Sadobariamen

Sadobariamen (sah-DOH-bar-YAH-MEN) is a small castle and attendant castle town in Fasdaela, which marks the effective border between the Kingdoms of Fasdaela and Faerdaua. The name dates to an ancient Noulaenic fortress at the site constructed in 448. The fortress was seized by Ousilic rebels in 764, and the weapons seized from its armory played a central role in the defeat of Noulaenic forces in Defalisu shortly after. The castle has been rebuilt and improved upon over many centuries and is considered an important strategic defense point by the modern Fasdaelic Kingdom. The attending town is quite small, however, and there are only 3,400 total residents of the castle and town combined.

## Etymology

Sadobariamen is named after the Sadobaria River (whose name is a Noulaenicization of the Ousilic Rigini name for the river, *Staupre* (lit. "cougar"), and the Noulaenic word *men* for fortress.

## History

The original small Noulaenic fortress was constructed in 448 NE shortly after Noulian gained control of the Ousilic Valley. The original fortress was wooden and was meant as a secondary line of defense against the Haraklina in the Daua hills. The fortress straddled and defended an ancient road through the Daua hills that ran along the banks Sadobaria River. The route, though little used in modern times, was a key travel route between Defalisu and Dersialdara prior to the Noulaenic invasion of Carasala. The fortress was rebuilt with precision cut stone starting in 458 NE.

The strategic value of the location declined after Noulian gained control of the Daua hills and Dersialdara plains in the late 5th century, but the fortress was still used to house Noulaenic weapons and a substantial garrison tasked with maintaining imperial authority over the valley. Noulian was wary of stationing too many troops at the larger but poorly defensible nearby city of Defalisu, and viewed the remote and well defended Sadobariamen fortress as a good alternate location for staging its occupation forces.

The fortress was infiltrated by rebel insurgents in 764 NE who threw open the gates to a larger force of rebels who ambushed and massacred the garrison. Led by Liamiathios, a warlord who would later crown himself King of Faesdaela, the rebels seized weapons from the fortress that were used to sack and burn Defalisu the next year. Liamiathios ruled over the region using Sadobariamen as his capital until 774 NE, when he moved to the repaired castle in Defalisu.

The kings of Faesdaela maintained and improved the castle during the inter-imperial period and attempted to restore the Sadobaria route through the Daua hills as an alternate to the more popular Filou road to the west. This effort was largely unsuccessful.

The castle fell into disrepair during the second Noulaenic Empire period due to its low strategic value and the continued unpopularity of the Sadobaria route. The castle was abandoned and the town nearly so from 1431-1820.

The Viscount of Fasdaela rebuilt the castle and the road beginning in 1820 as imperial authority over the region began to unravel. The older castle was too dilapidated to repair and was torn down to make room for the new, smaller castle at the site. Older stones were mixed with new fill stones and cement to build the walls, which lacked the tight fitted cut stone style of the ancient fortress.

The castle grew in importance when the Kingdom of Faerdaua broke away from the Ousilic kingdoms in the valley and seized control of Fasdaelic lands in the hills in 2083, with the castle forming the effective boundary of control between the two kingdoms. Travel over the road essentially ceased at this time, however, due to poor relations between Faerdaua and Fasdaela and high number of bandits in the hills. The modern castle is held by a mayor and has a garrison of 1,500 troops, including 600 knights, while the attendant walled castle town has a population of 1,900, mostly tradesmen, cooks, and other who serve the mayor and garrison in some capacity, as well as their families.

## Geography

The city sits on the northern edge of the Ousilia Valley plain, where the Sadobaria River exits a steep gorge in the Daua hills and flows onto flatter ground. The castle sits in the mouth of the gorge and occupies the flat land between the river and the hills to the west, with a wall leading up the hills to a secondary tower in the hills above the valley. A second, smaller fortress sits on a hill to the east of the river, with a wall leading down the steep slope into the water. A man-made channel from the river to the hills to the west sits just to the north of the castle, spanned with a drawbridge that is rarely opened. The castle town sits directly to the south of the castle on the plain and consists of wooden buildings surrounded by a secondary stone wall that extends from the tower in the west, around a half-circle through the valley, and then parallel to the river back to the castle. Two gates in the wall lead to roads, one south along the river towards Defalisu and one west through farmland that provides the castle with its food.