Fort Stiofán

Sketch of Fort Stiofán by tumblr user @thewatchau

Location of Fort Stiofán in Duilintinn by tumblr user @thewatchau

Fort Stiofán is a garrison of The Watch located in House Brody, Duilintinn, near the border of House Jackie and House Schneeplestein.

Few places are free from The Enemy’s growing influence over Duilintinn…

…but we like to think that Fort Stiofán is one of them.

Bards sing songs and tell tales of King Sean’s victories and the peace that followed. Watchers pass to and fro tending crops, washing the linens, and prepping meals. Behind that melody of peace, however, not one soul has forgotten their primary duty: Keeping The Watch.

Patrols prepare to defend the capital while steady streams of messengers flood in and out of the garrison. Within the fort’s wood-paneled halls, huddled groups of scholars, mages, and scouts comb over records that have been studied hundreds of times before. Occasionally, tensions will begin to ride high if anyone insinuates potential traitors are within
our midst…

And yet, we persist. We must persist.

We must Keep The Watch and a Positive Mental Attitude, else all will be lost.

## History

Fort Stiofán began as the personal castle to some self-important person from Waldren, sometime after the year 1000 during the early days of their occupation. The inner walls, messenger towers, and a smaller set of guard towers were built during this time. However, in the centuries of Waldren’s absentee rule, the castle fell into disrepair, losing one of its messenger towers.

Sometime around 1400, well into the Interim Years, some powerful factions began vying for the power left behind in Waldren’s continued absence. By this time, Waldren had been occupied with trying to subdue their rebelling colonies in the north and south; far too busy to care about such petty local politics.

One particularly wealthy faction took up residence in Fort Stiofán and used their prodigious income to repair and renovate the ruined fortress. The outer wall, guard towers, and oratory tower were added at this time; considerable resources were spent to securely integrate the latter into the existing structure.

Eventually, these warring factions were forced to stop wrecking havoc upon the land in their endless struggle for power, and the fortress was abandoned once again. It eventually fell into the hands of King Sean, who used it as one of the two major garrisons of the newly founded Watch.

In the three years between the announcement of The Watch and its eventual implementation, thousands of workers were hired to prepare the garrisons and outposts for their new residents. It was at this point that the small living quarters along the outer walls were built into the garrison. Hundreds of carpenters, woodworkers, blacksmiths, and other craftsmen were hired on behalf of the king to get the job done as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Since the initial plan was to build barracks-style living spaces, the Guard Coalition were also consulted on how to safely, efficiently, and practically house as many Watchers as possible into the limited space they had in each garrison. The Guard Coalition replied that barracks-style housing is only ideal for a more action-focused garrison such as Fort Conchúr, where people spend most of their day on the move, return to their rooms exhausted, and pass out instantly. However, they immediately shot down the idea of building the same living quarters in Fort Stiofán, which had been pitched as the center of The Watch’s more intellectual operations, saying:

> “The last thing you want is to put all the nerds who spent all day giving themselves headaches and don’t sleep enough for all the ideas in their heads into a space together. They’ll spend the whole night arguing so much about their ideas that they won’t sleep at all and give each other even bigger headaches.”
>
>

Or at least, that’s the gist of it. Instead, the Guard recommended living quarters that sacrifice space for privacy, resulting in Fort Stiofán’s modern layout.

The same guilds who constructed rudimentary plumbing in other areas of Duilintinn (The Order of Stone and Ocean Men) were recruited to construct the bathhouses and other necessary facilities in all of the outposts and garrisons.

The garrison was put into official use by The Watch in January 1603.

## Architecture

### Layout

At the top of the page is the external view of Fort Stiofán. As you can see, the structure has been built with a few distinct layers. There’s an outer wall four floors high, an inner wall that rises about two stories higher, and a number of towers and walkways.

This is the interior view of one of Fort Stiofán’s first four floors. Pardon the poor image quality; I both drew and photographed this image on an airplane. Don’t worry about squinting to read my notes; I’ll go over the important stuff here. Anything I ignore is likely still just an idea, and may never be canon.

