Alehos: A Place for Preparation and Recovery
Alehos is a small but strategic town on the Aranthaes Highway, set between Frey and Lantear at the southern edge of the Lantear Plains. Though modest in size, its importance lies in its road leading south to the Draktun Pass, and onwards to the infamous port of Draktun. Travelers know Alehos as a place to prepare for security, to hide illicit goods, and a point of gathering before the road diverges into more dangerous country.
Setting & First Impressions
Alehos crowns a low rise above the plains, its red-tiled houses clustered around a tall watchtower that surveys the wide fields and distant passes. To the southwest, the jagged teeth of the Draktun range loom, and the highway dips down into the steep Draktun Gorge. Groves of olives and chestnuts line the approaches, and the smell of pressed oil mingles with smoke from the town’s forges. From a distance, Alehos seems quiet, but the comings and goings of caravans give it a restless edge.
The Roads & Their Trade
The Aranthaes Highway remains Alehos’ lifeline, but the town also thrives on its side routes. The Draktun Pass sees gold and export goods heading south, passing often illicit items bound for Aranthaes and other towns from the docks in Draktun – that is if they survive the frequent bandit attacks the Draktun Pass is best known for. Alehos serves as a natural relay point: inns for merchants, smithies for wagon repairs, and stables for fresh teams of horses. Markets here are smaller than those of Frey, but more diverse, fed by both plains farmers, smugglers and mountain folk.
Life on the Edge
Though fertile farmland surrounds the town, Alehos is more frontier than heartland. Its people are used to preparing for the road: grain baked into hardcakes for caravans, salted meat carried in clay jars, cloaks and boots sold for the colder passes ahead. Locals joke that Alehos is where “a flatlander learns to climb or a mountaineer learns to haggle.” The town has a reputation for being shrewd but fair, its folk neither soft like plains merchants nor hard like mountain clans.
Notable Places
The Watchtower of Alehos: a tall stone tower built by Lantear’s masons to oversee the highway and signal south, east and west.
Draktun Gate: the southern gatehouse, where caravans are tallied before attempting the pass.
The Olive Market: a sunlit square lined with presses, vendors, and stalls selling oil, nuts, and preserved fruits.
The Split Road Inn: the largest inn in Alehos, where caravans heading for Draktun pause to rest.
Rhythms & Customs
At dusk, the watchtower bell rings twice: once for the closing of the Draktun Gate, and once for the lighting of lanterns along the highway. Each spring, Alehos holds the Festival of Wagons, when spinning dancers weave in and out of painted posts symbolizing wheels on the roads, a celebration of the choices and journeys that define the town.
For the Storyteller
Alehos offers a blend of calm and tension: a crossroads town where adventurers overhear whispers of mountain bandits and mercenary contracts. Its watchtower guards more than trade – it records who passes, and when. In a place where chance encounters may shape journeys far beyond the plains.