The world of The Copper Crow
River Marches
Explore the River March
Touch map to explore
Between the river and the wild
The River March is a country of working folk, hardy travellers and enduring towns. From Highbridge at Kingsbridge to the reed causeways of Blackreed, river and road bear grain, timber, letters, news and neighbours between valley and hill. At the west end of Highbridge, the Copper Crow turns such reports into print above its public room.
Southmere’s barges carry grain, salt, cloth and tool steel towards Kingsbridge. Lowbank keeps the winter grain; Greyfen brings northern road news to market. The paper follows that everyday work: a shared oven, a cleared well, a fair returning to Mireholt’s green.
Beyond the towns lie mist-hidden causeways, the ruined Old Road and the East Hills’ wolves and cairns. Ask after the crossing ahead, travel in company, and leave word before taking a wild road.
Places in the River March
Places in the River March
Choose a place to explore its story.
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The Copper Crow
Tavern and printing house at the west end of Highbridge.
Shop Copper CrowAt the west end of Highbridge, the Copper Crow keeps a public room below its printing house. Travellers leave their routes and expected returns, licensed guides meet their parties, and reports of troubled roads or uncertain beacon lights find their way to the clerk.
Inside, coats steam by the hearth and the press knocks overhead. Coffee is poured while someone reads the road notices aloud; a late arrival may have an amendment before the cup is empty. Here, a tale earns its place in print through the useful particulars: which road, what hour, who saw it.
Before taking a wild road, leave word. When you return, there is usually someone who wants to hear.
The paper began with simple notices gathered by the innkeeper: work wanted, a road closed, a neighbour seeking word of someone overdue. Pinned where travellers could read them, those scraps drew corrections and additions. A printed sheet followed, then a fuller paper carrying the region’s news beyond the public room that first collected it.
That origin still shapes the place. A market price shares space with a strange sighting because both may change somebody’s plans. The most welcome returning traveller is not always the one with the grandest tale, but the one who can finally settle a worried household’s question.
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Blackreed Marsh
Marked causeways only; mist hides water and track.
Blackreed is a country of close reed beds, muddy islands and narrow channels, crossed by marked causeways. In clear light, birds lift from the pools and wet stones catch the sky. When mist settles, water and track lose their edges.
Marshwatch is the last staffed shelter before the marsh. Guides set out with poles and sound lanterns; in poor visibility, their voices keep count of the waymarkers.
The Copper Crow’s Issue 003 survey records that the keeper’s path to Blackreed’s Eye had sunk, leaving its beacon unlit. Travellers still reported a low light moving among the reeds. Whatever its source, it was no promise of a safe crossing.
Blackreed’s most immediate threats are deep channels concealed by reeds, soft ground that will not hold a person’s weight, and fog that hides the way back. A moving light can lure a traveller off the causeway whether its source means harm or not. Guides keep their parties close and test uncertain footing with poles.
Issue 004’s faun was a real reported encounter with a horned, cloven-legged being, but the Warden saw no weapon and recorded no attack. Its presence does not establish that it caused the beacon’s troubles. The closed keeper’s path remains a drowning hazard, and no sighting makes it a safe route to follow.
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Kingsbridge
Principal town: Highbridge, quays, market halls, Warden office and the Copper Crow tavern and press.
Highbridge brings the roads into Kingsbridge; its quays bring the river’s trade. On the eastern bank, market halls, workshops and the Warden office give the March’s principal town its daily rhythm. Grain and timber arrive beside letters, news and people looking for work or a way home.
The bridge is a shared responsibility. Toll keepers tend the Bridgeward, and ropes, hooks and a river ladder stand ready below for night rescues. Floodwater is a familiar danger, and readiness is part of the town’s working life.
Remember Kingsbridge by its pale stone arches, the knock of unloading carts and warm windows above the quays. Across Highbridge, the Copper Crow gathers the day’s accounts and prepares the next paper.
At first bell, the quays begin with counting. Owners’ marks face outward on sacks, receipts pass between damp hands, and a clerk settles a disputed weight before the next barge can unload. The new granary gives smallholders a dry place beside the river; even a modest household’s store has a name and a measure entered against it.
Much of the town’s news arrives unfinished. A boatman brings one bank’s account of a flooded road, a cart driver brings the other. By supper, both may be standing at the same public-room table, tracing their journeys through a spill of flour while someone asks which day they mean.
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The Weeping Wood
Keep to the road. Answer no voices.
The Weeping Wood is fair enough to draw the eye from the road. Wet branches catch a little light; leaves stir where the air outside seems still. Droplets continue their small conversation long after a shower has passed.
Its traveller’s instruction is brief: keep to the road, and answer no voices. People repeat it before entering, with the practical care they give to checking a lantern. At the far side, companions count one another before loosening their pace. What was heard beneath the trees may become a story later, beside a hearth and within reach of a door that closes.
Something within the wood imitates voices well enough to draw people away from their companions. A familiar call is especially dangerous: a traveller may leave the road to help someone who is not there. The beings behind the voices remain unidentified. Their invitation leads into dense trees where the known way is quickly lost.