### Entryway

The two towers in the front are guard towers, built to provide a defensive vantage point for fighters defending the entrance to the garrison. These towers also hold the main stairways to the other floors.

The entrance to Fort Stiofán keep is located between these towers, featuring a small room holding a messenger desk and some guard posts. It’s got doors on all four walls; one to the outside, one to the inner area of the keep, and two to the stairs and living quarters on the left and right. Since the keep is not open to the public, anyone entering the building needs to show their membership documentation to one of the Watchers standing guard. A few messengers run a desk in this room that allows people to drop off or pick up messages from the garrison without entering the keep proper. One of these Watchers will run messages back and forth between the desk and the messenger tower in the back of the garrison.

### Living Quarters

   The small squares between the inner and outer walls are one of the most intensive additions to the fortress. Each line represents a thin wooden wall, custom-fitted to chain together and create small living quarters for the watchers who would live there.

As you can see, rooms come in single, double, and triple sizes. Each is furnished with a single desk (colored green). The quarters located on the outer wall have a small arrow slit window, with the desk fitted into the recessed embrasure.

These recesses were used by archers to fire out the arrow slit while being shielded from enemy projectiles. Due to Fort Stiofán’s location, they are rarely needed. However, if the garrison is attacked, every watcher with one of these “desks” will find a harried archer standing upon it and shooting out the window.

   Each room holds one to three large trunks, about six feet long and two feet across (red). These are the watchers’ only guaranteed storage space. Inside each crate is a single cloak, which functions as both a blanket and outerwear. Don’t want your watchers to freeze in the winter, after all!

Nailed to the top of each crate is a large bag of rough canvas, much like a massive pillowcase. This functions as a mattress. It is the watcher’s responsibility to stuff this bag with straw, blankets, or other available padding, and to change it when necessary.

Due to the efficiency with which these living spaces were built, all of the chests were simple in design, yet also carried some features and styles unique to the person who made it. The only uniform feature is the type of wood, which was imported from the forests of Lantraeth. The same is true of all the renovations made to both garrisons during those three years.

These quarters can only be locked from within by a small wooden latch on the door. As a result, Watchers are encouraged to keep all belongings in their chest when not in use, and locks are available for purchase at the garrison smithy.

In addition, a washbasin and small stool are provided to accompany the desks. The doors to each room (purple) are lockable with a small wooden bolt, but they would likely give way to brute force, so…  ¯\\_(ツ)\_/¯

And yes, there are probably also chamber pots… but if Tolkien could write his entire high fantasy world without mentioning how elves went to the bathroom, then I can choose not to think about that unfortunate detail of Watch life.

*Please note that none of the images above are to scale. In reality, the rooms are the size of a small walk-in closet, no bigger than eight feet wide at most*

### Great Hall

Fort Stiofán’s great hall is located on the first floor, but its higher ceiling takes up space on the second floor as well. This space is a constant hubbub of activity, open to casual meetings, shared meals, and spending time with visitors in a space within the Watch, yet distanced from the more serious matters discussed in meeting rooms on the upper floors.

They say that The Watch is divided into two categories: people who spend their free time in the archives because they’re overwhelmed by the bustling crowds in the great hall, and people who spend their free time in the great hall because they find the quiet of the archives oppressive.

The windows probably once looked towards the outside, but as the former castle expanded into the fortress we know today, the great hall was eventually completely enclosed. Today, there are sitting areas on the second floor that look out over the great hall, for Watchers that want to enjoy the busy atmosphere from a distance, in a space that’s slightly quieter and more private.

The kitchens are located near the great hall on both the first and second floors and function identically to all other kitchens of the watch.

### Archives

Technically, the first floor of Fort Stiofán’s archives is actually a library like Fort Conchúr’s. However, the difference is relatively minor; an archive is an extensive collection of materials for the sake of storage, while a library is a collection of reading materials for the purpose of public use. For whatever reason, both floors of Fort Stiofán's collection collectively came to be known as the archives and will be referred to as such throughout this article.

