Maerstar

Maerstar was a town in the Vast, situated at the point where Helve's Trail from High Haspur ended at the North Road between Procampur and Sevenecho. It lay near the Earthfast Mountains and south of the Brynwood.

The town made its living in quarrying and horses. The town was a center for breeding horses, with a number of well-used paddocks. In particular, the people of Maerstar bred a large, black, sleek-coated horse that was highly sought after all around the Inner Sea. Despite this, it was not a town of great wealth, but its people earned their prosperity with hard work. In contrast, Maerstar was also home to number of country houses belonging to merchants of Procampur and Tsurlagol.

During the Time of Troubles, 1358 DR, many of these merchants fled the chaos and disasters in these cities to take refuge in their Maerstar houses. However, refugees from Tantras, Calaunt and even Mulmaster also came through Maerstar, and looting mobs of them harassed the wealthy merchants. To protect their treasures, merchants buried them in the paddocks, but not all survived to retrieve them afterwards. According to a local rumor in the years afterwards, at least two of these treasures still lay buried around Maerstar: a collection of moonstones and pearls belonging to the Procampan merchant Uligker Oloskar, and a hoard of coins and trade-bars that belonged to Shondarl Stonegiant, a locksmith and supplier of trained dancers.

One more local legend was that of the Moonlit Tower, which sat—occasionally—on a crag northwest of the town.