eine kleine siedlung tief in den wäldern versteckt wo sich reisende ausruhen und ihre vorräte auffrischen können.

Dornruh is a small woodland refuge built where an old stone road crosses a reliable spring deep inside ancient, mist-covered forest. Its founders were charcoal burners, herbalists, escaped soldiers, and wandering traders who needed a place beyond the reach of armies and tax collectors. Three generations later, the settlement rests on raised walkways above wet ground, protected by ravines, thorn walls, and a strict promise that its location must remain hidden.

The tavern creaks whenever someone lies about where they have been. Maela claims this is merely the oak settling, but regulars treat the sound as a warning. Rainwater trickles down one interior wall even during dry weather, forming a pattern that resembles a map. The hearth smoke sometimes smells of wet stone rather than wood. Every table bears a small notch cut into its edge, marking the number of days its original owner stayed in Dornruh. Maela never allows anyone to sit with their back to the cellar door.

Fenroot Remedies is built around the hollow trunk of an ancient fallen tree, and its shelves follow the curve of the wood. Bundles of herbs hang from the rafters like small sleeping birds, filling the air with scents of cedar, vinegar, mushrooms, and smoke. Rainwater runs through carved gutters into barrels beside the entrance, while a rack of waterproof cloaks and rope coils stands beneath a hand-painted sign showing a green root wrapped around a silver knife. Mira Fenroot is a compact, weathered woman in her early fifties with gray-streaked dark hair, a patched russet coat, and sharp green eyes that miss very little. She is practical, suspicious of wealthy outsiders, and quick to test whether a customer knows the difference between a useful remedy and an expensive fraud. She keeps a hooked walking staff within reach and records nearly every unusual purchase in a coded journal. Mira believes the forest's changing paths are caused by poisoned roots or unnatural magic beneath the soil. She supplies most of Dornruh's dried food, basic salves, rope, candles, and travel gear, so hunters, charcoal burners, guides, and caravans all depend on her shop. She also trades regularly with the herbalist faction on the Elder Council, though their relationship is strained by the dwindling supply of silverleaf from the forbidden ruin. Mira knows that several missing travelers purchased Ashvein Herb shortly before they disappeared. She suspects the herb is a marker or ingredient connected to Dornruh's secret trade routes, but hesitates to reveal what she knows because exposing the routes could damage the settlement's economy and put innocent local traders at risk. She may share the truth with a party that protects a vulnerable traveler, refuses payment from a wealthy exploiter, or brings proof that the forest paths are being altered by something unnatural.

Rusk & Nail smells of pine tar, smoked meat, wet wool, and lamp oil. Every useful surface is crowded with practical goods, handwritten price tags, and bundles marked for travelers who may never return. Tovin Rusk is charming, quick with a joke, and always willing to offer a discount that creates a future obligation. He wants Dornruh to become a recognized stop on regional trade routes, which puts him at odds with locals who believe the settlement survives only because outsiders do not know where it is. The tavern sends travelers to him for supplies, while the Elder Council pressures him to stop advertising the settlement's location. Tovin knows that several missing travelers purchased goods here, and he has quietly kept their unclaimed deposits rather than report every detail. He is not eager to harm the characters, but he will lie about the vanished merchant until convinced that cooperation is safer than silence. The shop's locked cabinet contains confiscated goods from that merchant, including the black iron compass. If the characters treat Tovin respectfully, he may reveal the compass and ask them to investigate the buried ruin. If they threaten, rob, or publicly shame him, he hides the compass and directs suspicion toward the Elder Council. Cheap goods such as spare bootlaces, bent tent pegs, cracked cups, lamp wicks, empty sacks, bundles of kindling, and single smoked sausages can be purchased for 1 to 5 cp each.

Beneath the quiet forest settlement of Dornruh lies the Rootbound Waystation, an ancient refuge built around a magical waystone. Its upper tunnels have collapsed into storage vaults and bunks, while deeper chambers descend into a flooded shrine and a sealed prison where an intelligence of the forest still dreams.