🏔️| .𖥔 ݁ ˖ Whitetail Valley .𖥔 ݁ ˖ | 🌲

Welcome to Whitetail Valley!

A valley cupped by the Frozen Winds Peak Mountains, sealed on three sides by granite peaks that bite at the clouds. The valley floor holds a turquoise river and meadows that shift from emerald to amber with the season. Air carries the metallic scent of snow even in early autumn. A single unpaved Forest Service road winds up from the south, impassable from November to May, rendering the valley effectively isolated during winter months.

These are the most prominent locations on Whitetail Valley:

• Timberwatch Station: a huge residence with forest servicе.

• The Copperpine Wilderness: the sprawling national forest. Dense old-growth timber, steep ravines, and frozen creeks.

• Creed's Folly: The nearest town, a crumbling mining settlement turned tourist town. Has a general store, a tavern called The Drilled Rock, and a demihuman trading post that holds quarterly auctions.

• Deadwoman's Hollow: local drainage in Copperpine Wilderness.

Timberwatch Station

Originally a 1940s fire lookout, but over time it was completely reconstructed and turned into a fortified complex located in the northern part of the valley, where the forest turns into a meadow.

Сonsists of several buildings:

The Lodge (Administrative Core) : A two-story structure built from peeled lodgepole pine.

Ground Floor :

• Entry Vestibule - a mudroom where boots must be removed, lined with rubber mats and heated drying racks. The smell of wet wool and synthetic fabric.

• Common Room: masquerades as a rustic lounge - stone fireplace, leather couches with rifle-proof stitching, a coffee table made from a polished cross-section of ancient cedar. A mounted elk head named "Bernard" by the staff gazes down with glass eyes. This is where Morgen holds evening briefings.

• Radio Room: A locked steel door humming with electronics. Two-way radios, a satellite phone, a police scanner picking up county chatter. The lights inside are always blue-white, always glowing. There's also a fold-out bed and a perpetual chaos of fast-food wrappers and clothes - the lair of Evan, the resident computer genius.

• Kitchen: Industrial stainless steel disguised behind pine cabinetry. The walk-in freezer contains enough provisions for six months of isolation.

• Hirsch's office: Smells of pipe tobacco and gun oil. A desk facing the window, positioned to watch the approach road. Filing cabinets containing intake records, behavioral assessments, maps with pins marking "feral activity".

Second Floor :

• Staff Quarters: Four bedrooms, shared bathroom. Alexander occupies the corner room with windows facing north and east. Niall has the smaller room beside the water heater.

• Storage Loft: Accessible by ladder, containing winter clothing, spare batteries, emergency medical supplies.

The Equipment Shed: A corrugated metal Quonset hut painted olive drab to blend with the tree line.

• Vehicle Bay: Houses two snowmobiles, a four-wheeler, and a tracked UTV for winter patrol. Rubber mats on concrete floor, smelling of gasoline and cold steel.

• Armory: Cage within the shed. Contains tranquilizer rifles, three bolt-action hunting rifles, ammunition, and capture equipment: catch poles, muzzles, transport crates.

• Workshop: Bench with vise, sharpening station for axes and knives. Once upon a time Rune spends hours here maintaining trail cameras and servicing the motion sensors along the perimeter.

The Annex (Resident Housing): A single-story building west of the Lodge, connected by a covered boardwalk. Designed to appear as a cozy cabin. A haven for lost demi-humans.

Exterior:

• Decorative shutters painted forest green, hinged with heavy iron brackets that lock from outside via padlocks. A covered porch with two rocking chairs is permitted to use during recreation hours. A small garden bed with flowers and a sparse variety of vegetables, tended by Naill;

Interior:

• {{user}}'s Room: Standard content - narrow bed with institutional linens in forest green. A small desk with a lamp. The north-facing window looks toward Frozen Winds Peak. A bookshelf.

• Common Area: Shared space with a card table, a wood stove, and a bookshelf with locked glass doors.

• Bathroom: Institutional tile, no windows. The shower has a timer limiting hot water to eight minutes. A medicine cabinet containing demi-humans's prescribed supplements and a bottle of melatonin.

The Clinic: Between the Lodge and Annex, a low building resembling a converted garage.

• Examination Room: White-walled, containing a metal table with restraint straps (rarely used now, but present). The smell of alcohol wipes and lavender disinfectant.

• Alexander Dean's Office: Cluttered with botanical texts and psychological journals. A corkboard with demi-human's intake photos beside current "progress documentation."

• Pharmacy: Locked cabinet containing sedatives, antibiotics, and the hormonal suppressants administered to all resident demihumans to manage undesirable feral behaviors and to maintain strong immunity in mountain climates.

The Copperpine Wilderness

The sprawling national forest bordering Whitetail Valley to the north. Dense old-growth timber, steep ravines, and frozen creeks. This is where Rune built his den - a few miles from the Forest Service territory. in a drainage the local rangers call "Deadwoman's Hollow."

Rune's den: North of Timberwatch Station’s perimeter fence, tucked into the lee of forest, stands the cabin. A single room constructed from milled lumber Rune salvaged from an abandoned Forest Service work camp.

• The Grounds: A split-cedar fence. Inside the enclosure, a woodshed. Against the southern wall of the cabin, a raised garden bed built from river rock contains the remains of the season’s labor plus a tangle of raspberry canes Rune transplanted from a south-facing slope.

• Interior: The door - solid oak. The floor is covered with a heavy wool carpet. The hearth: a river-stone fireplace with a raised hearth what Rune uses it for cooking. Above the mantel, pegs hold cast-iron cookware. The bed built from dimensional lumber. Many soft and warm blankets on the bed. The arrangement smells of cedar and wolf musk.

• Opposite the bed, a butcher’s table serves dual purpose. When not processing game, the table functions as dining surface; two stumps serve as stools, their tops worn smooth from use.

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Creed's Folly

The nearest town, a previously crumbling mining settlement turned tourist town, fifteen miles down a gravel road. Has a general store, a tavern called The Drilled Rock, and a demihuman trading post that holds quarterly auctions. The town should have become another ghost. Instead, it has become a small tourist town where tourists come to relax in the mountain-forest climate. The real money, however, moves through the demihuman trading post occupying a fortified concrete block building at the south end of main street. Here, quarterly auctions sell wild animal skins and meat, confiscated property, collectors' items, as well as fresh local harvests. There are rumors that a black market is also operating here, selling demi-humans lost in the forests and mountains, who were found by someone before the Forest Service.

• The Drilled Rock: The tavern. Inside, the ceiling hangs low with exposed beams blackened by a century of tobacco smoke and woodstove exhaust. The bar itself is a single slab of polished granite—salvaged from a failed monument project—cool to the touch even in August. The menu runs to elk burgers, fry bread, and beer from a microbrewery.

• The General Store: Shelves stock everything from canned tomatoes to chainsaw chains, bear spray to baby formula. There keeps a ledger of debts rather than a cash register for certain customers, knowing that some accounts settle in meat rather than money.

• Atmosphere: In summer, Creed's Folly smells of dust, diesel exhaust from the tour buses, and the coppery tang of the river. Tourists in convertible Jeeps stop to photograph the "quaint mountain town," buy overpriced huckleberry jam, and breathe in the fresh forest-mountain air. In winter, the smell shifts to woodsmoke, frozen dirt, and the chemical bite of road salt. The population hunkers. It becomes a company town.

All images were generated by me in Midjourney !