Keep every companion in sight. Do not answer an unseen speaker or send one person into the trees to look for a caller. If the party hears a voice, continue together towards the road’s exit. Save questions for a settled hearth; beneath these branches, responding is precisely the risk the warning forbids.
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Highfold Fall
Boats land above the drop; rapids rise after rain.
Highfold Fall announces itself in the noise of water before the drop is fully in view. White water breaks against dark wet rock, and spray briefly catches the light. Upstream, the rapids give every approach its own restless motion.
Boats must land above the fall. It is a place where a journey requires a pause: cargo checked, companions gathered and the next stage considered on solid ground. Rain swells the rapids, so yesterday’s impression is poor guidance for a fresh arrival. The sight is magnificent; the useful memory is the landing made above the drop.
At the landing, water’s grandeur becomes the business of shifting a load. Rope is checked for worn fibres, coverings drawn tight, and the lighter bundles kept clear while heavier goods are moved. People who could barely hear one another over the fall discover they have been speaking loudly long after reaching quieter ground.
Those who work the river remember journeys through such interruptions. A season of difficult landings may be recalled by a broken crate or the day neighbours lent enough shoulders to save a wet cargo. From a distant ridge the fall is a splendid white stroke; beside it, every dry sack represents care.
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Watcher’s Ruin
A necromancer’s broken stronghold. Strange lights still keep watch above the river.
Above the river, where the upland water breaks into falls, Watcher’s Ruin stands against the darkening hills. Its gate is split, its halls lie open to the sky, and trees have taken root between the stones. Yet after dusk, pale light returns to windows that no longer look into any room.
The castle was once controlled by a necromancer. His rule ended; the dead he bound here did not all depart with him. Travellers speak of silent figures crossing the empty battlements and a watch kept in towers whose stairways collapsed long ago. From the road, the ruin can briefly seem whole again.
The approach is treacherous even in daylight. Loose masonry hides drops into buried chambers, and mist from the falls gathers across the broken paths. After dark, lights appear deeper inside the keep, always a little farther from the gate. Those who follow them may find that the way back no longer looks familiar.
Keep your company together and remain on the river road. Do not answer a voice from an empty window or follow a lantern through the breach. Bring accounts of the lights to the Copper Crow, with the hour and the place from which you saw them. The ruin has kept enough travellers’ stories for itself.
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Greyfen
Northern market, mill and four gates; wool, salt and Highfold notices.
Wool catches on rough fingers, salt gathers in the seams of sacks, and flour follows the millers into Greyfen’s market. Through the four gates come loads to be weighed and travellers looking for the latest word from Highfold. A northern journey often begins with someone leaning closer to a notice.
The millers tend the Miller’s Lamp, whose west shutter bears three cuts for a grain convoy lost in floodwater. It is a small memorial beside ordinary work. Before setting out, ask what the road has been doing; a familiar destination does not make every journey alike.
The market measures a season in things that need doing. A shepherd wants a gate mended before the next flock arrives; a carter needs dry salt and a wheelwright who can spare an hour. At the well, a newly reset stone curb and sound windlass are reminders that the town’s comforts require hands as surely as its mill does.
By evening, the notices draw a different crowd. Those waiting for a traveller read more slowly than those seeking work. A name absent from a convoy list can occupy the inn long after the price of wool has been settled.
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Barrow Wood
Old mounds beneath the oaks; company advised.
Old mounds rise beneath the oaks of Barrow Wood. Roots hold their edges, and fallen leaves soften the difference between a low hill and something deliberately raised. In clear weather the road has its ordinary pleasures: birds overhead, acorns underfoot and brief patches of sun.
The map carries a less comfortable warning: old things walk here. Travellers are advised to keep to the road and go in company. Those who pass through together have a habit of waiting for the last person before each bend. The mounds can keep their own account of who lies beneath them.
The old things are the restless dead of the barrows. They leave the mounds and move between the oaks, where a traveller straying from the road can lose sight of companions within a few steps. Disturbing a burial stone or following a figure into the trees is an invitation to become separated from the living.
Those who know the crossing keep the whole party in view and wait at each bend. They do not investigate footsteps among the mounds or turn aside for a motionless figure beside a grave. The wood’s ordinary sounds can conceal an approach; company and a clear road offer better protection than curiosity.
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Southmere
Ferry and quay; Lowbank stores the winter grain and St. Orra’s tends the sick upstream.
Southmere smells of wet rope and grain dust. At the quay, a load set down becomes the next person’s work: sacks pass from shoulder to plank, and news travels with them. Lowbank holds the town’s winter reserve; farther upstream, St. Orra’s tends the sick. River work and household needs are close neighbours here.
The boatmen ring the Quay Light’s dawn bell. Below it, brass bears the names of three families drawn from floodwater. Look to its shutter as well as its flame: red means the ferry has ceased, however much daylight remains for the rest of your errands.
The common oven has added another meeting place beside the inn. Neighbours bring marked dough bowls and their share of fuel, then wait while the baker makes room on the bench. The conversation follows familiar channels: a delayed barge, an ailing relative upstream, whether the next rain will undo the newly laid landing planks.
