Editing Carseld

[[Garret]] Brightglade grew up in the Halfling community of Carseld.  (Carseld is a broad encompassing term for all the Halflings communities, villages and farms in a wide region, broadly analogous to an English county) Halflings lived in Carseld from the dawn of time.  However, in recent years, there were small signs of decline.  Births were exceptionally rare and are always followed by a community wide celebration involving many days of drinking and feasting.  There are clear signs of abandoned houses and unworked fields that suggest the community is shrinking year on year and Garret has only ever seen a few hundred Halflings at even the largest gathering.  

The Halflings of Carseld adopt a very organic approach to farming and life in general.  Little is ever thrown away and the concept of waste is anathema to your culture.  This extends to a generally harmonious relationship amongst the Halflings and such disputes as periodically arise are normally trivial in nature and settled by those involved over a pint of ale and a shared tobacco.  The offer of tobacco is culturally regarded as a request to put a dispute behind you and move on.  On the rare occasions that disputes can't be agreed between those directly involved, a town meeting is convened, and issue settled with a simple democracy.  Once the town have ruled, the outcome is always accepted and conflict never lingers.  There is no instance of Halfling-Halfling murder in communal memory and the concept is alien and hard to grasp.

Six months ago, your entire world was turned upside down.  You had increasingly taken to spending time in the deciduous forests all around your home town, you were frequently away for days at a time.  With no wife or family of your own, you had yet to settle on a trade but the results of your hunting were always more than enough to see you regarded as a functioning member of the tight-knit community and it seemed increasingly likely that you would never settle on a trade or as a farmer, content to make the woods your home.  While on one such expedition you caught the trail of some sort of bipedal humanoid that you had never encountered in the woods before.  You followed the trail for many hours before you finally encountered a band of what you now know to be goblins.  Recognizing evil instinctively, you knew that you would be no match for what looked like 15-20 goblins and that you had to warn the Halflings of Carseld about what you had seen.  Setting off towards home, you easily escaped detection by the goblins but were unable to shake a deep sense of foreboding as you ran as fast as you dared back through the forest.  Trees that had always been a source of great comfort suddenly seemed intent on snagging your clothes or tripping your feet, slowing you down precisely when you needed to move faster than ever.  The shadows that had provided cover for your hunting were now home in your mind to imagined horrors and your head constantly snapped left and right drawn by movement that was perpetually on the edge of your vision.   After running for hours, you finally found yourself within a few hundred yards of the edge of the small collection of houses and small-holdings that were the only home you had ever known, arriving just as the sun dipped below the far horizon.  Frozen in place by horror and fear, you saw flames leaping from building to building as another warband of goblins burst forth from the nearest barn, each dragging the body of a halfling in their wake.  Dropping your bow off your shoulder, you took aim on the leader, hoping to kill as many as possible while you had the advantage of range.  Even as the first arrow leapt from the string, a shadowy mist coalesced in the half-light directly in front of you.  Too terrified to move or even really think, you stood transfixed as a dark and shadowy humanoid form came into being, towering over you, well over twice the height of any halfling.  With a seemingly casual touch of one outstretched ghostly finger to your forehead, the creature robbed you of your wits and, seemingly, your life.  Even as you collapsed to the ground unconscious you watched its insubstantial body dissolve into the night knowing in your heart that this was true evil incarnate and would be your eternal enemy.