Watch Outposts

Locations of Watch Outposts by tumblr user @thewatchau

A Watch Outpost is a small settlement under the control of The Watch in Duilintinn.

Comparable to a smaller version of a Watch Garrison, these outposts keep the watch against The Enemy threat in the furthest reaches of Duilintinn, connecting the two major garrisons to the entire kingdom with a network of patrols, messengers, researchers, representatives, etc.

These outposts serve to watch the borders and defend the kingdom from outside threats if necessary. As a result, they have a higher percentage of Watchers with combat skills than the main garrisons or mobile contingencies. They are also the designated resupply point for scouting parties of Watchers in their area.

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.

## Outposts

* Domhainn Outlook Outpost
* Iolla Beacon Outpost
* Guardian Spire Outpost
* Gáire Roosts Outpost
* Rúnach Hold Outpost
* Agrona Bastion Outpost
* Pa'Gille Caverns Outpost
* Runners' Haven Outpost

## Patrols

Each Outpost of The Watch is responsible for deploying patrols of Mobile Teams to a specific portion of the border and/or roads of Duilintinn.

While these patrols are at liberty to spend more or less time along a specific section of their route to investigate or stand guard as they see fit, they must remain within their segment of the border. This because, in order for the outposts to accurately ration and provide the necessary resources to each scouting party, each outpost is carefully equipped to provide for the environments and challenges faced by their own section of the border. Exceptions might be made in emergency situations on a case-by-case basis, but in general, veering too far from your designated segment of the border is ill-advised. For example, imagine if a scouting party of Watchers from the Northern Mountains attempted to resupply at an outpost closer to the Western Forest. Instead of the warm clothing and blankets needed for the rocky northern heights, the outpost would only be able to provide the thin green garments appropriate for forest scouts.

In addition, scouting parties are not always able to contact their superiors about their movements. Since these groups are given tremendous leeway regarding what actions to take based on their discoveries along the borders, confining scouting parties to a specific area prevents anyone from accidentally leaving sections of the border unwatched and unprotected.

Most scouting parties will relay any information they find to their outpost and return to their parts of the border, knowing that messengers within the outpost will take care of spreading the word to the garrisons and other outposts. However, sometimes a single scout will ride out alone if the situation is especially dire.

When reporting back to The Watch, most Mobile Teams will return back to their designated outpost at regular intervals to relay any information they find, knowing that messengers within the outpost will take care of spreading the word to the rest of The Watch. However, in especially dire situations (such as a raid) a single member of a Mobile Team may ride out alone to alert The Watch as quickly as possible.

Generally, Mobile Teams of Watchers will only stay at an outpost or garrison in order to rest and resupply before returning to the field. While they are still paid during this furlough period, this consistent return to the field is what distinguishes a Mobile Team from a simple one-off expedition.

 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.

There is a slight chance that, if an outpost was attacked, the Watchers might be able to flee on horseback and fall back to a garrison successfully. However, there would still be thousands of civilians left in between The Enemy and the garrison, so this is hardly an ideal option.

## 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 left).