When roads soften, boat crews combine cargo that would otherwise travel by cart. Barley, wool, salt and tool iron share the river with people’s smaller necessities. A forgotten parcel can matter more to its waiting household than the largest load aboard, so names and destinations are repeated carefully.
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Darkermere Vale
Pack beasts balk; bells carry in still air.
Darkermere Vale gathers woodland into the folds of the southeastern country. Light reaches one bank of leaves while the ground beneath remains difficult to read. In still air, bells carry farther than a traveller expects, giving a distant human sound an unsettling nearness.
Pack beasts are known to balk here, and traders favour other routes. A stopped animal can end a confident conversation very quickly. There is time then to look at the footing, listen, and reconsider the journey. The vale’s reputation leaves much unexplained; the practical questions are how to get through, and whether going round would serve better.
The vale’s warnings describe balking animals and bells heard at unsettling distances, not a confirmed creature with a known name. The immediate danger is becoming stranded on an uncertain woodland track, particularly when a pack beast refuses to continue. Forcing it onward can cost a party its supplies and its way back.
Do not separate to search for a bell or drag an unwilling animal towards a sound whose source cannot be seen. Reconsider the route while there is daylight enough to withdraw together. The vale may conceal more than the records explain, but an unnamed threat is no less reason to heed a practical warning.
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St. Orra’s Convent
Physic house and river hospice above Southmere.
Above Southmere, the convent is a physic house and river hospice, a place of quiet vows and necessary work. Linen is folded, water carried, and a door eased shut with a hand still on the latch. The river’s traffic continues outside while those within have more immediate things to attend to.
Arrive with a clear account of why you have come, lower your voice, and leave room at the entrance for someone carrying a burden. Even a visitor with no errand soon learns how much consideration can be put into setting down a bucket quietly.
Small gifts arrive with the river traffic: clean cloth, a sound basket, fuel that has been kept from the rain. Some are brought in thanks; others come from households that have needed the hospice before and expect no ceremony. Useful things find their place quickly. A visitor may be thanked while the linen is already being carried away.
News reaches the quiet rooms in gentler portions than it reaches the quay. A patient asks whether the ferry is running or whether a neighbour’s harvest came in. The answer can return a little of the outside world to someone whose journey has paused here.
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Old Ford
Shallow in settled water; closes after upland rain.
In settled water, Old Ford makes the river seem almost companionable. A shallow sheet slips over the crossing, catching the light between stones. Travellers pause at the bank, tighten a loose strap and compare what they have heard of the water farther upstream.
Upland rain closes the ford, even when the sky above the crossing looks kindly. A familiar place can demand a different journey. There is no virtue in forcing yesterday’s route upon today’s river; the useful news is whether the crossing is passable now. Ask locally before committing a cart, a pack animal or an afternoon to it.
The waiting bank has its own small society. Drivers inspect one another’s harness repairs, children are called back from the margin, and someone who crossed earlier is questioned more closely than they expected. A traveller with nothing to sell may possess the most valuable thing there: a recent account of the upstream rain.
When passage is doubtful, journeys are rearranged aloud. An errand becomes an overnight stay; a delivery must reach a different crossing. The river accepts none of these arguments. Those who turn back carry news as useful as any goods, especially for the next cart coming confidently down the track.
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Mireholt
Small road hamlet on firm ground between the Weeping Wood and the South Road.
Mireholt makes much of firm ground. Between the Weeping Wood and the South Road, the little hamlet offers the plain satisfaction of a boot that comes away without a struggle. Mud dries on doorsteps; a wheel propped for mending can occupy a good part of the conversation. The work is small enough to be noticed by neighbours.
Travellers pause to tighten a strap and ask after the next stretch. If your way leads towards the Weeping Wood, keep to the road and answer no voices. There is time enough for conversation when you are back among the houses.
At fair time, canvas roofs appear over the green and the hamlet briefly grows louder than its size suggests. Orchard fruit, dyed wool, baskets and repaired household goods fill the stalls. A broad passage is left for carts; when the market finishes, sellers gather their own straw and scraps, returning the green to its everyday uses.
An evening’s lodging brings quieter exchanges. Someone can usually explain whose wheel is being mended or which neighbour has room for a tired beast. Questions about the wood receive less ornament. A host may offer another spoonful of supper before repeating the same short warning.
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The East Hills
Wolves, old cairns and abandoned shafts.
The East Hills hold open slopes, old cairns and the traces of abandoned shafts. A path may offer a wide view for a while, then lose it behind the next rise. Wind in the grass and loose stone under a boot make a sparse accompaniment to the journey.
Wolves range here. Travellers watch the ground as well as the skyline and keep their company close where the route becomes uncertain. The cairns belong to an older account of the hills, while the workings recall harder, more ordinary labour. There is room for both histories without knowing every name attached to them.
Wolves are a direct danger here, especially to a straggler or an animal separated from its handlers. The abandoned shafts present another threat: an inviting depression can conceal an opening, and a worn work path may lead towards a mine instead of through the hills. Keep away from shaft mouths and stay together on known routes.
The Split Lantern’s repair crew also reported voices like their own calling from these hills. Their source is unknown, and the crew returned under escort. Do not follow such a call beyond sight of your companions. Report where it was heard; investigating alone would repeat the danger rather than explain it.
