Location
The town of Branik is a poor settlement in the north of
Ardechia's Bogland, close to the border with
Kyrus, and just a few hours from the Nord Sea to the north-west.
Surroundings
The town's surroundings are a dreadful mire, swamp and marshland stretch as far as the eye can see. The land is bleak, as are the people, the air is often foggy, and the sky covered in dull grey clouds through out most of the year, as this is where the clouds condense to pass the Diynar mountains.
The bogs and forests that surround the town and nearby villages are dark, wet, and remain mainly unexplored as wild beasts roam uncontrolled through the thick growth and knee-deep marshes. Similarly, so do the bandits, as the terrain makes it exceedingly difficult to maintain any form of control away from settlements and the main road.
The authorities here, namely the local Lord, are given scraps by the state in comparison to what they would need to flush all these pests from the area, but there is not much value in empty swamp, so they must make due with what they get.
The town
The main reason the Kingdom keeps sinking money in to this backwater is simply: territory control. The town of Branik is tightly snugged around a hill-fort which is the only fortification in the far north on the border, and there is little to nothing more south of it up until you reach the capital city of
Starigrad itself.
The town itself is utterly unremarkable, consisting of mainly small cottages with a makeshift palisade erected around the outer perimeter, and a moat with a wooden bridge leading across it. A single road, or mud-path rather, leads through the middle of town as it wraps around the fort. The locals like to set up their stalls along this road to sell their wares, without a central market area anywhere. The town has a single well, and an inn close to the fort's main gate. There is no church in town, but a section of the old fort is actually an integrated chapel which is opened to the public every weekend.
The fort
The fort has a varied history. It was first built by the followers of the
Church of the Mason during the 3rd migration war, also known as the Masonite war, in the middle of
The Great Migrations. The fort was a monument to Humanity's defiance in the face of magic and nature itself, using red brick and mortar to erect a symbol to said defiance in the wet muddy marshes of eastern
Ardechia. It stood tall and proud, until said magic and nature became it's undoing when Celeena, the witch queen, destroyed the fort and left it's ruins sink in to the mud near the end of the era.
It remained a hopeless ruin for much of the Dark Ages, as after the passing of The Mason, his Masonite Kingdom fractured and descended in to ceaseless infighting between it's former constituents. During these times, the ruins of the fort became a base for bandits to pray upon nearby trade routes and to harass villages further south on sturdier grounds.
It was not until the unification of the
Kingdom of Ardechia that the new government sought to pacify the bandit infested country side, firstly by ejecting them from the old fort at Branik. The fort was reclaimed, and parts of it were still in good enough shape to be restored, while the rest was torn down and rebuilt. As such, parts of the fortress are neatly stacked red bricks and mortar, while the newer parts are of grey rock and timber. Clearly, the man kind of two ages ago put way more stock in to quality and advanced engineering.
The fort's buildings are of a rectangular shape positioned in a semi-circular order around a central courtyard. The main building, that is to say, the largest of them, is the residence of the local lord, with the barracks in the lower parts of the same buildings. There is a mess hall and an armory in a second, with a forge and chapel right next to it. The forge seems to have been built as a secondary space to the chapel chambers themselves, as this was built by the
Masonites. The courtyard is bare muddy ground which was attempted to be made sturdier by laying down planks of wood and the occasional cobblestones, and a big old broken tree stands in the centre of it.
Today, the fort is mainly a base for the local garrison. There is not much of value in northern Bogland to protect, save for trade coming in and out of
Kyrus, and the local peasantry. Still, it serves well to remind even the raiding
Heimer who's in charge around here.
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