mercenaries meet incoming travelers, verify their route, and escort them across the property until they reach the opposite checkpoint.

Leaving the marked road, approaching barns without permission, speaking with workers during active shifts, camping in the fields, or attempting to conduct private trade on the estate grounds can result in immediate detention or expulsion.

The guards are hired professionals rather than Mendiville soldiers. Their loyalty is to Gouliyard's contracts, not to civic authorities.

An Uneasy Economic Relationship

Mendiville does not openly support Riverbend Farms as an institution, even though the city benefits from the trade passing through it. Gouliyard's use of private mercenaries, his control over large stretches of productive land, and his refusal to allow open commerce on the estate have created years of tension.

For now, both sides tolerate the arrangement. Mendiville provides the marketplace, warehouses, brokers, and road access that Riverbend needs. Riverbend provides the food that Mendiville and much of Keynew cannot easily replace.

The result is a relationship built on necessity rather than trust.

Built Over an Ancient Battlefield

Local tradition holds that the fertile country now occupied by Riverbend Farms and nearby Mendiville was once the site of a brutal war between humans and dwarves. Long before the present farms, roads, and settlements were established, armies are said to have fought across these river-fed lowlands and left the ground soaked with the blood of both peoples.

In the generations that followed, the battlefield disappeared beneath plowed fields, irrigation channels, roads, homes, and storehouses. Riverbend Farms and Mendiville were ultimately built over the lands where the fighting took place, leaving much of the old battlefield buried beneath the prosperity of modern Keynew.

Farmers still occasionally claim that old weapons, fragments of armor, worked stone, and bones are uncovered when new canals are dug or fields are turned unusually deep. Whether every discovery truly belongs to the ancient conflict is uncertain, but the stories have ensured that the war has never been entirely forgotten.

What People Say About Gouliyard's Land

Riverbend's strict security has created a steady supply of rumors. Some are probably the natural product of resentment toward a wealthy landholder. Others are harder to dismiss.

Stories That Begin at Riverbend

Escorted Passage: The party must cross Riverbend quickly, but their assigned mercenary escort is suddenly replaced midway through the estate.

The Missing Shipment: A major grain convoy fails to reach Mendiville, and both Gouliyard's agents and city merchants blame the other side.

The Closed Field: Travelers spot smoke rising from a heavily guarded field far from the road, followed by an unusually aggressive attempt to hurry them onward.

The Farmhand's Plea: A seasonal worker slips a message to one of the travelers during an escort stop, asking for help finding someone who disappeared inside the estate.

What the Baron Hides: Evidence surfaces in Mendiville suggesting that Gouliyard is producing, storing, or cultivating something forbidden somewhere within Riverbend's enormous holdings.