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Riverside Watch
Flood gauge, patrol bell and relief post.
At Riverside Watch, attention settles on useful particulars: the water against the flood gauge, a patrol returning, a hand reaching for the bell rope. Damp hems brush the floor and river mud dries in the tread of boots. As a relief post, it belongs to the working river as surely as any quay.
It is also a place to report a dark, damaged or uncertain Witch Beacon. Give the station number, road, hour last seen alight and the direction of any moving light. Leave glass, wick and ash where you found them; a clear account is what the clerk needs.
Relief work is often uneventful until it is urgent. A bell rope must run freely, a water reading must be copied plainly, and the incoming patrol needs the details the outgoing one nearly forgot. These small transfers of attention make the post more dependable than any single watchful person could be.
The paper also carries reports from the Old Road: scouts seen at a ruined crossing, brush cut where someone waited, a gate closed before dark. An account brought here should separate those observations from the fears that followed. A mark on a map can be checked; a rumour grows harder to pursue.
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The Old Road
From the Issue 003 survey:
Ruined causeway; patrols increased since the incursion.The Old Road still shows the line of a ruined causeway. Surviving stones suggest the effort once spent keeping a route above difficult ground; gaps and broken edges make present travellers attend to each step. Grass and rain have had years to work at the joints.
The Issue 003 survey recorded increased patrols after an incursion. Blackstone Redoubt is the Warden muster for this road, a practical place to seek information before setting out. The old paving can draw the eye onward, but its condition deserves more attention than its promise. Leave a route and expected return before taking it.
The threat here is more than neglected paving. Issue 004 reported two armed scouts at the ruined border crossing and freshly cut brush where they had waited. Riverside Watch closed the near gate; the scouts withdrew without crossing, and no larger force was confirmed. The encounter gives the increased patrols a concrete purpose.
An isolated traveller can meet armed strangers with little room to retreat from the broken causeway. Seek the latest Warden account before departure, travel with others and turn back from a closed approach. Do not assume a quiet stretch is unobserved, or leave the road to examine signs of a camp.
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Reedbridge
Carts cross singly; yield to patrols.
Reedbridge is a timber crossing east of Blackreed Marsh, where road traffic learns to take its turn. Carts cross singly, and patrols have precedence. A short wait gives travellers time to settle a shifting load or exchange news with those coming the other way.
Wheels sound clearly on the wooden planks. One cart clears the crossing, a driver gives a small nod, and the next begins. This modest courtesy keeps an important connection working between uncertain wetland and the wider road. After mist and soft ground, the solidity underfoot is a thing worth noticing.
The approaches collect all the things that slow a journey without stopping it: a slack strap, a stubborn animal, a wheel that needs a stone eased from its rim. Help is often offered across the queue before names are exchanged. There is time to hear where a load began and where its driver hopes to sleep.
News from Blackreed travels through the crossing with muddy boots attached. Those arriving from the marsh are asked about visibility and the marked ways before the talk turns to stranger sightings. The timber bridge makes a useful boundary for a story, but it does not make every tale from the reeds certain.
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White Cairn Workings
Ancient Duergar diggings, now haunted by Knockers whose tapping draws travellers deeper, never to return. Locals barred the entrance after the disappearances.
The White Cairn Workings preserve the marks of difficult hill labour. Cut stone and the mouths of old diggings interrupt the slope; daylight reaches a little way into some openings and gives little account of what follows. Tool marks remain clear where grass has reclaimed the abandoned approaches.
Ages ago, Duergar, or Gray Dwarves, contested these mineral tunnels. Devious and gifted with unsettling powers of the mind, they enslaved miners and drove the workings deeper to feed a dark subterranean empire. The pale hillside conceals only the uppermost traces of what they built.
Today, the depths belong to the Knockers. Their tapping travels through the stone, always a little farther down the passage, drawing curious travellers deeper until they never return. After the disappearances, locals barred the entrance and sealed the upper shafts. Those barriers mark the end of the safe approach.
Stay outside the bars and clear of unsupported openings. Old supports can fail, loose stone can fall without warning, and a lantern cannot prove a tunnel sound. If you hear tapping beneath the hill, leave the workings. Do not answer it, and do not follow.
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Lowbank Granaries
Public scales and Southmere’s winter reserve.
Lowbank is where Southmere’s winter grain becomes a matter of weight, dry storage and patient counting. Sackcloth rasps against sleeves; grain dust settles in the creases of a hand. At the public scales, a few stray kernels are brushed from the pan before the next load goes on.
There is satisfaction here in work that will be needed later. Knots are checked, sacks kept clear of damp, and a careless spill earns a broom. If you are bringing a load, keep its covering sound and give the weighing room your attention. Winter begins with what is put away.
The weighing place brings distant labour into one room. Grain cut under a different sky arrives with its owner’s mark and the memory of a difficult road. A household may watch a modest sack as anxiously as a merchant watches a wagon. An honest measure matters equally to both.
As the reserve grows, its keepers attend to what cannot be seen from the yard: air between sacks, sound coverings, signs of damp along a wall. The town’s security is partly made of these unremarkable inspections. A full store is reassuring; a full store that remains dry is what carries people through winter.
