Tranith
As King Lertis Tevoy’s forays into the Green Realm began to anger the wild elves, Castorhagi settlers built several small forts facing the woods to defend themselves from their elven neighbors. Tranith was neither the largest of these nor even the farthest inland, though it is the farthest inland that survives today as discernible ruins.
Unlike most other such forts, Tranith did not even survive to the end of the war with the elves and the abandonment of the Great Road. Instead, it was destroyed in an earthquake relatively early in the war. What makes its tale particularly tragic is that it so happened that a group of settlers had taken shelter there just before the earthquake. These settlers had been making their homes somewhat deeper inside the Green Warden Forest, but when hostilities broke out between them and the elves, their warriors were defeated, leaving behind only the children, elderly, and a few caretakers.
This tiny band made its way through the forest back to the fort at Tranith and holed up there waiting for help and supplies to arrive. Unfortunately, the earthquake hit before help or supplies ever came, and the surviving refugees were trapped inside the damaged fort, many of them injured. At the same time, an escalation of violence between elves and humans in the area forced the humans to retreat and cede the fort to elven control. When the elves took possession — perhaps in an act of monstrous cruelty, or perhaps mistaking the refugees for soldiers still guarding the structure — they burned what remained of the broken little fort to the ground with the huddled, injured noncombatants still cowering inside.
Ever since that incident, the ruins of Tranith have been haunted. Travelers through the region are harassed by dangerous apparitions, and those who (usually unknowingly) take shelter in what is left of the ruins tell tales of terror and peril after fleeing for their lives — assuming they get out at all. In addition, those who die inside the Ruined Fort have been known to rise again as undead possessed by the restless ghosts of the abandoned refugees.
Stronghold
Type
Fort
Comments