The Lonesome Village

A Lost is someone that has experienced so much terror and grief, that its soul has broken. What stays behind are broken remains of the former person. Burn-out syndrome at its strongest. A blank look, seldom talking, if ever. Cannot take care of self, surviving through kindness of others, unable even to defend itself. Should such a person be confronted with the terror that caused this ailment, running away in panic and hiding somehow can be expected. Rarely, the person could blindly attack the cause of its fear and torment. This condition cannot be cured with simple magic and is cured (if ever) through a long and careful treatment.

Now, try to imagine:
a) an asylum that takes care of such people and
b) a small village nearby composed of former patients

The Asylum:
Not far from the village is the asylum, a great manor with a large garden, where the troubled are taken care of. The asylum is even less interested in undesired visitors disturbing its calm waters.

Sometimes one of the patients is treated back to health. Still, it is rare for someone to leave back into the wild unpredictable world. Some stay in the asylum even after the cure, some stayed in the woods nearby. Slowly, a minor village emerged.

The Village:
This small settlement is probably not on any map and can be far from any important trade routes and towns , where villages are likely to be found.

The people here have abandoned their past - the parts of it they could remember - and are trying to live peaceful lives, without any kind of disturbance from outside or inside. There are no children here, and the few couples are mostly not married.

Most are farmers, there is only one craftsman (a smith), no inn. There is not much money to be found, and little interest in luxury items.

This should be the most quiet village the PC's will find anywhere. The people are relative friendly, but generaly keeping to themselves and have no interest in any heroic stories and stuff - a guaranteed shock for most heroes :-).

If needed, travellers can stay overnight, but are expected to leave soon.

Notes:
- This place has probably some kind of guardian(s) ready to intervene.

- If looking for a lost person , this may be the right place to find her. But to persuade her to leave this peaceful place and simple life may be an almost impossible task.

- A few legendary heroes may live here. They would most likely reject anyone asking for training, but can you resist the chance to train with xxx the Mighty?

- This would be a great roleplaying opportunity if one of the village or asylum residents held the key to a major ongoing campaign. It would take a great deal of care to extract the info without upsetting or unbalancing the person. An excellent chance for the party to use diplomacy. (Thanks Anonymous!)

- One of the patients could be someone who learned some dark secret and now lives in denial of the awful truth he knows. (Thanks Agar!)

- On such a small scale like an isolated village, a very viable communist community could work. I don't imagine they would even need anything like money, just the smith fixes the broken tools and the farmers raise the food, and everyone helps each other out. If the smith has to work on something you own so much he can't get his own food, you own the broken tool, so you provide for him.
When the players come into town with their coins and specialized skills, they have nothing to offer them for any supplies or services they need. The town would already be self-sufficient, it would have to be, there would be very little work that needed to be done that the players could do to contribute. (Thanks to Agar again!)

- A peddler might come occassionally, every month or less, to bring the few goods the community cannot produce, making it unnecessary to leave.

- High-level overmighty heroes may be bothered by their employer with simple jobs like removing a few orcs fast, but silently and with discretion.