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Blackstone Redoubt
Warden post and Old Road patrol muster.
Blackstone Redoubt is a Warden post beside the Old Road, where patrols muster before taking the ruined causeway. Boots scrape grit from stone; straps are pulled snug and a loose buckle makes more noise than anyone would like. The road ahead gives these small checks their importance.
If you have come with news, say where you were and what you saw before offering an explanation. If you mean to travel onward, ask about the way before setting out. A gathering patrol is a useful chance to enquire, but it does not make the broken road a sound one.
A muster includes work that rarely enters a tale: checking who has returned, dividing supplies, finding a dry place for an account that must remain readable. Those about to leave listen while those newly arrived describe the road. A missing detail can send the conversation back to its beginning.
Outside, the ruined causeway gives every fresh report a difficult setting. A fallen stone may be weather’s work; disturbed brush may have another cause. The post’s usefulness lies partly in refusing to mistake one for proof of the other. By the time a story reaches an inn, the questions asked here may be its most important part.
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Marshwatch
Last staffed shelter before Blackreed.
Marshwatch is the last staffed shelter before Blackreed, and small preparations occupy much of a traveller’s attention here. A lantern is checked, a wet fastening worked loose, a companion’s pack made comfortable before it must be carried farther. Reed damp clings to cloaks long after they have been shaken out.
Leave your route and expected return before going on, and ask what has been reported along it. Beyond the post, keep to the marked causeways and travel in company. Mist can hide both water and track. A light among the reeds is no reason to leave the known way.
The shelter receives the marsh in pieces: a dripping cloak, a pole stained above yesterday’s waterline, a guide’s account of a waymarker almost hidden by reeds. Before a party leaves, these fragments become practical advice. The person tightening a boot may listen more closely than the one studying the whole map.
Return is part of the post’s work. A familiar face at the door closes one concern while opening another conversation about the route. Reports of a missing marker or an uncertain light are kept distinct from guesses about their cause. Beyond the shelter, the marsh has little patience for a careless summary.
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Stone Ford
Safe only below the eastern water mark.
At Stone Ford, the eastern water mark matters more than the apparent ease of the crossing. The ford is safe only while the river stands below it. Water moving between visible stones can make the far bank look temptingly near.
Travellers look for the mark before judging the crossing. The newest arrival may be pointed towards it by someone already waiting; a short explanation can save a much longer mistake. On a low-water day the passage looks simple, but the mark still deserves attention. It gives everyone, whatever their hurry, the same question to answer before stepping off the bank.
A crossing brings strangers into brief agreement. One points out the mark while another keeps a restless animal back from the water; someone sets down a basket to help a driver examine the bank. For a few minutes, the far shore belongs to everybody’s plans at once.
When the water is too high, those plans separate again. Some return the way they came; others seek advice about another crossing. The waiting place empties without anything remarkable happening. That uneventful ending is the purpose of the mark: a danger understood in time leaves little for a dramatic account.
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Southmere Ferry
Last passage at dusk; flood orders govern.
At the Southmere landing, the river can interrupt the simplest errand. Water knocks beneath the ferry, rope fibres darken with spray, and travellers shift baskets out of one another’s way while they wait. A crossing joins two stretches of road, but for a little while everyone’s business depends on the same water.
Last passage is at dusk, and flood orders govern. Arrive with time to spare and ask whether the crossing is running before arranging the rest of your journey. A quiet-looking reach is not a promise; when passage ceases, impatience will not bring the opposite bank closer.
The landing gathers lives that seldom share a room. A household basket waits beside trade goods, a tired worker makes space for someone carrying news upstream, and a traveller discovers how many questions can be answered during a short delay. The river sets the pace for all of them.
As dusk approaches, talk becomes more practical. Those who will miss the last passage need a place to stay and someone across the water needs word of the delay. A ferry carries such messages as well as passengers. Tomorrow’s first crossing may begin with a name called out before a parcel is handed ashore.
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The Western March Valley
The far western valley: scattered upland holdings, long roads and the edge of the familiar March.
Follow the valley west of Greyfen and the crowded roads begin to thin. Fields give way to rough grazing, then to hills folded behind hills. From the high ground, smoke above a distant roof may be the only sign that someone lives farther on. This is the western reach of the March: a country of scattered holdings, pack roads and journeys measured by the next sheltered stopping place.
Wool and timber come down towards the market. Salt, tools and letters go back with the returning carts. A carrier who knows which household has a sound roof can be more useful than a fine horse. At the Copper Crow, a western traveller is asked about washed-out bends and winter stores before anyone asks for a remarkable story.
Beyond the last worked fields, wolves move through the scrub and steep gullies hide the track in bad weather. An empty hut is shelter from rain, not proof that the surrounding ground is safe. Keep provisions for a delayed return, leave your intended road with an innkeeper, and hire someone who has travelled it recently. The open valley invites a journey; the mountains beyond it ask a harder question about how far you mean to go.
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Fangelburg Prison
An ancient mountain prison; the Last Beacon stands farther east among the frozen peaks.
