What its known for:

• Gambling:
  • It's rumored that gambling in Veritam exploded in popularity due to the town's exceptional nighttime scenery. There isn't quite anything like stumbling home with the prize of having a new shed built for you while glowing plants light up every street corner. The popularity of this (typically) nighttime activity has allowed for the "value" of this city to be worth more than nearly every Atalavian town combined. But be careful.. You can win big or lose it all. Just make sure to keep everything legal in the eyes of Herne....

• Veritam Marigold
  
  • “Verigold” is Veritam’s less refined dye, easily mass-produced due to no seasonal and governmental restriction on production—if you can grow it, you can make it! Yellow’s a popular color for locals because it’s cheap. Also popular with visitors for similar reasons. This very specific shade of yellow-but-almost-orange-gold is unique to the marigold growing here due to it’s unique relationship with the veritam spiritual tree. Maybe something’s up with the nutrients in this soil, huh?
    

• Jellyfish Mushroom
  
  • Jellyfish mushroom hangover soup—excellent at surviving in even the worst of conditions by absorbing nutrients from anything around it! Good thing it seems some of the good stuff in there is also great at combating the lesser desirable effects of alcohol, such as throbbing headaches and nausea. The jellyfish are not an uncommon deceased find in the forest and allow for for fresh soup. For export, the jellyfish are dried and most commonly used as a high-value barter item.
• Whisker Lily
  
  • Whisker Whisper: Your go-to cure for a runny nose and nausea. Feeling iffy? Definitely not hungover? Your kid got the sniffles? Whisker Whisper comes in the shape of crushed and boiled Whisker Lilies—the essence is extracted and merged with candle wax. Light and inhale the fumes and you’ll find that the… unique… scent of the Whisker Lily (strong, sharp, and bitter) will clear your nose up or simply terrifying your nausea into submission. Candle wax usually dyed blue. Excellent gift for loved ones for tourists!
    

• Galyx Grapes
  
  • A Veritam native plant that struggles to grow anywhere else. These grapes have been bred to be very large and create a keystone export of Galyx Wine.
• Leafel
  
  • Not direct threat per se but ‘the allure of the unknown’—if you’ve been whisked away by a leafel, you can proudly (or, well, embarrassingly) admit to having been ‘leafeled’. If you’re particularly absent-minded (or easily get lost), you might find yourself being called a leafeling, usually affectionate.

Veritam’s architecture is a direct reflection of its unpredictable character; chaotic at the edges, effervescent at its core, and constantly shifting depending on who’s winning big and who’s just surviving.

On the outskirts, buildings are cobbled together with whatever can be scavenged or traded. Planks of warped wood, scavenged metal sheets, woven tarps, and chipped stone. These shanty-style structures are utilitarian at best, designed with the sole purpose of keeping out the rain and housing those caught on the wrong end of a dice roll or a bad season. Still, they have a unique charm—covered in hand-painted murals, scraps of cloth dyed with fruit-skin pigments, and native glowing flora that twist up walls and around doorframes, giving even the humblest shack a bit of Veritam’s signature luster.

As one travels inward, toward the town’s spiritual and social heart, the architecture takes on an almost theatrical flair. Towering wooden homes, gypsum-inlaid inns, and brick-built fermentation houses rise from the ground in mismatched elegance. Many of these structures are the result of big wins - entire buildings funded by bartering wagers and wagers alone. It’s common to find multi-story taverns with carved balconies, stained glass windows dyed with fruit pulp, or rooftops adorned with hanging gardens of glowing vines and exotic fruits. Styles range from rustic-fantasy chic to outright experimental.

Wealth and loss live side-by-side in Veritam, and it shows in the buildings themselves. One street may host an opulent bathhouse built from polished stone, and the next, a lean-to bar with no walls and a single stool. No two neighborhoods are the same, and the skyline looks different every few years depending on what fortunes have shifted. Here, architecture isn’t just shelter—it’s a gamble, a statement, and often a shrine to luck itself.

Legend says that long after Herne fled north in grief, a single seed fell from his antlers as he skirted the edge of the Wildwood. Heavy with divine essence and still warm from the god’s fading joy, the seed landed at the base of a mountain ridge and sank deep into the soil. From it grew a massive tree—unlike any seen before—its bark warm to the touch, its fruit unnaturally sweet, its roots humming with a power that drew wandering faunids from miles away.

This tree became the heart of Veritam.

Some say it was planted by accident. Others say Herne, even in sorrow, couldn’t help but create. Whatever the truth, the tree didn’t bring salvation or rules—it brought possibility. Its fruits could be fermented into strange, euphoric brews. Its glowing leaves lit up the night. Its aura stirred a feeling deep in one's chest. A feeling that anything might happen.

The first settlers didn’t build Veritam for glory. They stayed because they liked how they felt under that tree. Free, a little reckless... and alive. And so, the myth grew: that this tree holds the part of Herne that never bowed to His tragedy. His spark of spontaneity. His love for chance. His laughter before the storm.

In Veritam, this story isn’t told from a pulpit. It’s passed across cards at candlelit tables, whispered under breath before a bold bet, or painted on the walls of a tavern in half-remembered verse. The tree still stands, a quiet god amongst the stars. Not worshipped with hymn. But instead worshiped with joyful daring and a refusal to live quietly.

Here, the divine isn’t distant. It pours from bottles, dances in streetlight, and dares you to roll the dice one more time.

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Worship of Herne in Veritam is fluid, indulgent, and driven more by personal expression than formal reverence. Where other towns may kneel in prayer or survive through hardship to honor the god, Veritam toasts to him with glasses raised, dice thrown, music echoing under the stars. Here, Herne is not just the god of life and endurance, but of luck, instinct, and the bloom of joy in unexpected places.

Religious practice often blurs with celebration. A game of chance might be considered sacred if the stakes feel meaningful. A feast after a successful harvest, where wine flows and laughter fills the streets, is just as holy as a whispered offering at the base of the god-tree. Spirituality is everywhere. It is woven into the shared drink, the shimmering lights that fill the streets at night, and even in the gamble of daily life. If you ask a Veritamer, they might tell you that Herne lives in risk—and that to take a chance is to honor him.

The Tellers, spiritual guides of Herne, work overtime in Veritam. Not to enforce doctrine, but to remind the people where the line between reverence and recklessness lies. Some are more forgiving, embracing the local flavor with a tolerant smirk. Others are stern, trying to instill the idea that spiritual freedom does not mean spiritual carelessness. They hold quiet rituals in the shadow of the divine tree, where fruit offerings and fermented libations are left among the roots, asking Herne for balance amid the chaos.

Rituals here may involve:

• “Gambler’s Grace” – a short chant or toast said before rolling dice, flipping coins, or taking risks, asking Herne to smile upon the bold.
• “Fruitlight Vigils” – held beneath the glowing flora, these nighttime rituals involve music, laughter, and shared drinks, meant to honor the life Herne nurtures....even if it’s messy.

In Veritam, worship is wild and alive, full of color and contradictions. It may not be clean, and it’s certainly not by the book—but in the cracks of the rules and the glow of a shared gamble, the people still feel Herne watching. And most believe that, deep down, he approves.

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