Fort Stiofán’s archives take up two entire stories of the inner garrison (excepting the outer layer of living quarters). This space is so large (especially compared to Fort Conchúr’s library) because it handles most of The Watch’s publication work. Since Fort Stiofán is the slightly more “academic” of the two garrisons, it’s in charge of sorting through, archiving, preserving, compiling, and distributing the mountains of documentation produced by The Watch. In one of the most well-known elements of this role, Fort Stiofán is responsible for publishing the huge, encyclopedic tomes that detail the vital developments in our war against The Enemy. These volumes are a Watcher’s go-to source of information for confirming everything we know and theorize about our foe. Additionally, Fort Stiofán uses the same news distribution system established in Runner’s Haven to collect documents for archival and redistribute the published copies.

Each floor features a long table down the center, flanked on either side by dozens of bookshelves reaching towards the walls, which in turn are floor-to-ceiling cabinets of records and other resources.

At the end of the room is a door into the Oratory Tower. Fort Stiofán uses the two floors of the Oratory Tower adjacent to the archives as specific wings for magical records. Unlike Fort Conchúr, which keeps copies of these records in bookshelves alongside other library materials, Fort Stiofán's archives hold the original copies of these valuable sources of information. These spaces are used by designated archivists to carefully store and tend to these records. Those who wish to view the record are either given a copy or are carefully supervised by these archivists to minimize the potential for irreplaceable damage.

Near the entrance to the stairs is a back room that’s directly adjacent to the messenger tower, where the Watchers on-duty work to copy, sort, and categorize new additions to the archives as they arrive. This offers them a bit of privacy to work without being approached for help while not on desk-duty.

Those who do work the desks can be seen sitting at gaps in the bookcases that cover the walls, with the back rooms just barely visible behind them. Instead of books, the shelves on this wall contain supplies such as parchment, wax seals, envelopes, scroll ties, quills, charcoal, ink, blotting tools, etc.

In addition, some of these shelves also hold a few fancier tools that watchers can check out and use in the archives, such as a pair of joint quills that let you write multiple copies of a report at once, mathematical tools for diagrams (LIKE MAPS!!!), and other useful things made from invention and magic alike.

 Fort Stiofán in charge of sorting through, archiving, preserving, compiling, and distributing the *mountains* of documentation produced by The Watch.

In one of the most well-known elements of this role, Fort Stiofán is responsible for publishing the huge, encyclopedic tomes that detail the vital developments in our war against The Enemy. These volumes are a Watcher’s go-to source of information for confirming everything we know and theorize about our foe.

Moreover, Fort Stiofán stores the original copies of most of The Watch’s important documents and records on the second floor of its archives. Not only is this why Fort Conchúr’s library only has a single floor in comparison to Stiofán’s two, but also why the two garrisons have different names for their libraries/archives.

A library is a collection of reading materials for the purpose of *public* *use*. An archive is an extensive collection of materials for the sake of *storage.* Technically, the first floor of Fort Stiofán’s archives is actually a library like Fort Conchúr’s, but for whatever reason, both floors collectively came to be known as the archives.

Similarly, Fort Stiofán has a specific wing of its archives for magical records because it holds the original copies of these valuable sources of information, while the copies of these records in Fort Conchúr can be kept in the bookshelves along the wall alongside other materials without worrying about irreplaceable damage.

Fort Stiofán uses the same system in place in Runner’s Haven for immediate widespread distribution of news and important messages to collect documents for archival and redistribute the published copies.

### Messenger Tower

The tower in the back is the messenger tower. The only surviving tower that was a part of the original castle layout, it was once part of a pair. It now holds the garrison’s rookery and a series of magic chutes to shuttle messages to and from the rookery and their intended recipients on every floor of the garrison.

On the seven main floors, the layout is the same. Two walls hold chutes that send messages between floors (one for up, one for down), one wall has a door to the rest of the floor, and one wall has a thin, steep staircase up the tower. In the center of the room is a large round table and chairs.

