Woldham
Overview
Woldham was a small Ketheri village on the planet Kether, built at the foot of a low hill within a valley of fertile soil and water flowing down from the mountain springs. The houses were made of brick with red clay roofs and walls whitewashed under the sunlight. The narrow roads, laid with soil and stone, all led toward the center of the village where a small sanct stood.
The sanct, built of white stone with a metal dome, was not created by the Ketheri but imposed by the settlers of the Order of the One. The villagers kept it clean and quiet as the rules demanded, yet most regarded it with hesitation and whispered distrust. For the elders, the sanct was a foreign body within the soul of Woldham, a symbol of a faith that was not their own.
A little farther lay the plaza, the true heart of the community. There the villagers gathered in the evenings, the elders to discuss and resolve the matters of the village, the younger ones to share news and stories. In the plaza stood a large oak that shaded the benches and the stone well at the center, a meeting point and ceremonial site for every celebration.
Around the plaza were the workshops and small shops, the smithy that produced tools and field equipment, the woodshop filled with the scent of sawdust and resin, the pottery workshop and the small press for the fruit harvested from the fields. The village lived through the land, the labor and the cooperation of its people.
The people of Woldham were austere, quiet and disciplined, like all Ketheri. They honored the land and their ancestors more than the Single God of the outsiders and secretly continued to worship the Heptad. The elders guided the community with calm steady words, keeping traditions alive beneath the surface of the new order.
When the sun set, the air filled with the scent of smoke and baked bread. From the houses came the sounds of tools falling silent and children calling out as they ran through the narrow paths. Woldham remained always simple, a small village that seemed to belong to an older world, like the other villages of the planet Kether, living under the shadow of the outsiders yet holding within it the quiet and the pride of the Ketheri.