Fangelburg stands in the cold northern heights, its old walls held between rock and weather. Supplies must reach it by the same difficult approaches that make escape so unlikely. Snow closes the distance between a gate and a grave remarkably quickly here. A torch carried beyond the walls bends almost flat in the wind.
The prison’s best-known account tells of three of its worst prisoners escaping into a growing blizzard. There had been no successful escape in a hundred years. The warden led the pursuit himself, following their tracks across frozen stone until the party reached the ancient Witch Beacon above a shattered ice shelf. The tracks continued down into blackness. The guards did not.
Báknsíðastr: the Last Beacon. At its light, the warden ordered his men home. The fugitives had gone Fram Bákn, beyond the protection of the settled world and beyond any reasonable promise of rescue. The story never supplies a comfortable ending for them. Ice, exposure and unseen things beyond the ward were sufficient reason for the pursuit to stop.
Visitors should not mistake a prison road for a public mountain crossing. Ask permission below, remain on the approach, and heed a closed gate. The dangerous country begins well before a traveller can see what waits beyond its final light.
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The Stonespine Heights
The northeastern peaks: yetis, broken ice and country beyond reliable rescue.
The Stonespine rises above the waterfalls in ridges sharp enough to divide a cloud. Snow remains in hollows long after the lower roads have opened. Water that looks like a thread from the valley becomes a violent crossing among the rocks, and a sheltered hollow may conceal a drop rather than a place to rest.
Yetis are reported in these heights: large, shaggy figures glimpsed between trees and snowfields, with tracks that make even experienced mountain travellers stop talking. The Copper Crow’s reports preserve sightings rather than a licence to hunt. No absence of a recorded attack makes approaching an unknown creature sensible. Give it distance, keep your party together, and retreat if it begins to follow or blocks the way.
The ordinary dangers need no rumour. Snow bridges break over deep fissures; loose stone runs under a boot; a cloud can erase the return route in minutes. Travellers beyond the maintained beacons cannot assume a patrol will come for them.
Ask for the newest account of the pass before leaving the settlements. Take a guide, sound ropes and enough provisions to turn back without bargaining with hunger. If the high road closes, accept the delay. The mountains will still be here after the weather changes, and it is better to carry their story home than become a warning in someone else’s.
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Highbridge
The stone crossing that binds Kingsbridge to the western roads and the Copper Crow.
Highbridge gathers the roads into a single broad passage above the Marchwater. Carts, pack animals, labourers and travellers must share its stone, regardless of the importance of their errands. From the parapet, the town’s work is spread below: quays along the bank, roofs crowded towards the market and water carrying yesterday’s weather downstream.
At the western approach stands the Copper Crow. A traveller can cross with news still fresh enough to interrupt the reading of a notice. On the eastern side, Kingsbridge’s market halls and Warden office turn those journeys into trade, employment and decisions about the roads ahead.
The toll keepers also tend the Bridgeward. Its bell, rescue ropes, hooks and river ladder belong to the crossing as surely as its arches. Floodwater is watched against the old marks, and a passage that serves everyone must sometimes be closed for everyone.
Keep a loaded animal away from the parapet and leave room for people working on the bridge. In rising water, obey the keepers rather than the most impatient carter. Highbridge is impressive at a distance, but its real achievement is more ordinary: another wagon reaches the market, another letter reaches its address, and someone who has been away too long finally steps onto the road home.
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The Marchwater River
The waterway carrying trade, weather and news through the River Marches.
The Marchwater is the moving centre of the region. Towns turn their quays towards it, roads bend to find crossings, and fields occupy the useful shelves above its banks. From the heights it seems a single silver route. At water level it is a succession of currents, landings and decisions that cannot be hurried.
Grain, timber, salt and letters travel with the boats. A quay worker may hear news from upstream before the first rider reaches the town gate. The river also carries less welcome messages: a branch torn from a bank, muddy water after distant rain, or an empty rope where a mooring should be.
Highfold Fall and its rapids make the upper reaches dangerous. Boats must land above the drop; a line on a map does not promise an unbroken navigable passage. Farther downstream, flood orders govern the ferries, and a ford that served yesterday may be closed today.
Ask the boatmen about the reach you intend to travel rather than the river in general. Keep children and loose animals back from steep banks, and do not mistake a smooth surface for shallow water. Most of the Marchwater’s story is work done well by people who respect it. Its worst stories begin with someone deciding that the far bank looks close enough.
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Oakridge Hall
A roofless hall on the wooded northern shelf, above the roads near Greyfen.
The pale walls above the wooded shelf are known along the road as Oakridge Hall. Its roof is gone, but the tall opening and broken side walls still give the hillside the outline of a building meant to be seen. From below it can look almost occupied when the late sun catches the stone.
The name outlasts a reliable account of who held the hall. Travellers tell different stories over supper: a household that dwindled, a disputed inheritance, a road that changed its course. None is settled by the empty windows. The safer history is written in the place itself, in weathered mortar, fallen beams and roots working between stones.
It is a tempting landmark for someone wanting a view of the valley. It is also a ruin. Loose masonry can fall without warning, and broken floors may hide under leaves. Foxes shelter where people once stored provisions; disturbed animals have fewer exits than a visitor expects. Do not enter the surviving tower or light a fire against the old walls.
