Watch Garrisons

Location of Watch Garrisons by tumblr user @thewatchau. Please ignore the blue dot; that was an accident and I'm too lazy to redo this map.

### Location

Duilintinn

A Watch Garrison is one of two major settlements of The Watch in Duilintinn, known as Fort Stiofán and Fort Conchúr. They are the two primary hubs of activity and authority within The Watch.

## Jurisdiction

Both garrisons are located in such a way that each Noble House has access to one garrison along their borders. To the north is Fort Stiofán, the garrison that borders House Brody, House Schneeplestein, and the capital city of Cordoire. To the south is Fort Conchúr, which borders House Marvin, House Jackie, and House Jameson. These two garrisons coordinate to run the entire Watch as a cohesive unit.

Each major garrison has four outposts that report to it. Domhainn Outlook Outpost, Iolla Beacon Outpost, Pa'Gille Caverns Outpost, and Agrona Bastion Outpost all report to Fort Stiofán. Rúnach Hold Outpost , Gáire Roosts Outpost, Guardian Spire Outpost, and Runners' Haven Outpost all report to Fort Conchúr. However, in the case of Runners' Haven, this is only in regards to logistical authority; this outpost reports information to both Watch Garrisons equally.

Interestingly, this method of coordinating their actions has been effectively caused The Watch to divide the kingdom into two halves, between Houses Schneeplestein and Brody and Houses Marvin, Jackie, and Jameson. Thankfully, there is very little perceivable difference between the part of the kingdom protected by Fort Stiofán and that protected by Fort Conchúr thanks to an extremely efficient network of messengers between the two major garrisons and their outposts. However, some wonder if the closer proximity of House Schneeplestein and House Brody to the castle might be a reason why The Watch has gathered more information about the lords of these two houses over the course of the past decade than any of the other missing lords.

## Resources

The garrisons and outposts of The Watch all have small to medium-sized farms that allow them to be self-sustaining in case of an emergency. More than that, the garrisons are constantly storing up food in case of a siege. Both Fort Stiofán and Fort Conchúr distributed their accumulated resources throughout the kingdom during the Second Great Famine, softening the blow of the first year’s failed harvest. When the famine continued for multiple years, however, The Watch went hungry with the rest of the kingdom. Since then, both garrisons have worked to set aside even more resources to prepare against a third famine, though these supplies would also be used in the case of an enemy siege or some other emergency circumstances.

## Emergency Plans

In the case of a true emergency, you're never going to be outright fleeing on horseback. It's disorganized, clearly telegraphs where you're going, and only delays the inevitable. If there comes a time where the situation is so dire that the watch has to abandon a garrison or outpost (which would have to be very dire; there are few places in Duilintinn better prepared for a siege or attack and we would lose so much intel and records and supplies to The Enemy) it would be better to sneak the noncombatant Watchers out somehow. Again, a situation that dire... it will be a win or die situation. The combatant watchers are probably going to stand their ground until the last man unless there is some way we could manage a retreat without leaving the noncombatants open to be slaughtered or simply postponing the battle to another day and place.

## Bathhouses

Each outpost and garrison has one or more bathhouses for Watchers to use. While bathhouses seem like a luxury item that only exist in cities and large towns, sanitation was a top priority when renovating the outposts and garrisons to be occupied by hundreds of Watchers at once. The same guilds who constructed rudimentary plumbing in other areas of Duilintinn (The Order of Stone and Ocean Men) were recruited for this task during the three years between The Watch’s founding and implementation.

With the exception of Fort Conchúr, all bathhouses were built in their own dedicated structure on the ground\*. In Fort Conchúr, these bathhouses were built into the preexisting structures underneath the outer ramp and keep, most of which had already been repurposed for living quarters. Beyond the materials used for the structure itself, these bathhouses are more or less identical regardless of the architectural variation between the outposts and garrisons.  They are not designed with luxury or relaxation in mind, but efficiency.

A usual trip to the bathhouse starts with a Watcher stepping up to a rope attached to a self-refilling bucket of water. Depending on how hard they pull the rope, a Watcher might sacrifice water pressure for length of time under the “tap,” so to speak. This quick shower is meant to wash away any surface-level grime before they step into the bath, where they use the soap provided, before finally stepping up to another rope to rinse off with fresh water from another bucket.

Privacy is not a priority in the bathhouses of The Watch. While there are partitions between the shower-buckets, they exist more to control the splash so that most of the water ends up on you and not spraying out on everyone else like a sprinkler system the second it hits the top of your head. Since the baths are an adaptation of the public bathhouses found in large cities, they obviously aren’t very private either.

However, there are a few separate spots in the bathhouses that are actually completely closed off, intended for people who really prioritize privacy for whatever reason (religious, personal, medical, heck idk some people are just shyer than others) and are willing to wait ages if there's a line. You're still expected to wash just as quickly though (heck, even more so if there is a line).

The bathhouses are not divided by gender. Since Duilintinn, as a culture, is not concerned gender roles or binary, gender-divided bathhouses would feel overcomplicated and unnecessary. Moreover, the efficiency with which you’re expected to wash up prevents most people from looking where they shouldn’t be, and if someone did try something inappropriate, there'd be other people around who would be equally willing to knock some sense into them.

*\*This detail sounds really stupid unless you know that at least half of the structures in the Gáire Roosts outpost are treehouses.*

## Default Furnishings

All Watch outposts and garrisons all feature the same dark brown wood in most of their furnishings and renovations.

In the three years of preparation between the Watch’s founding and official implementation, ten locations had to undergo various amounts of renovation in order to become garrisons and outposts of The Watch. That amount of construction required a lot of resources, and while Duilitinn has quite a few sources of metal and stone, the same cannot be said for wood.

In an effort to limit the cost of importing the significant amounts of lumber necessary to complete these projects, Duilintinn struck a trade deal with the lumber industry of Lantraeth, allowing Duilintinn to import the wood at a reduced price, on the condition that all of the wood they use for the Watch projects would be bought from that specific nation. This gave the other nation a consistent and significant source of revenue for three years, while Duilintinn benefited from the discount.

As a result, no matter what garrison or outpost you visit, you’ll see the same type of wood featured amidst the original architecture. For Watchers who transfer between different outposts and/or garrisons, seeing the instantly recognizable color of Lantraeth’s unique dark brown spruce wood makes the new location feel just as much like “home” as their previous post in The Watch.

Note that, irl, I’m pretty sure there’s no spruce wood that’s naturally a dark brown color. However, this is my world, so I say that there’s a special variety of spruce in northern Tirónar that has a color similar to walnut wood (see right).