Ashcrown Ramparts

Ashcrown Ramparts

The Ashcrown Ramparts are the southernmost mountain range of Oblivion Vale. They are stacked ridges of black and grey stone, cut by cliff roads and high passes. Ash grit rides the wind most days and scours the ridgelines. Since the Drying, no rivers run here. Survival depends on deep wells, sealed cistern halls, and ration calendars that set how a fortress, a work crew, and a caravan drinks.

Terrain and travel

Most routes are narrow ledges behind spike rails. A few passes take all long-distance traffic, so each has gates, watch towers, and marked pull-outs where escorts can form ranks. Rockfall is common. Fog forms in saddles and hides distances. In winter-dry years, frost locks the highest routes and forces traffic to the lower cuts, where raiders and dragons strike more often. Maps are treated like military documents and are updated after every collapse.

Water control and ration law

Water is treated as a state asset. Wells are cut into stone and capped with heavy lids set with stamped locks and guard marks. Each well sits inside a sealed chamber to stop ash, theft, and sabotage. Cistern halls sit behind two gates and are staffed at all hours. Water convoys move on fixed days under escort. They carry casks on chain-slung carts so loads can be recovered if a ledge breaks. Water theft is punished as betrayal, because one stolen cask can kill a whole patrol line.

Ashcrown Dominion rule

The Ashcrown Dominion holds the heights through chained fortresses, pass gates, and high watch towers set to spot caravans early. Rank is built on bloodline and service, but neither is enough without public proof. Honor codes act as law. They define duty, escort conduct, ration discipline, and the limits of mercy. Punishment for betrayal, desertion, and water theft is severe and public, because fear is part of control.

Fort chains and storehouses

Fort walls are thick and low, made of basalt blocks bound with iron bands. Pass gates use heavy shutters and chained portcullises. Watch platforms keep signal braziers and horn racks to call reinforcements. Storehouses are carved into rock to protect grain, salt, and medicine from theft and fire. Doors are layered and counted. Seal wax, tally plates, and witness marks track every opening. A fortress that cannot audit its own stores is treated as already lost.

Settlements and daily life

Most people live inside fort shadows, in terrace barracks, quarry camps, and smoke-cut hamlets built into stone pockets. Homes are small and sealed against grit. Every household keeps a ration board that lists water days, grain shares, and work duty. Children are trained to carry casks, read gate signs, and spot false seal marks. Meals are dry and salted. Fuel is controlled like water. Fires are kept low because smoke can draw eyes from far towers and can waste stored wood.

Trade and dependencies

Ashcrown exports metalwork, volcanic glass goods, and rare salts. Forged parts, nails, blades, and fittings keep other realms’ pumps and gates working. Glassworks produce hard panes and cut goods that resist ash. Salt bars preserve food and serve as trade stock. The Dominion cannot grow timber or herbs in the high stone. Timber, medicines, and many food staples must be imported under formal pacts and escorted deliveries. When a pact fails, ration calendars tighten and raids rise.

Border friction

Border friction with nearby human forts is constant. The Southern Shield needs Ashcrown salt and metal, and Ashcrown needs human timber and healing supplies. When shortages hit, both sides accuse the other of delays, fraud, or deliberate ration pressure. Disputed tariffs and escort rights trigger skirmishes at the lower gates. Raiders from the lower glades strike when stores tighten. They aim for casks and medicine first, because coin has less value than clean water.

Faith and controlled magic

Life, Death, and Fate are present, but they serve survival. Life priests keep workers alive and set triage rules, but they do not control distribution. Death priests enforce burial law and quarantine calls when sickness follows a convoy. Fate judges certify oaths, escort contracts, and debt between houses and commands. Magic is rare and watched. Licensed adepts are attached to forts to reinforce seals, find tampering, and stabilize stonework. Unlicensed casting near wells is treated as sabotage.

Monsters of the Ramparts

Dragons gather here because the range concentrates what they want: metal, salt bars, sealed stores, and predictable choke points. The Dominion’s fort chain keeps many beasts out, but the same roads that keep order also make targets easy to forecast.

Hoardwyrm

Hoardwyrms nest in slag hills and burned quarries near the lower approaches. They raid caravans for stamped bars and metal fittings, then leave bodies in sight of the road to break morale. Their smoke breath kills torchlight in narrow passes.

Greedscale

Greedscales target depots and store sheds. They melt wax seals and weaken locks so doors fail under pressure. This forces Ashcrown to keep stores deep in rock and to rotate seal designs often.

Palecoil

Palecoils haunt broken spans and ledge crossings. They knock wagons into empty beds and wait while survivors run out of water. They also collect chain and bridge iron for nests, so they return to any new repair work.

Mirebreather

Mirebreathers reach the Ramparts through lower waste pits and sewer cuts. They follow refuse and sickness. Their wet fog carries fever, turning a convoy into an outbreak. Forts burn waste fast to avoid drawing them, but famine years weaken discipline.

Wickerwild

Wickerwilds appear on the southern forest borders and shrine roads that climb toward the passes. They take charms and bone tokens and learn ward signs well enough to bypass patrol habits. Their presence is treated as a sign that larger threats are testing the border.

Nightscar

Nightscar comes when sealed ruins in the lower ridges are disturbed. It breaks old doors and uses released horrors to split defenders. It targets ward crews and archivists because they can restore seals.

Pyrewing

Pyrewings are treated as a disaster. They strike clustered camps and store yards and leave burning patches that cut off retreat. Even when fires are contained, smoke and burns ruin rations and medicine stocks.

Saltwyrm

Saltwyrms follow salt bars and brine routes. Their brine spray ruins food stores, cracks leather gear, and makes wounds septic. They threaten both mountain depots and coastal shipments tied to Ashcrown trade.

Blisterscale

Blisterscales appear after battles and plague seasons. Their toxic mist turns wounds into infected growths and makes healing fail. Ashcrown answers with harsh isolation of the wounded, which keeps order but builds anger in the ranks.

Hoard King

The Hoard King is an ancient dragon spoken of in duty records as a reason for contingency vaults and false caches. It raids for crowns, relic seals, and leaders. When it takes trophies from a fortress, the loss becomes a political wound as well as a material one.

Notable sites

• The Chain-Gate Line: A series of linked pass gates, each within horn range of the next. A breach in one gate triggers a full closure and reroutes convoys for weeks.

• The Glasscut Hollows: Wind-sheltered cuts where volcanic glass is worked behind stone screens. Injuries here are common, so Life priests maintain strict triage lists.

• The Sealed Well-Chambers: Deep stone rooms built around key wells. Some chambers have old repairs that predate the Dominion, and no one agrees who built them.

Rumors people believe

• A hidden “black well” exists in the highest ridge, and its water is not counted on any calendar.

• Some raiders carry copied Ashcrown seal plates, supplied by a traitor inside a fortress.

• The Hoard King keeps a living prisoner who knows every pass, and uses them to time raids.

Hidden truths

• Several lower forts quietly keep emergency brine cisterns for Saltwyrm damage, because “salt loss” reports can start panic.

• A few storehouses are built as decoys, stocked just enough to look real, meant to satisfy Greedscale and buy time.

Current condition

In 3A 3192, the Ramparts remain held, but the cost rises. Ash and wind erode roads faster than crews can repair them. Timber imports shrink when human convoys fail. Medicine stores cycle under escort, and every delay becomes a legal dispute. The Dominion survives through strict ration law, audited stores, and public punishment. It keeps the southern passes open more often than any rival could, but it cannot do it without outside supplies, and every neighbor knows it.