Adlington occupies the wedge of high ground where the Wartna and Carpsonic rivers converge — a position that river traders have been stopping at for as long as there has been river trade in central Irna. The town is old in the way of places that have been continuously occupied rather than abandoned and rebuilt: the stone is worn, the bridges have been replaced multiple times but the crossing points have not moved, and the clock tower in the main square has been chiming on the hour for three hundred years.

The streets are stone-paved and genuinely narrow, built for a period when the traffic was people and animals rather than carts. The buildings press close. The smell is a combination of river water, old stone, and the cider fermenting in Aelwyn Rivers' mill that drifts across the western quarter for most of the autumn. The ivy on the older facades is not decorative; it is structural at this point.

The docks at the river confluence are the most active part of the town — laden riverboats working the Wartna, smaller vessels on the Carpsonic, and the consistent noise of cargo being handled. Goods from Marwen come down the Wartna; goods from the farms to the east come in on the Carpsonic; most of it continues downriver toward larger markets. Adlington makes its living on the difference between what arrives and what leaves.

The clock tower chimes on the quarter hour, which is either reassuring or persistent depending on your relationship with time.

Adlington sits at the confluence of two rivers on a raised bank that keeps the town clear of seasonal flooding. The Wartna to the northwest connects the town to Marwen in the forest region above and to the larger cities downstream. The Carpsonic to the northeast drains the agricultural country east of Adlington and brings a different category of trade — grain, wool, livestock products from the farming towns that don't merit their own river access.

The surrounding landscape is rolling hill country — good grazing land, adequate for grain, excellent for orchards. The apple orchards that supply the cider industry are a consistent feature of the land within a day's walk of the town. The hills are close enough to be visible from the town but distant enough to not feel constraining.

The stone bridges at the confluence are Adlington's most architecturally significant feature: three arched crossings, built in different eras, all still in use, each carrying a different category of traffic.

Adlington is predominantly human, with a Halfling community that has been in the town long enough to be a permanent fixture in its commercial identity — the cider mill, the cheesemaking operations, and several of the market stalls are Halfling-run operations that have been family businesses for generations. Dwarves are present primarily in the craft trades; the Woolworks is Dwarf-operated and has been for a century.

The transient population — river workers, traveling merchants, caravan crews — inflates the effective daily population significantly. The town is accustomed to strangers and extends hospitality as a commercial practice rather than a cultural aspiration, though the two have blended over centuries.

River trade is the foundation, but it is brokerage rather than production: Adlington profits by being where goods change hands, not by making them. The processing industries — textiles, leather, cheese, cider — are the secondary economy, converting raw materials from the surrounding region into goods that travel better than the raw forms and command better prices.

The Bardic College is an unusual economic contribution: students come from across Irna and spend money in the town during their enrollment, and the college's reputation brings visiting performers and scholars who use Adlington as a regional base.

Adlington eats what the region produces and is not self-deprecating about the quality. The cheese is genuinely good — the Bumbledore varieties in particular, developed over four generations of selective aging technique. The smoked meats come from the farming country to the east and are preserved in forms that travel. The apple products are the signature: the cider served at the Prancing Pony is the best argument for the town that the town has.

The festival food is an institution. The Harvestide pork roast is prepared communally in the town square, the recipe unchanged for as long as anyone records recipes, and the associated apple brandy is available in the specific form that the mill produces only once a year. Visitors who arrive in time for Harvestide tend to come back.

Adlington's culture is shaped by the transit: the town has been dealing with strangers its entire existence and has developed a hospitality that is genuine but calibrated. Visitors are welcomed because visitors bring commerce. The social life of the permanent residents happens in the kitchen and at the festival grounds, not in the dockside inns.

The crafts carry a specific pride — the artisans here regard themselves as practical craftspeople rather than artists, and the distinction matters to them. A well-made barrel is a well-made barrel. The Woolworks doesn't produce luxury goods; it produces reliable ones. This self-assessment is accurate and is not modesty.

Music is central — the Bardic College makes it impossible for it to be otherwise. There is always someone performing somewhere in Adlington, and the quality of ambient music in the town is consistently high.

The autumn festival is Adlington's principal civic event and the one that draws visitors from outside the town. The river commerce slows, the orchards are in, and the production of the year is celebrated in a way that combines genuine festivity with the functional harvest logistics. The torch-lit bonfires along the river on the final night are the visual element that makes Harvestide recognizable in accounts from elsewhere. The clock tower is decorated for the duration.

The summer solstice festival is smaller than Harvestide but older — possibly older than the Aherne governance. Dancing in the market square, roasted boar, the river lit with floating lights. It is the festival the town would hold even if no one from outside were coming, which is the true test of a tradition.