Each floor of the messenger tower is staffed by a handful of messengers. Their job is to send messages dropped off at the tower up/down the appropriate chute. In addition, if a message comes through the chute that’s destined for someone on their floor, one of those messengers has to track down the recipient (or the recipient’s room/workspace) to deliver it.

Thankfully, the messengers don’t need to stop and individually examine every message that comes through the chute to determine if it's destined for their floor or not. The chutes are enchanted to have messages stop at the appropriate floor, where they’ll accumulate in the boxes you see above. The chutes are made of the same copper that the roof of Fort Stiofán is made from and has become similarly oxidized over time. Enough people are fond of the green color that no one bothers to keep it shiny (some are even semi-superstitious about it and get upset if anyone suggests cleaning them up).

Since sticking messages in the chute only takes a few seconds and only one or two messengers need to leave the room at a time (if they’re efficient), the messengers staffing each floor have a lot of time to socialize around the center table. Packs of cards, art projects, dice games, storytelling... anything you can do when stuck around a table for several hours, the messengers in the towers have probably done it at least once. Ironically, being assigned to tower duty is an extrovert’s heaven, while hitting the roads for long-distance deliveries out in the world is the ideal task for a more introverted messenger.

#### Raven Master's Quarters

The Raven Master’s quarters are located on the eighth floor of the Messenger tower and feature two private rooms and an office space. Ideally, you’d have two different Raven Masters on staff for accountability reasons and on the off chance that one of them is called away for an emergency, hence the two separate rooms. The office space would be where the Raven Master can perform their extremely important work, though there would probably be more tables, storage spaces, and reference materials in the office space than what can be seen here. While the door to the stairwell is usually left open so that the Raven Masters are accessible while working, it can be closed and locked to ensure absolute privacy if they need to work on something confidential.

#### Rookery

The remaining height of the messenger tower above the Raven Masters’ quarters is the rookery.

Across the nearly two-story-high walls are lattices of perches for the ravens to perch upon while they hang out in the tower. Little alcoves are built into the walls for the ravens to rest within as well. The space is covered in a bedding of hay that can be easily swept up when the bird poop accumulates and can be used to create little nests if the ravens so choose.

In the center, a thin spiral staircase leads up to the roof of the tower and allows easier access to the higher perches and alcoves. At each cardinal direction, a total of eight large windows (arranged in stacks of two) allow ravens to fly to and from the tower.

Look, at the end of the day, the rookery is heavily, heavily inspired by the owlery in the Harry Potter books. That’s essentially my only point of reference for a space like this. I tried to get creative and make it my own, but... eh. At its core, it’s a place for birds to sit, sleep, and be taken care of.

### Oratory Tower

The large tower on the right is colloquially known as the oratory tower. It was built alongside the guard towers when the outer wall was added and is the strongest part of the keep.

As the name implies, the top floor of this tower is a private place of worship for Watchers to practice their religious/cultural traditions in peace. The interior is plain, but elegant, with a high ceiling, eight large, circular windows at the cardinal and intercardinal points for anyone who needs a directional reference, small alcoves for shrines, altars, or other displays, and several communal storage closets.

The closets hold items such as prayer mats, small tables, candles, incense burners, and other items, with a place to request any additional needs, including both restocking items that have been used up and the addition of any new items that weren’t previously stored there. However, sometimes someone requests something that’s unsustainable to keep stocked (fresh flowers, expensive or rare relics, seawater, etc.). In those cases, a notice is placed on the storage location explaining why that item can’t be stocked by The Watch, but that individual Watchers are more than welcome to store their own items in those spaces if they wish, with the understanding that The Watch isn’t responsible for preserving, restocking, or protecting them. If the item is expensive or rare, they’re encouraged to keep it in their personal chest and bring it with them to the oratory instead.

