3.4 KiB
[!infobox]
Tor Amras
Realm: Contested (Claimed by both the Temerian Empire and the Mentralian Kingdoms)
Population: ~400 (Garrisoned forces + sparse civilians)
Local Leader: Commander Ardon Vale (Imperial), Lady Maelen Erest (Mentralian claimant, in exile)
Known For: Flood-prone battlements, war relics, haunted trenches
Overview
Tor Amras is a fortress of mud, stone, and blood - a scar upon the lowlands where war never quite ended. Set on a raised embankment above the marshy floodplain, the fort watches the mists with weary eyes. Neither fully Mentralian Kingdoms nor securely Temerian Empire, it is a place of uneasy truces and sharpened blades. Its walls are patched with foreign banners and its gates groan from the weight of old promises.
Purpose & Function
Once a border bastion of the northeastern Mentralian dominions, Tor Amras was designed to hold a river crossing that no longer exists - the river having long since shifted course due to wartime sabotage and natural flooding. The fortress now serves as a forward garrison for Temerian forces, though its loyalty is thin and supplies scarcer still. For the Mentralians, it remains a symbol of betrayal: its fall marked the beginning of Temerian incursions into the heartlands.
Though soldiers camp there, the ruins of the outer walls and trenches have become a grim no-man’s-land, too dangerous to clear, too sacred to abandon.
Notable Features
The fortress is best known for its Flooded Trenches, a tangled network of defensive dikes and collapsed tunnels that vanish under the marshes each spring. During heavy rain, bodies still surface from battles long past - some Mentralian, some Temerian, all unnamed. Few dare to burn them; the local superstition warns that disturbing the water-bound dead invites “the Mire Host” - phantasmal figures seen drifting above the fens on moonless nights.
A shattered watchtower, toppled during the siege two decades prior, leans at an angle over the eastern causeway. No birds nest there. Imperial scouts report hearing singing within it at dusk - a woman’s voice, accompanied by the clink of chainmail.
Near the old gatehouse lies the Sunken Chapel, a drowned shrine to the Veil still visited by Mentralian pilgrims who brave the warpath. The water within its nave never dries, no matter how hot the summer.
Threats & Hooks
Conflict hangs over Tor Amras like a stormcloud. Skirmishes flare frequently along the nearby ridgelines, where Mentralian partisans slip through the brush to strike supply lines or vanish into ruined villages. The current garrison lives in dread of a full-scale push to reclaim the fort, and some suspect a traitor among them is aiding the resistance.
The marsh itself poses its own threats. Unnatural will-o’-the-wisps have been sighted near the trenches, luring soldiers into the muck. At least two sentries have drowned after following ghostly lights into the reeds. Some say they heard their mother’s voice calling. Others say they saw themselves.
Imperial scholars recently unearthed a buried reliquary beneath the old hall. Inside were rusted swords, an ash-filled urn, and a tattered banner bearing the sigil of the Knightly Orders#Order of the Ashen Vow. When touched, the urn emitted a low, resonant hum. It has since been relocated - but three of the diggers are missing, and the fourth has gone mute.