Ravenford

Ravenford is a small seaport on the east coast of Thac, home to roughly two hundred residents who live by fishing, farming, and trade. Book 1 describes it as the only seaport between Dunwynn and Penwick, set where the Raven River — formed from the Berribrun and West Raven — meets Merchant Bay. A traveller coming down the northwest road first sees the keep on its hill, torches along the walls, then the town spreading to the river, its stone bridges, docks, and moored vessels, with a temple crowning a farther hill.

For the companions, Ravenford quickly becomes a base. They stay at the Charging Minotaur inn, deal with the wizard Maltar at his cottage, visit Haltan's Shop of Wonders, and rely on the temple on the hill — including, after a wizards' duel goes wrong, for the costly resurrection of Maltar's apprentice Flibin. Ravenford Keep, a massive light-grey stone structure of three to five stories in its towers and sections, is both fortress and court. There the companions meet Baron Gryswold Avernos, Baroness Gracelynn, their daughter Andrella, and the captain Gelpas, and Ravenford's gratitude turns dangerous roads into paid work.

Ravenford's politics are personal. Gracelynn is sister to Lord Kelvick, Duke of Dunwynn, which makes Andrella the duke's de facto heir — a fact that draws suitors and pressure in equal measure. Lloyd can brief the others on the town because his own Penwick family, the Stealles, are part of the same coastal world of fleets, merchants, and old pirate wars. Town figures such as the merchant Pheldan help turn local dangers — orc bandits hurting trade, a giant at Bardon's Gap — into missions the baron and merchants will fund.

The town is also a measure of the threat. Ravenford is grateful, generous, and repeatedly in need: monsters in the Dead Forest, raiders in the woods, and, by Book 1's end, a Serpent Cult cell moving against the area. That is why the companions matter here. They did not just pass through; they made Ravenford their home, and the town's need for heroes gives the series its name.

See Stone Hill for the ruin south-west of town, and Andrella, Lloyd, and the companion pages for the people who tie Ravenford to the wider coast.