Tag: wwe-pol
Watch Vaults of the Underlands
Posted on March 4, 2025 in Steel-Realms
The Watch Vaults of the Underlands were a one-time solution to guarding Underland breaches from the Orrish into the lands of light. Few of these were made, they were expensive and dangerous. Located inside the exit points for the breaches, they were super fortified and those who manned them were paid well to essentially be bait.
These locations have a World Watcher Edifice as a standard part of their functioning.
Vault Effects
- Confusing Echoes
- Traps
- Shifting Floor
- Shifting Wall
- Mirror Beam
- Shadowed Edges
List of Known Watch Vault Ruins
Facts/Chronicle of Watch Vaults
Knowledge is broken down by ease of discovery/availability; Any attempt to know more than what's Pervasive will require a reference, source, knowledge, check, or access to someone who can get or provide either of these.
Pervasive Knowledge / Very Easy Difficulty
Information Sources: Mundane Reference | Associated Phenomenology Only | Specific Lore
The Watch Vaults of the Underlands were a one-time solution to guarding Underland breaches from the Orrish into the lands of light. Few of these were made, they were expensive and dangerous. Located inside the exit points for the breaches, they were super fortified and those who manned them were paid well to essentially be bait.
Expensive to make, Druids had to be used to find water sources, and engineers build walls and buttresses inside the large exit points for the breaches. Advanced stone working and summoned elementals were put to work making these.
Common Knowledge / Easy Difficulty
Trapped Stonework: These employed Ducateon and dwarven traps and shifting passages and floors. Even drop and swing stones with return cranks were employed to stop and isolate broken access point or squash scouts as they moved through the area. The buttresses were warded to provide protection against sappers and miners trying to tunnel under. Single individuals would not trigger them, but they were meant to slow down or trap large numbers.
When they worked, they were able to contain thousands of raiders with only a couple hundred soldiers for weeks at a time. Some even suffered multi-month sieges, creating time for a large defense force to be brought up.
Uncommon Knowledge / Average Difficulty
These employed Light traps to bring daylight in. Polished mirrors on swivels channeled and amplified daylight from the outside into entry points to prevent easy overruns through the entry portals to the defenses. Sometimes they had mechanisms to even bounce it into the caverns where the Orrish were.
Trapped Stonework: The ledges holding ranged combatants behind the interior walls were often bobby-trapped to collapse if overrun. The stairs up to them were also known to be warded and trapped.
Scarce Knowledge / Hard Difficulty
Trapped Stonework: Escape holes into the celing were said to lead to stones that could be dropped on masses moving below. These were concealed to look like a rough part of the celling and operated from holdout positions.
Picket Keeps of the Heartlands
Posted on January 8, 2025 in Steel-Realms
Picket Keeps of the Heartlands were at one time dotted all over the edges of the foothills and in some low hills across the Heartlands to watch and defend against the Orrish raids from the Dark Lands and Underlands of the Steel Realms. They were not large, and had only military significance, no economic or community centers were based on them. Most were bare bones and had no luxuries, and held less than 50 inhabitants (many less than half of that). Sheep, goat and hogs were grown for food & supplies, and a few valleys used for sparse crops – but most of its larder was imported by troops cycling through it on a monthly basis. All were near small springs, streams, or wells for a water supply. The massive Pacification Garrisons have come to take the place of the Picket Keeps of the Heartlands – the small and numerous fortified small keeps that once dotted the landscape to watch for and be a bastion against Orrish incursions.
These locations have a World Watcher Edifice as a standard part of their functioning.
Upper Keep: This is typically a single story keep and sometimes a tower. The top is a series of fortified positions and open to the sun. Soaked canvases were often erected to counter fire arrows. Most had a stable, and a few of these contained a shrine to the Wyld Faith. All of them had a shrine to the old path of Osten-Paullus thought more often the Lightbringers in the last thousand years they were used.
Under Keep: This was mostly a single level of store rooms, hold out positions, and used for medical facilities. Other than air vents, typically there was only a single (with defensive gateway) entrance to the Under Keep.
History of Picket Keeps of the Heartlands
Information Sources: Mundane Reference | Associated Phenomenology Only | Specific Lore
Knowledge is broken down by ease of discovery/availability; Any attempt to know more than what's Pervasive will require a reference, source, knowledge, check, or access to someone who can get or provide either of these.
Pervasive Knowledge / Very Easy Difficulty
Picket Keeps of the Heartlands were at one time dotted all over the edges of the foothills and in some low hills across the Heartlands to watch and defend against the Orrish raids from the Dark Lands and Underlands of the Steel Realms. They were not large, and had only military significance, no economic or community centers were based on them. Most were bare bones and had no luxuries, and held less than 50 inhabitants (many less than half of that). Sheep, goat and hogs were grown for food & supplies, and a few valleys used for sparse crops – but most of its larder was imported by troops cycling through it on a monthly basis. All were near small springs, streams, or wells for a water supply. The massive Pacification Garrisons have come to take the place of the Picket Keeps of the Heartlands – the small and numerous fortified small keeps that once dotted the landscape to watch for and be a bastion against Orrish incursions.Over thousands of years, many were sacked, rebuilt, and sacked again – providing a sacrifice to delay the enemy and gain necessary time to organize a greater defense. Their ruins are all over the realms. Some were abandoned as the darkness grew quiet in recent times. A few are used as hold fasts by local settlements, a few captured and used by bandits and mercenaries, and a few simply taken and used as a benefit for a land claim in risky areas bordering known incursion sites.
