Pucklechurch

**Pucklechurch** is the primary setting of *This Used to be About Dungeons*. It is a small town, located at the center of a hex of the same name in the Greater Plenarch region of Inter,[*citation needed*] a hundred hexes from Dondrian.

## Culture

People in the region tend to thank one another a lot for minor things, and similar minor pleasantries.

Unlike in Dondrian, they typically eat three meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner.

## Inhabitants

* The Settlers
	+ Alfric
	+ Verity
	+ Mizuki
	+ Hannah
	+ Isra (eventually)
* Bethany - runs the general store, quite a gossip, Mizuki's age (i.e. early 20s), eventually gets married
* Cynthia - gray-haired proprieter of the Fig and Gristle.
* Marta - elderly meat saleswoman. Retired wizard who completed 28 dungeons in her day

## Places of Interest

* The Fig and Gristle - smaller tavern, known for their signature poached figs. Emplyed Verity as a tavern bard, who lived in one of the rooms on the upper floor. Doesn't open until noon.
* Temple of the Six Gods - large, too large for the town, it's most notable and visible landmark. Four-storey central section, lined with six statues of the gods, with rooms for the god's clerics behind each.
* Mizuki's House - vaguely Kiromon in style, three stories of decreasing size, eaves on each level, red door and windows. Initially in somewhat poor repair.
	+ Kitchen: Tiled blue and white walls covered in knives and copper pots and pans (mostly copper, some cast iron). Island counter in the center with stools and a cast-iron four-plate ectad-powered stove inset. Double porcelain sinks, connected to a glass tank of clean water that hangs on the ceiling, beside hanging braids of garlic and dried bunches of herbs. Cast iron dual oven against one wall. Large chiller [editor's note: fantasy fridge/icebox].
* Town Market: biweekly. Held at 3rd bell.
* Forest
	+ Isra's cabin
	+ Boggy areas - frequented by will-o-wisps, and thus, Mizuki

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Pucklechurch was nothing much to look at, a small town like most others, in the center of its hex, though the large temple was the obvious local landmark and quite grand. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
2. ↑ “You said skipping breakfast was custom where you’re from,” replied Mizuki as she watched the pan. “Where is that?” [...]
“The city of Dondrian,” said Alfric. “It’s a hundred hexes away, which is quite far even by leycraft or portal.” He’d spent a fair amount to travel it, first taking a leycraft, then going through a conveniently timed portal, which had still left a lot of walking.
“I know where it is,” said Mizuki, rolling her eyes. “That’s a long way though, to come to a place like Pucklechurch.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
3. ↑ “Thank you for speaking with me.” This was a very perfunctory thanks, of the kind that Alfric was still getting used to. People in the region seemed to feel the need to thank people for even the smallest of charities, though Verity, like him, came from Dondrian. [...] “It was nice to meet you,” he added, as it seemed to be custom in this part of the world. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
4. ↑ “I don’t eat breakfast,” said Alfric. “Lunch is my first meal of the day. It’s the custom, where I’m from.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
5. ↑ “Anyhow,” said Alfric. “When I was asking around, the woman who runs the general store —”

“Bethany. What an intolerable gossip,” said Mizuki. “And it feels weird to call her a woman. We’re the same age.”

“My apologies,” replied Alfric.

“No, it’s fine,” said Mizuki. “It’s probably fair. I just think of myself as a girl, still. I don’t feel like an adult.” According to the censusmaster, she was twenty-two. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Fig and Gristle didn’t open until noon, but the proprietor, a sturdy woman with a streak of gray hair, answered the door when they knocked and brought them up to Verity’s room when they explained that they had arranged to meet with her.
“You’re not planning to take her away from me, are you?” asked the woman, Cynthia. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
7. ↑  Chapter 3: Venison and Honey
8. ↑ Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
9. ↑ The temple at Pucklechurch was an old one, perhaps the oldest building in the town. It was four stories tall, though only in its center, which had a high, vaulted ceiling that took up almost all of what would have been the upper floors. It was divided into sixths, with each of the gods having their own statue, and behind the statue, a set of rooms for smaller services, private talks, and for the clerics to live. Alfric was pretty sure it was too large a building for a town like Pucklechurch to warrant, and he’d already heard from the woman at the general store that there were only six clerics. - Chapter 3: Venison and Honey
10. ↑ The house was too large for one person, that much was obvious from the outside, but it was fully furnished, and almost everything was slightly dusty. The fireplace was filled with ash, and the fabric of the couches was faded. There were places on the walls where pictures had once hung, their removal leaving nails in place and bare spots beneath them. It gave the impression of having been effectively abandoned ages ago, but Mizuki clearly lived there. Alfric wondered, briefly, whether she was a squatter, but dismissed the notion. Squatters weren’t common in small towns like this, he didn’t think, and besides, there was something strongly Kiromon about the architecture, though he still thought it strange even by those standards. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
11. ↑ They were standing in front of a surprisingly large house, three stories tall, arranged in tiers of decreasing size, with eaves on each level. It was a beautiful building, but in a state of minor disrepair. Even in the dim light of the night time lanterns, Alfric could see moss growing on a few of the wooden beams, and places where the tiled roof needed to have pine needles and fallen leaves swept from it. The door and windows were painted red, but the paint was faded and starting to chip. For all that, it was old and sturdy, a large house that had been built to last. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
12. ↑ The kitchen was something different, and where the rest of the house was in need of cleaning, the kitchen was immaculate. It had a four-plate stove in the center, along with a dual oven against one wall, all heavy cast iron. The tiled blue and white walls were obscured by hanging copper pots and pans, with a selection of knives against one wall, all polished until they gleamed. There were two porcelain sinks, side by side, each connected to a glass tank of clean water that hung on the ceiling, and was likely fed into the house system. There were hanging braids of garlic and dried bunches of herbs, and when Alfric peeked into the open chiller, he saw a small selection of fresh ingredients. Mizuki had already grabbed a slab of pork, and was pulling a few other things out, including glass bottles with dark liquids in them, a block of cheese, and a clump of thin mushrooms. He took a seat on a stool next to the island counter that the stove was set into. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
13. ↑  She opened up one of the heaters on the stove, setting the cooling element to one side and letting the warming element heat up, with a heavy cast-iron pan placed on top of it. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
14. ↑ They approached the market, where stalls had opened up, displaying all kinds of wares. Pucklechurch wasn’t large enough to have a daily market, which made it especially important that they find Isra *today.* Otherwise, they’d be reduced to waiting three days until the next market, or spending time trying to find someone who knew her well enough to know where she lived. - Chapter 3: Venison and Honey
15. ↑ And as for the last potential member of the party, Isra, all Alfric knew aside from her vital statistics was that she came to the biweekly market in the mid-morning - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
16. ↑ “It is,” said Alfric, but he paused, listening. “That’s third bell though, which means the market just opened, which means that we have very little time to waste in meeting up with our fourth member. I don’t know where she lives, so her daily trip to the market might be the only time to find her.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
17. ↑ Alfric found Mizuki where he expected her to be, chasing will-o-wisps in the forest. It was something she often did just after dark, once the will-o-wisps were out, but while there was still some residual light. [...] As the will-o-wisps favored the boggy areas of the forest, she was wearing clogs of her own design, with a heel high enough that her feet wouldn’t get wet where the grass and moss sank down. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle