Hollyhead

Hollyhead

Hollyhead, as mentioned, is primarily a logging and mining town, situated in the foothills of the eastern reaches of the Brokenstaff mountain range. It consists mostly of wooden homes and structures, water powered mills stand along the river, and laborers load horse-drawn carts with finished lumber to be taken down the mountain, past the rapids, where they are loaded on rafts and taken down the (by this point) lazy Ruby River to be sold in Arroton, a larger city downriver. The air always smells of pitch and sawdust here, and the drone of water and sawblades provides a constant backdrop. Smoke rises lazily from cookfires and chimneys. In the busy season (primarily late summer into the fall) migrant workers come here to earn a few weeks wages helping to cut trees and load lumber. Food can be scarce at times in the mountains, and is the primary import into Hollyhead along with animal feed for the horses and other livestock (goats, cows, and pigs), mostly from Arroton and the surrounding fertile farmlands on the valley floor. When the first snowflakes start to fall in the late autumn, the migrant workers pack up and head for warmer climes, and the folk of Hollyhead settle in for a winter where they may not be able to leave the town until the snows start to thaw. People tend their animals, spend short days and long nights telling stories around the fire, and have all the same winter festivals you might find elsewhere. Being a lumber town with a heavy off season, many folks take up wood carving to pass the time, there’s more than enough of it to go around. When the spring finally comes, the rivers swell and roar and the good people of Hollyhead get back to their work. The first visitors of spring to the town are always said to be good luck, and all the townsfolk will be eager to meet them and hear the news of what happened while they were waiting out the winter on their little patch of mountainside. Hollyhead has about 900 full time residents, and another 400-500 or so come and go during the woodcutting season. The homes and families are fairly spread out, houses set a respectable distance back among the trees from the switchback-ing road that goes further up the mountain. Horse/mule barns and woodsheds decorate almost every property alongside houses that might not look out of place in a modern-ish mountain community, knotted fir and log cabins, with thick thatched roofs.