The Bardic College is the dominant cultural institution, and its effect on the town is pervasive: performance happens in the streets, in the inns, at the riverside in the evenings. The students need audiences, the audiences appreciate having them, and the result is a town with more ambient musical culture than its size would normally produce.

The primary visual art is utilitarian — cooperage and leatherwork are the aesthetic traditions, and the standard of workmanship in the purely functional trades is high enough to constitute an art form.

Thulgard, the patron of hearths and homes, is the faith of Adlington in a way that fits the town's character: domestic, community-oriented, and more concerned with the welfare of households than with theological abstraction. The central temple maintains the sacred flame and provides the ceremonial backing for the community events — births, marriages, the festival blessings. The clergy are local, known personally by most of the congregation, and are expected to help with practical community problems.

Caminus, the god of craftspeople, is the faith of the artisan quarter — shrines in workshops, informal observance aligned with the production cycle. The Bardic College has an informal relationship with whatever deity governs music and performance; the exact theological framing varies by student.

Jusannia receives devotion primarily from the farming communities on the eastern margins, where she is honored in the meadow ceremonies at planting and harvest.

The crossing point at the river confluence was in use before there was a town — a ford and then a bridge, the bridge and then a market. The fortified position came when the market became worth protecting. The current town is built on the foundations of several earlier settlement phases; the oldest stone in the bridges predates the Aherne governance by a century.

The Aherne family received governance of Adlington by royal grant for military service several generations ago — the specific conflict is not recorded in a way that is reliably accurate at this distance. What is clear is that the house arrived with practical governance skills and applied them consistently enough that the current Marquess is the eighth generation of Aherne rule in a town that has not found reason to change this arrangement.

The town's trading wealth attracted river brigands at a period when the town was rich enough to be worth raiding but not yet strong enough to deter it. The militia engaged and eventually defeated the brigand fleet in a series of engagements on the river. The event is commemorated in the Bardic College's repertoire and forms part of the town's founding narrative. Historians note that the accounts have improved with each retelling.

Master Brogan arrived with a reputation and enough students to constitute a school before there was a building for them. The Aherne family provided space in exchange for the cultural prestige and the practical financial benefit of students in the town. The college has been the most significant thing to happen to Adlington in two generations.

Adlington is prosperous in the steady way of places that have found their function and execute it consistently. The trade routes are established, the craft quality is maintained, the festivals are real, and the governance of Marquess Cian Aherne has not produced significant problems or significant changes. This is regarded locally as evidence of competence.

House Aherne holds the Marquisate by hereditary grant and has maintained it through consistent practical governance rather than distinction. The family business is Adlington itself — not as an asset to be extracted from but as a place that functions, which has been their understanding of the role for eight generations.

Human, Male — late forties

Cian is a sociable man who has the specific skill of making people feel genuinely welcomed rather than managed — a distinction that matters in a trade town where the difference between a pleasant interaction and a profitable one is often the same conversation. He moves through the town with the ease of someone who is comfortable where he is, which is an accurate reflection of his actual relationship with Adlington.

His strategic thinking is real but unpretentious — he thinks in terms of what the town needs to keep working rather than what would make it grow significantly. Some of his advisors find this insufficiently ambitious. He finds their restlessness unnecessary.

Human, Male — fifties — the Wartna docks
Gregor runs the docks with the attention to detail of someone who has spent thirty years watching cargo get handled badly and has eliminated most of the ways that happens. He is the most reliable source in Adlington for current information about river traffic — what's coming, what's going, what the conditions upstream look like. He shares this information selectively and knows the difference between commercial intelligence and a favor.

Dwarf, Male — age uncertain, appears middle-aged — the Woolworks
Colm's family has operated the Woolworks for three generations and he has been its head for twenty years. The Dwarf-run textile guild structure he manages is unusual in central Irna and has resisted several attempts by human craft associations to absorb it. The output is reliable and the quality standard is documented in writing — both facts the Marquess finds valuable in a supplier.

Halfling, Female — sixties — the Old Cider Mill, western quarter
Aelwyn produces four varieties and refuses to expand beyond what she can oversee personally. The Harvestide limited run apple brandy has acquired something approaching cult status among traders who pass through annually. She is not sentimental about the attention this brings.

Half-elf, Male — age uncertain — the College
Brogan founded the college sixty years ago and is still its head, which is either a sign of sustained excellence or an institutional rigidity depending on whom you ask among the faculty. He produces working bards rather than theoretical ones, which is what the rest of Irna has discovered it wants.