Keep to the open approach and look from sound ground. On a clear afternoon the distant traffic continues below, small and purposeful. The contrast is what stays with a visitor: a busy road, an empty hall, and the knowledge that a place can lose its people while keeping its shape.
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Reedbank Fields
Terraced fields and farm roofs above the western river crossings.
The tidy strips above the crossing are Reedbank Fields, a working shelf between wooded ground and the river. From the road the rows look almost effortless. Anyone who has carried a basket uphill knows what that view leaves out: drainage cleared by hand, stones pulled from soil and the steady labour of keeping a narrow piece of land useful.
The farm roofs gather around paths wide enough for neighbours to share a cart. Produce travels towards the nearby markets, while tools, salt and news come back along the same tracks. At harvest, a visitor is likely to hear the weight of a load discussed with more urgency than events in a distant court.
The river brings fertility and risk. After heavy rain, small channels can run through a field faster than they can be stopped. Workers watch the lower banks and move stored sacks before damp reaches them. A stranger who leaves a gate open can undo a morning’s work without ever seeing the trouble.
Use the road rather than cutting across the rows. Keep dogs close and ask before taking water or shelter beside a barn. These fields are part of what makes the bright windows of Kingsbridge and Greyfen possible. Beyond the fearful woods and ruined walls, much of the March still depends on people arriving before dawn to do ordinary things carefully.
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The Westroad Watchtower
A weathered tower beside the winding upland road west of Greyfen.
A narrow tower stands beside the winding western road, high enough to watch a traveller long before the traveller reaches it. Its broken upper courses no longer carry a reliable lookout. Grass and weather have taken the edges, and the old approach is easier to see from the valley than from close beside the stones.
Carriers use it as a landmark when giving directions: pass the tower, keep the lower bend, ask again where the road divides. Such instructions preserve the usefulness of a building after its original duty has ended. No one should infer from the name that a guard is waiting there now.
The road below is exposed. In strong wind, a loaded cart may need careful handling; after rain, the outside edge can crumble where the hillside drops away. The tower’s loose stone makes a poor shelter, and climbing it to search for the next settlement risks a fall that companions may be unable to answer quickly.
Pause on firm ground and use the view while the weather allows. Count the bends, look for the next inhabited roof and decide whether there is time to reach it before dark. A landmark is a useful promise only when it tells you where you are. It cannot promise that the road beyond will remain kind.
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Eastroad
The eastern road climbs from the settled March towards the hills and distant Eastridge.
Eastroad leaves the comfortable bustle of the river country in stages. First come the last houses and fenced plots, then stretches where rock and trees stand close to the track. The road is still a connection between people, but the gaps between their doors grow longer as it climbs.
The survey gives Kingsbridge to Eastridge as a three-day journey. That is a traveller’s measure, not a promise to a heavily laden cart in bad weather. A morning spent repairing a wheel or waiting for a flooded crossing belongs to the journey just as much as a mile gained.
The East Hills have wolves, old cairns and warnings that should be heard before departure. Keep livestock close, avoid camping beside a carcass, and do not follow calls away from the road. At the damaged Split Lantern, the repairers’ account of voices imitating their own is reason to seek current Warden advice, not an invitation to investigate.
Carters exchange the practical details at the last inn: where water can be taken, which verge has failed, whether another party is leaving. Travel with company when possible and carry enough to spend an unplanned night under cover. Eastroad offers a way beyond the familiar towns, but a sensible adventure begins with knowing how you intend to come back.
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Southmere Inn
A stopping place among Southmere’s roofs, where river news meets the southern roads.
Southmere Inn belongs to the useful part of a journey: a place to set down a pack, loosen wet boots and ask a question without having to raise your voice over the quay. Boatmen and road travellers bring different accounts of the same weather. One speaks of the current; another of the mud beyond the last bend.
The common room gives those accounts a chance to meet. Someone waiting for the ferry may share a table with a carrier bound towards Brindlekeep. A folded notice from the Copper Crow passes from hand to hand, acquiring remarks in the margins that the printer never saw.
A room here does not guarantee a crossing tomorrow. The ferry ceases at dusk and flood orders take precedence over a traveller’s plans. Ask about departure while there is still daylight to make another arrangement. If you leave for a minor road, give your intended destination and expected return to someone who will notice your absence.
Beyond the inn’s warmth lie roads towards uncertain woods and exposed country. The value of a stopping place is not that it makes those dangers disappear. It gives people time to prepare, find companions and decide whether they should go at all. A delayed departure, taken with a hot cup and better information, can be the wisest part of an otherwise memorable journey.
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Hallow Coven Caverns
Beyond the clustered cave mouths, flooded halls carry whispers from the dead. A witch coven controls the crossings, marking its chosen paths with candlelight. Follow those lights carefully. Some voices in the dark know your name.
The openings conceal a connected labyrinth of black pools, narrow stone crossings and chambers tall enough to swallow a torch’s glow. Pale figures drift over the water, and footsteps sometimes echo from passages with no floor.
These caverns are haunted, but they are not abandoned. A resident coven keeps shrines on the dry ledges and decides which routes remain open. Its candles mark the permitted crossings; charms of bone and twisted cord warn travelers away from the rest. Whether the witches bind the spirits or bargain with them is a question best left unasked.
