Red Rooster Stead

The Red Rooster Stead is a farming community in Lower La Noscea that focuses its efforts on experimental practices and plants. Occasionally beset by hostile creatures and kobolds from O'Ghomoro, the villagers turn to adventurers for aid.

Industry
Red Rooster Stead turns out ordinary, commercial crops as its economic mainstay, but its primary focus is experimentation. Many exotic crops are currently being cultivated here--for instance, citrus fruits and lavender--and new techniques practiced, such as testing new fertilizers and pesticides.

To support their experimentation, the Stead maintains a small apothecary, which requires a steady supply of mortars and alembics--partially due to the extremely caustic nature of the chemicals they work.

Lowland grapes are a staple of the farm, with which the Stead supplies the vintners of Wineport. Wheat grows in the fields as well, which the farmers dry and winnow with a curious method; when the dry salt winds off the Strait of Merlthor turned humid and tropical, they resorted to harvesting the cores of wind sprites to the purpose. They also provide a supply of maple sap, though not as plentiful as that from the Black Shroud.

The Stead also raises livestock, among which are sheep, dodos, and pigs.

Local difficulties
Unfortunately, the Stead loses up to half of its yield annually, due to very persistent rat and mole populations that scavenge from the fields in the summer and the silos in the winter. If that weren't enough, the ladybugs used in pest management both attract hungry puks, and can themselves carry leafbleed, a dangerous blight that threatens the crops.

Mandragoras, as everywhere else, began to appear shortly after the Calamity. Although not hostile, they nonetheless present a threat to the fields via their podlings.

Naturally, the kobolds of O'Ghomoro prove a persistent threat, against which the farmhands themselves have sought to be armed and armored; novice smiths often find willing customers here. Of particular note, shields have been in high demand, as the farmsteaders have taken to plating their village gates with them.

The weather itself is adverse as well; with the Calamity, the once-dry region has become quite rainy and humid, which has necessitated rebuilding, down to replacing rusting iron rivets with bronze.

History
Red Rooster Stead has been in operation for at least forty years, predating the Calamity. Most accounts of its naming confirmed that a rooster hatched whose feathers all turned out to be red as wine. However, other versions add that this rooster, thought to be stronger than the others, was entered into a cockfight. During the course of the battle, the onlookers came to blows, and soon both roosters and the spectators were showered with red blood.

Its current landlord is Anaoc the Youngest, whose granddaughter Ancreta Ilm is the local Yellowjacket representative. Arenlona serves at the local head botanist. Most of its fieldhands are former pirates and street urchins, who are acclimating slowly to the constant, steady labor of agriculture (though not nearly quickly enough for Anaoc's liking).