Kwamatembe - Lair of the Lion Area Descriptions
The Lair of the Lion is a fort built several thousand years ago by the ancestors of the modern Kaalengi, and occupied by both the Colonial Minonoise and Kaalengi locals over the years since then in successive occupations. The Minonoise military mounted four cannon towers on the site in its last occupation, but the Colonial militia took back the actual cannon and rescinded its rights to anything this far away from the colony several decades ago, leaving it to the Kaalengi in the area to maintain it as they see fit. In the meantime. two of the towers have mostly crumbled, and two remain mostly intact, the tallest structures in the complex.
Geography
The Lair of the Lion guards the main valley passage through a chain of mountains in the west-central interior of the Caetica, providing security and protection for overland commerce in the region between the three major outposts, rather than guarding a specific border or military asset. The valley is an uneven Y-shaped pass between Mount Kaatenga, sacret to the Kaalengi people, and a ridge of sharp granite mountains known as the Dragonspine due to the alternating peaks that mimic the pointed scales of a dragon's back. The fort is roughly 13 days walk or 4 days ride west from Nogossi, 3 days ride north from Talaganza (and one day north from Bula Noaval, a trading outpost between the fort and Ngomi bay), and slightly less than 3 days from Kanambou, though there is another, shorter road further north linking Nogossi to Kanambou.
Ecosystem
The land off to either side of the main road is muddy and gritty thanks to the convergence of stony slough off the mountainsides and the perpetual black rot of fallen palms and jungle plants in the valley, a place where few cultivated plants do well. The road itself consists of thousands of palm trunks driven into the soft soil to reach the stone base below, over which massive granite pavers have been laid, with a colorful top cover of granite and basalt chips from broken stones. The foundations of the fort seem to use a similar technique and have remained relatively stable, but smaller outbuildings and the Minonoise towers built on traditional 12' foundations have toppled over time.
The relative scarcity of clay in the gritty, black soil has turned the architects to use wood rather than brick for much of the interior construction, for parts deemed less structurally important than those made from stone. Several distinct layers of architecture co-exist at the fort, reflecting its archaic, Colonial and modern phases.
The original builders worked in a relatively plain and monolithic style, using a small number of enormous, well-fitted stones with a distinctly load-bearing, upright-leaf shape wider at the bottom than the top, with a characteristic triangular 'stem' allowing for precise offset alignments between rows of stone; their interior and less-critical walls and roofs were likely simple wooden structures of tough woven vine sandwiching a coating of gritty black soil mixed with dried grasses. None of these structures remain intact on-site, but the technology remains effective and is still used for quick, cheap walls in this region.
The Minonoise came to the fort in a very dilapidated state, and built in regular rows of well-masoned stone bricks drilled for vertical metal offset posts, with the dust from the chaff mixed with water and a binding agent to make a very serviceable, long-lasting mortar. These walls were left rough where artistic touches would be wasted, such as in the stables, but could be plastered over with a finer grade plaster of purer dust and thinner binder and then painted when dry. Some of these walls remain in various stages of decline in the kitchen and dining area, workshop and officers' barracks.
The Kaalengi militia currently managing the fort has traded some of the protection and weight of stone and blocks for the comfort of airflow, using milled textile cloth and in some places, vine netting rather than solid walls that trap heat and moisture. While these are flimsy materials, they are easily replaced with fresh walls should any mold develop, and the pleasant airflow through the stables and soldiers' barracks have surely increased the relative health and fighting strength of the forces stationed there.
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