Durst

Durst is a Chunese town in Betrayal in Antara. It is first visited in Chapter 4.

History and Geography
Durst was absorbed into the Antaran Empire along with Old Chuno. Chunese tree-reverence has a long history in Durst.

Durst is west of Friole and east of the fork between Camille and the Ciaga Pass. A forest surrounds the road west of town, extending north toward a system of canyons that leads to the Waste. Durst is in Old Chuno, very near to the Waste, and at least one Chunese family has been residing there since the disaster.

The Coach from Durst serves Isten, Burlen, and Korus Landing. (In Chapter 5, taking a coach out of Durst locks the player out of Chuno and prevents finishing the chapter. In Chapter 7, the coach only serves Isten and Burlen, and is one way to get across the westward river.)

Inn: Pilgrim's Pause

 * DurstInn.jpgties: Rations, Cheese; rooms are available for 6 burlas per night.

Shop: Salves and Roots

 * Sells: Steadfast Tonic, Senwater, Fidali Paste, Shovels, Herbal Powder, Razorcup Nectar, Irthinide.
 * Buys: Potions and Enhancers.

Worship
Chuno has a Tabernacle of Henne.


 * One of the Children, Jhana, shares information vital to the main plot if they speak to her after meeting Maria Liana. She also explains Chunese tree reverence, which is custom rather than religion, and sings a hymn to Henne.


 * Services: Blessing of Henne.

Residents



 * Kraw, a Chunese man with a misshapen body, explains that Chumen seldom live among "Normals" because each group is unsettled by the other: "It reminds us of what we could never be [...] it reminds them of what they could all too easily become." An ancestress of his, though caught with her unborn child in the magical disaster that created the Waste while returning from a visit to the Temple of Senaedrin in Grandeur, was accepted back by her family, who had lived in Durst for as long as they can remember; over time, the community accepted them and their descendants as well.


 * Phoebe, described as a willowy young woman, invites the party in for a meal which is cut short when her friendly, enormous, and very smelly orange cat Louie makes his presence known. In Chapter 6, Louie greets the party with similar pungent results, but takes exception to Raal, who is not invited in after making a bad joke about loving cats... for dinner. After each visit, Phoebe comforts Louie, telling him it's not his fault he's a smelly cat.


 * A woman says that though her two children are shy around strangers, they'd be over at Kraw's house all day if she let them, "plaguing the poor man for stories and piggyback rides." Despite rumors that Chumen are unbalanced, she has no worries leaving her children with Kraw and his family when she goes to Burlen for supplies, believing that they should experience cultural diversity.


 * Adrian, a retired mercenary who refurbishes swords as a hobby, offers to teach the party some swordplay in exchange for a Pearl. They can gain +5 Melee by doing so, and repeat the lesson and stat increase for each Pearl they bring him. Adrian's offer is open in Chapters 4 and 5. In Chapter 7, he tells Kaelyn and Raal that there are too few left of the mercenaries he used to run with, but some passed through in search of the rest of the party and set the forest on fire, carelessness which never would have happened in his day. Though he'd joined the chase out of excitement, he stopped to fight the fires in respect for local tree-reverence traditions.


 * In Chapter 5, the crippled father of ten-year-old Toddy, who was overinspired by the Child Simon's retellings of The Mana of Love and has wandered too close to the Waste in the canyons north of town, asks the party to find his child. If they rescue him from Fire Wolves and send him home, his father gives them The Adventures of Caarl Maston, an adventure book which boosts Melee, Scouting, and Stealth.


 * In Chapter 7, the party can rescue another town resident from the fire in the forest above the road west of town by getting a blessing from Jhana and then digging a ditch to save the girl's generation tree from the flames.

Trivia

 * The miner of Quigley Castle in Aliero recounts several digs in the region, including finding diamonds in Durst.
 * Phoebe and her cat are a reference to Friends, in which Phoebe Buffay sings a song called "Smelly Cat."