THE
SVAQ
BREWERY
NOLAN'S
FARM
DESCRIPTION
-
LOCATION
-
PEOPLE
-
COAT
OF ARMS
- FUNCTION
- MYTH/LORE
|
THE
SVAQ
BREWERY
NOLAN'S
FARM |
Nolan’s farm or, as in
gnomish, "Dara’saq’turik" (which
means "Daran Drinks Brewery") is very
famous for its svaq producing
purpose. Located in the northwest of the Santharian
port town Ciosa it has large control over trading in
that section of Manthria, not only with
Svaq but with other useful
products as well and has become a common meeting place for all kinds of people.
Administrated by Nolan the XVI. the farm grants him a large income in trade and
commendation.
Description.
Nolan’s Farm is most famous of its
produce of svaq, the famous
drink that makes one sober, and lesser known as the great place to rest with excellent food
and drinks. Already from afar one can see the Farm on top of a small hill just
south of Castle Ironwell.
The main fence surrounding the whole estate is made of wood and is around three
peds
high, which is, for gnomish measure, very big. From the main gate a path
follows a straight line to the main house, the Nolan’s Inn, with exactly seven
smaller houses standing by it. These houses are the homes of seven
Daran
gnomes’ families working in the brewery. They are small circular shape with a
cone shaped wooden roof. The gate to the path are guarded by two small guard
towers, each of them reaching nearly ten
peds in height.
The main building is of course Nolan’s Inn itself, which is also the place for storage
of svaq. From the
outside it doesn't look like a gnomish house at all.
While typical Gnorian
gnome houses are usually small and squat and
Golgnomes build their homes up in
trees, the Daran try to impress with very
human structures, as they mainly live with
humans in their settlements. This is the case at
Nolan's Inn as well, which is quite a large, square shaped building, the lower
floor made out of the granite stone from the nearby Hawkeye Quarry and the upper one
made all of wood. The wooden roof is a triangular shape and it is covered with
straw. The Inn itself is on two floors, each with three bedrooms with the lower
floor having also a great dinning room and a kitchen. Underground is a musty
cellar in which gnomes keep their already made
svaq in barrels and in flasks.
On the top floor we see a balcony with chairs and tables for relaxation and
fresh air. The first floor is richer than the
second one, having much more rooms in it. A dining room has eight tables all
over it. The small stage in the middle is used by rare brave performances and
there is also a bar with some shelves behind it with bottles of many kinds of
drinks. Another room in the first floor is an entrance hallway with a staircase
that leads to the upper
floor and two doors, one on each side of the room. By the inn stands the house
of the innkeeper and his family. The inn is also used as a trade post.
Image description. Map of Nolan's Farm as found on the entrance of
the compound. Use the controls on the bottom right
to zoom in and out and move around. Picture
drawn by
Seeker.
The large brewery stands a bit west from the main path. It is on one floor with
a couple of windows on each side. The red walls are made of black
oak wood. The red triangular roof is made of
red iron. Big two sided door lead inside the building where we can find all
equipment for making the famous svaq
(barrels, hammers, storage for ingredients). On the brewery's left side we can
also find a basiloc field which is
around a quarter hold in
land measure. A natural black oak fence is
protecting the field. On the other side of the field we can find a seven
peds tall stable for ho
lding draught ponies (bought from hobbits).
The wooden square stable has a half-cylindrical wooden roof. There is also
another typical wooden human house, which
belongs to the human stable boy and his
family.
In the stable are a couple of carts with big wheels and that are deep enough to
hold a barrel. Also there are three cart-stands, which are used by the
gnomes in their many trade routes. Besides
the stable boy’s house there are also three more houses of workers.
On the east side of the path stands Nolan’s manor with five other worker
shacks. The manor is on three floors all of them made of nice decorated stones
with flowers and animals carved on them. The manor is also square shaped with
expressed wooden corners. The roof of the building is made of red fine shaped
tiles. First floor is a big entrance hall and few rooms for supplies. The
second floor is the one where servants live. The third floor is where Nolan the
XVI. lives in one big bedroom. Although his ancestor lived in this room before
him and their families lived one floor lower, Nolan the XVI. doesn’t have a
family yet so he put some servants in the rooms downstairs.
There are also small wooden houses and holding pens at the estate for domestic
animals mostly cows,
sheep and goats.
Location. Nolan’s Farm
lies on
a small hill facing the Caeytharin Mountains, just south of Castle
Ironwell and west of Mount Kinmor in the eastern
Santharian province of Manthria.
People. As mentioned
before Daran gnomes inhabit Nolan’s Farm.
Because of the careful leading of farm books, we can know today how many
gnomes were on the farm so far and why at
almost any time. There are actually two copies of this book, one on the entrance
and one in Nolan’s room. According to this book there are 63
gnomes currently living on the farm with seven
humans. In the year 1582 a.S. there were even
95 gnomes and 30
humans living here, but their homes are now abandoned and empty because
under bad management of Nolan the XII. the farm started to deteriorate. But
after his death everything was right again, even though many
gnomes and
humans left to find other places to live and prosper so the number of
inhabitants didn’t changed until this day.
There are also some Mitharim dwarves
working for Nolan by the way. They are mainly representing the
Mithral Mountains and do the trade route
between the farm and the seaside.
Coat of Arms/Sign.
Workers wear a small symbol on their chest, which represents the farm. This
symbol is also used for identifying intruders, if there is one on the farm
grounds. It is a big Tharian letter "N" with a house drawn under it with "Daran
Drinks Brewery" written on the house in big white circle. Also for measures of
security Nolan uses his personal handwriting on each of those symbols. Of course
with each new Nolan come new dark blue uniforms.
Function. As the farm
itself was built for one cause people on the farm live of
svaq making and selling and
providing tired travellers with a shelter for the night. The farm became famous
after the miners from the nearby Ironwell Mines discovered its potential of
being a great place for rest over night with excellent
gnomish food and, of course,
svaq. We can even find some
gnomes selling fresh
basiloc at the town market of
Ciosa as well to get an extra income but only the
basiloc that is left after making an
average amount of svaq per crop.
Myth/Lore. There are
two often told tales about Nolan’s Farm you might hear in every village and town
nearby when asking about this famous brewery:
The first story is about how the Daran
gnomes could have so many male descendants: The people tell that the
gnomes produce a special kind of drink for
private uses only. It is said that the female who drinks this concoction every
day can have much more chance to delivering a male child. Although the recipe is
unknown for anyone except the Nolan line, some people say that they use
basiloc in producing it. Others say that
this story originates from one of the Nolans in person in order to increase
basiloc sales.
Another legend as told by a guard on the main gates and written down by a bard
of long ago is about how Nolan V. appeared for the very first time on the farm:
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“He just arrogantly walked through the main gate without noticing a guard
standing right over by it and continued down the path to the brewery. He
was hooded and we didn’t saw his face. On his way to the brewery he spat
on an oak tree standing before one of the houses. Me and two other guards
ran to see what he was up too. When we asked him what he though he were
doing, he just nodded his head and said: |
Strange thing is that Nolan V. - as he was later called - died of falling from
one of the highest branches of precisely the same
oak tree he had spat on.
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