All practices are welcome in the oratory (heck, you don’t even have to be “practicing” anything at all); the only rule is to preserve the peace of the oratory. Anything that involves significant noise (worship music/dance, loud sermons, anything involving animals, etc.) should take place outside on the rooftop or courtyard, where they won’t disturb others in the oratory. However, quiet, spoken words (prayers, small groups, other spoken rites, etc) are allowed; honestly just be courteous to others in the oratory and you’re fine. Each outpost has an oratory such as this, albeit much smaller than Fort Stiofán’s.

#### Medical Ward

The two lowest floors of the Oratory Tower are used as Fort Stiofán's Medical Ward. Since such wards need higher ceilings in order to provide good ventilation and lighting from the windows between each bed, the floor/ceiling between the tower's first two stories was removed to create a single, taller one.

Much of the layout of Fort Stiofán’s medical ward is based upon historical plans found in this very handy research paper on circular buildings with a section specifically on hospital wards, combined with the various quirks of Fort Stiofán’s layout.

The ward is divided into five sections: the lobby, the nurses’ station, the lavatory/bath, the nurses’ office, and the ward itself. Only the nurses’ office in the small wing above the first-floor lavatory is a true “second story”; everything else is located on the ground floor.

The space marked in blue is the nurses’ station in the center of the ward. It has two windows; one looking over the lobby, and one looking over the ward. This allows the nurses on staff to keep track of the bedridden patients and new arrivals from the same space. It functions as both a check-in counter and a typical nurses’ station where they can work when not directly interacting with the patients.

The yellow line is the door out into the first floor of Fort Stiofán. There’s also another entrance into the lobby through the outer hall with the living quarters, but the door is tucked under the stairs, so you can’t see it in either image.

Speaking of the stairs, the red is the stairs up to the second-floor entrance, which is also accessed through the outer hall with the living quarters. However, unlike the first floor, there is no entrance into the lobby from the inner area of Fort Stiofán’s second floor. Instead...

Marked in green are the two balcony-esque areas of the second floor that allow someone upstairs in the loft-like nurses’ office to easily communicate with others in the nurses’ station (not shown in the Minecraft image) and lobby.

The layout of the nurses’ office is arguably the most difficult feature of the ward to describe in writing, recreate in Minecraft, AND depict in the blueprints (I don’t have a color for “half wall” unfortunately), and is a large part of why I decided to make such a variety of visual aids for this section of the garrison. In the nurse’s office are a desk, a large bookcase for paperwork, and a small room that’s actually closed off from the sound of the ward below with some sleeping arrangements.

The lobby would probably just have chairs, maybe a few tables, normal lobby stuff. Most of the time, a nurse will look you over in the lobby first, rather than immediately letting you into the ward. If your issue can be fixed with a few simple instructions, medicines, or a quick procedure that’s not squicky enough to require a more private setting (i.e. a few quick stitches), then you’ll never enter the ward at all. Since beds are limited, the ward is reserved for treatments that take time to perform, require extended supervision, or have a significant recovery period, much like the same reasons why you’d stay at the hospital in our world.

The lavatory/bath area is just... that, I guess. It probably has facilities for people who need assistance from the nurses for whatever reason, but otherwise, it’s just a normal place to wash up. I probably won’t flesh it out too much.

Finally, there is the “labs” area I have marked on the annotated map of the second floor. I intend for this area to function as a smaller, more practical version of Fort Conchúr’s research floor. Less space is needed, since the goal is to simply produce medical products, rather than experimenting with and creating new ones, but there’s still plenty of counter space for some experimental work as well. However, I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to put the doors to this space yet. You’d want it to be close to the ward so that the medicines can be accessed quickly, but the only second-floor entrance is through the outer hall, which feels like a somewhat roundabout route when the lab space is directly adjacent to the tower. Then again, the nurses’ office has the same problem. Maybe I need to put a stairway in the office space that allows easier and faster access to the ward itself? Not sure yet.

### Inner Courtyard

This is a zoomed-out version of the entirety of Fort Stiofán. Within the outer walls of the garrison are the tavern, smithy, some general workshops, bathhouse, and a large courtyard. The walls themselves hold four large towers, each with rooms where guards will take breaks, eat meals, and sleep between their patrol shifts.