Common Knowledge / Easy Difficulty
The Heartlands Picket Keeps don’t follow a standard footprint, but are all small and relatively remote (at least at one point). All were made from stone and lumber, with large, rough cut stones forming the base to make it harder to crack and break in fire. None of the typical ones of the heartlands were made for winter weather in particular – the hinterlands have their own style.
Reflected Illumination: One unique hallmark is the secure oil braziers that could light the entire inner courtyard nearly instantly if the walls were breached at night. The backs of the lips at the brazier well tops were lined with polished bronze to reflect light. Most ruins have had this valuable material scavenged.
Uncommon Knowledge / Average Difficulty
Most were known to have some sort of a short, narrow, cramped escape tunnel for emergencies. All of them were typically sponsored by a local lord or lady as part of tithe to a higher lord.
Scarce Knowledge / Hard Difficulty
Cornerstones: As part of their creation, most were laid with a deep cornerstone with artifacts from the sponsored builder. This would contain minor charms, artifacts, and trinkets – nothing terribly unique, but maybe something of religious power for the Lightbringers or Wyld Faith or the olden Osten-Paullus.
Rare Knowledge / Very Hard Difficulty
There have always been rumors of secret passages cut by Ducateon and dwarves that lead one way, into the deeper reaches. Several overrun keeps were re-captured multiple times and it is surmised that these were used. Each time, dwarves or Ducateon were involved in re-capturing them, nominally there to ensure damage done to them could be repaired.
Standard Divine Reliquary of the Steel Realms
Posted on September 2, 2024 in Steel-Realms
These represent the standard items and equipment, as well as sacred place of keeping for them, for the Standard Divine Reliquary of the Steel Realms that most Faiths in the Steel Realms maintain. These are the empowered mystical items related to the faith, many shared in common with the other divine authorities of the realms, and common form and function.
These locations have a World Watcher Edifice in an isolated and secure place as a standard part of their functioning.
Include prices by cost portion?
Censer
Incense
Circle Materials
Focus Item
Institutions may be broken into sects within in.
List of institutions.
Each institution may have a unique individual reliquary to cover items related specifically to them, bound to them
Standard Occult Reliquary of the Steel Realms
Posted on September 2, 2024 in Steel-Realms
These represent the standard items and equipment, as well as protected place of keeping for them, for the Standard Occult Reliquary of the Steel Realms that most Occult Orders of the Steel Realms maintain.
These locations have a World Watcher Edifice in an isolated and secure place as a standard part of their functioning.
Include prices by cost portion?
Censer
Incense
Circle Materials
Focus Item
Institutions may be broken into sects within in.
List of institutions.
Each institution may have a unique individual reliquary to cover items related specifically to them, bound to them
Duty Stations for the High King’s Army
Posted on July 8, 2021 in Steel-Realms
Aside from peacekeeping missions throughout the kingdoms Pacification Garrisons, the “hot spots” for service exist all over the heartlands. These are marked as formal Duty Stations for the High King’s Army.
Loot from the Orrish: The Orrish attack with stone and natural weapons mostly. Anything else is left over from the Fallen East or stolen and forged crudely. Metal is worth more than gold to the Orrish. There is little in the way of loot except what the Orrish find scavenging ruins. Only small/light jewelry survives – metal of any other kind goes toward tools.
Traditionally each place has a home unit, assigned since the beginning. The High King‘s army is literally stretched out between these areas and pacification garrisons kept stocked and rotated through during different times depending on local instability. These fortresses are also used to rest active units pulled off the front lines. These units will tend wounded and receive new recruits with basic military service to replenish their ranks. Here they train and integrate new troops into the style of warfare the unit typically faces. Most of the units have stationary assignments except North Gate Garrison – after 3 years of fighting the undead, no soldier is ever required to serve in that place again. Some choose to continue a military career, though most transfer to any other of the Main Garrison Forts and fill out the ranks of units there as they come off the line.
It is rumored The Salamander Guild has a hand in securing and stocking these locations.
North Gate Garrison
Home Unit: 7th Legion – Bastard Sons
Location:
Twin Forge Pass
Home Unit: 8th Legion – Ikribu’s Hammer
Location:
Greywood Frontier: Thethorn wall
Home Unit: 6th Legion – Screaming Eagles
Location:
Southern Edgelands
Home Unit: 11th Legion – Hells Hounds
Location:
Southern Crusader Lands
Home Unit: This is a unit solely provided by Umbak – roughly 3,000 soldiers and knights, mixed.
Location:
Ilbarsi Tunnels
Home Unit: 2nd Legion – Running Seconds
Location:
Green wall: Fhayl Forest
Home Unit:
Location: border with Umbak – elves and Grollen vs Umbak
Military Caravan Escort
Location(s): Red March (vs. Orrish), Pale Plains (vs. wyld elves), Freelands (vs. pine tribes)
The few Protectorates of the High King are typical duty stations, though certainly not ‘hot spots’ of activity, as violating the king’s peace is typically not worth the cost.