Mureia

From Codex Vocrotha

Mureia was, and is, a tiny, nondescript village, lying about halfway between Karasek and Anlador and well off the main road between the two. Rich earth and several running streams in the area made farming and fishing the reasons to settle there, and remain the primary occupations of the peasants there. Life in Mureia is simple, if rough, and its inhabitants are no strangers to hard winters, bandits, or drought -- but these are the exceptions, rather than the rule, and the land of Mureia is bountiful. In ancient times, prior to the Nightmare Imperium, a small stone keep gave the village some strategic importance, but the keep fell into ruin prior to the end of the Imperium, and Mureia's military relevance disappeared with it. Mureia's inhabitants are pleased to be forgotten by the bulk of society, however, and prefer their lack of importance and anonymity to the alternative.

Mureia's little-known claim to fame is its link to Paldor Daln, the Daloric Warlord. When Paldor was originally knighted by Kannal Turiel, Mureia was given into his keeping; it was also the place he brought Anara Turiel after their marriage, and the site of her death. The keep of Mureia, mythically, is the place where Paldor set Anara on her funeral pyre, and where he devoted his life to the service of Dalor. There is a hill nearby, known by the locals as Dancing Hill, which they all consider haunted -- villagers have reported seeing two figures dancing atop the hill at sunset for hundreds of years, but the dancers are always gone before any can reach the summit. They consider these ghosts to be the spirits of Paldor and Anara -- flying in the face of historical record, they maintain that Paldor died the night he found Anara dead, though when pressed they cannot or will not give more detail than this.