    In the image the the right, the buildings around the courtyard from left to right are the:

* Watch Bathhouse
* General Workshops
* Blacksmith
* Tavern

The tavern is located closest to the oratory tower in the courtyard area of Fort Stiofán. There, Watchers can gather to share a meal and/or drink with their peers or other companions outside of The Watch. The main seating area (approx. 50x50 feet in size) features six tables, each approx. eight feet long and five feet wide, if you include the benches. Six people can sit comfortably on a bench, while eight will fit if they give up on personal space. This means that the tavern has a max capacity that ranges from 72 to 96 people, depending on how tightly the patrons have been packed into the benches. The bar and kitchen are to the left of the door, while the stairs are to the right. On the second floor, there are rooms for rent for anyone visiting the garrison. Each room has a small washbasin for visitors to bathe in.

The smithy is a building with a large patio area, featuring three huge fires for the smithing and repair of all things metal. The building holds various tools, materials, and a small shop for Watchers to purchase weapons/armor or request that someone repair or augment some that they already own.

The general workshops are buildings with a wide variety of tools and devices for all sorts of crafting and repairs. They're multi-functional, with lots of different crafts taking place in the same space. The Watch hires several professional craftspeople to work full-time in the workshops and smithies of The Watch.

These people produce the various goods that are needed to keep The Watch running, while also repairing and augmenting anything brought to them by a fellow Watcher. However, these spaces are accessible to Watchers of all skill levels. Some Watchers with an interest in a craft or a project that requires a special skill might visit the workshops to use the facilities themselves. Generally, they have to demonstrate that they know what they’re doing (especially for the smithing) or that they want to offer their time as an extra pair of hands and are willing to listen to directions. However, if the craftsperson on duty approves, a Watcher who isn’t a professional craftsperson can use the workshops as well.

Despite being considered a luxury in other places, bathhouses are a priority in every garrison and outpost of The Watch. This ensures the health and cleanliness of the Watchers at these locations, minimizing the strain upon medical and cleaning staff.

### Exterior

Outside the walls are the tannery, stables, pastures, fields, and scattered homes for Watchers that have sacrificed proximity to the garrison for more personal space.

Since many Watchers are farmers and other laborers who help keep The Watch afloat, it is often more convenient to live outside of the walls rather than within the garrison itself. Bear in mind that these fields and small clusters of towns likely radiate further outwards from the garrison than I drew here. I may have gotten tired of littering tiny squares all over the empty space with no rhyme or reason…  ¯\\_(ツ)\_/¯

The tannery is outside the walls because tanning the leather necessary for the weapons, armor, and tools used by The Watch is stinky. In addition, anyone who wants to dye fabric and leather has to do so in this area. There’s a small door in the wall so that these facilities are easily accessible to the people working in the workshops, who use the materials created in the tannery.

    In regards to the stables, I’m still not sure how many I’ll have or how I’m going to implement other aspects of boarding horses (namely pastures), but hopefully I’ll tell you more as I figure it out

The Stiofán tributary is an offshoot of the Guardian River. As indicated on the map, the river itself is about two miles to the south, barely an hour’s ride away.

Since Fort Stiofán was mostly built during the Interim Years, it features a box-shaped keep with a few adjacent towers and very little exterior embellishment. One notable feature is the tiled roofs in a similar style to that of Fionport’s red clay roofs. Instead of red, the tiles of Fort Stiofán are green, made of oxidized copper instead of clay

Many Watchers jokingly refer to Rúnach Hold as miniature Fort Stiofán, and with good reason.

Both fortresses as we know them today were constructed during the Interim Years. Unlike the intricate stonework and immediately recognizable aesthetics of peak Feadhainn and Waldren architecture, structures built during the Interim Years were built with more practicality in mind, with spartan facades and minimal embellishment.

Specifically, both Rúnach Hold and Fort Stiofán feature a large, boxy main keep with at least one adjacent tower.