Keep to the candles. Ignore anything that calls from the water.
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Noc-Vespers Vale
A forgotten burial road lies beneath pale mist and an ancient necromancer’s parting gift. More than a thousand years later, the haunting still claims travellers.
Long before the road was abandoned, mourners carried their dead into burial niches carved high in the southeastern cliffs. More than a thousand years ago, the necromancer who inhabited the northern stronghold now called Watcher’s Ruin left this valley a “gift”: a haunting that would outlast his rule. The mist has never truly released the road.
Travellers glimpse weathered cloaks, bowed heads and the occasional pale face before the figures disappear around the next bend. Some hear a familiar voice calling from farther down the burial road. Those who follow it may never return. The necromancer is long gone, but his gift still claims the unwary.
Local guides have one rule: never follow a lantern into the fog. Keep the cliff at your shoulder and count the stone markers. If footsteps behind you begin matching your own, keep moving. Do not turn to look. Those who do join the footsteps following the next traveler.
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Gallowgold Hollow
Gold glimmers beneath the roots of the southern marsh’s oldest tree. Its little green-coated keeper offers travelers a bargain, but those who follow him inside may lose far more than their coin.
On a low island among the southern river channels, an ancient tree opens into a hollow warmed by the glimmer of gold. A narrow path winds over its damp roots to a little keeper in a weathered green coat and buckled hat. Beside his red beard and watchful eyes sits an iron pot of coins. He is quick to offer shelter, directions or a stroke of luck, and slow to mention what he expects in return.
Boatmen say the hollow reaches deeper than the island beneath it. Within its tangled passages, the keeper weighs promises as carefully as treasure. Names, memories and years can settle a debt as readily as silver. A traveler may leave with a heavy purse and discover that a familiar face has become a stranger, or that the road home no longer leads where it should.
Those who know the marsh keep three cautions: take no coin that has not been offered, hear the whole price before agreeing, and make no promise merely to be polite. The keeper does not need to force a visitor across his threshold. He only needs to make the bargain sound too good to refuse.
What Is a Witch Beacon?
The Witch Beacons began as promises between settlements and the people who travelled their roads. Millers, boatmen, toll keepers and neighbours kept a light where help might otherwise be a long walk away.
The lamp marks the refuge. Runes worked into its stone, iron or timber bind a small ward around a sound, tended station. Travellers gather within that protection to wait for company, daylight or a safer passage. Keepers trim wicks and clear the glass and paths; uncertain repairs are left to the wardens.
The register has its gaps: Blackreed’s Eye is unlit, the Split Lantern damaged, and the Nameless Wick abandoned. A wandering glimmer gives no assurance that a ward still holds. Ask at a Warden post before relying on an uncertain station, and keep to the known road.
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Witch Beacon 6 · The Miller’s Lamp
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
Greyfen’s millers tend the Miller’s Lamp at first bell. Three cuts in its west shutter remember a grain convoy lost in the great flood. Flour, lamplight and the work of getting grain safely home belong together here.
Each Seedwake, fresh flour dust is laid on the sill. The register describes a lamp kept from guttering while the mill falls silent. A traveller sees a useful light along the road; the hands that tend it also keep a memory from wearing away.
The cuts and flour offerings give this station a place in the millers’ calendar as well as their working day. A child accompanying an oil delivery can learn the flood story beside the very shutter that bears it. The telling lasts only a few minutes; tending the lamp continues through the year.
Like the kept beacons elsewhere in the Marches, its worked runes and older warding offer a place of refuge from hostile things along the road. A traveller may pause within that protection, but the light does not send a summons. Someone must still carry news home.
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Witch Beacon 9 · The Quay Light
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
Southmere’s boatmen keep the Quay Light and ring its dawn bell. Its signals belong to the working river: two lights mark the safe channel in fog, and a red shutter means the ferry has ceased.
Below the lamp, brass carries the names of three families drawn from floodwater. A traveller may notice the signal first and the names afterwards. Both reward a moment’s attention. One explains the crossing; the other remembers the people who once needed help upon it.
The quay’s routines make the beacon familiar without making it unimportant. People glance towards it while lifting a basket or settling a rope, reading the signal almost between movements. A stranger may need the shutter explained; someone nearby usually has a reason to know its meaning well.
Its warded station also belongs to the Marches’ places of refuge. That shelter does not overrule the river. Those waiting by the light still observe the ferry’s closure and the boatmen’s directions, with the names on the brass offering a quiet reminder of why such care matters.
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Witch Beacon 12 · The Widow’s Watch
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
An innkeeper’s bequest pays for the oil at the Widow’s Watch. The keeper turns its light towards the eastbound road, continuing a kindness whose giver no longer needs to be present.
The register adds a quieter mystery: each winter, an unknown hand replaces the wick, leaving neither track nor ash. The keeper records the gift without comment. Oil can be accounted for, and a wick can be trimmed; the identity of the visitor has never been supplied by that account. For travellers, the welcome remains in the light.
A bequest turns one person’s concern into work for people they would never meet. The oil must still be fetched and the lamp attended, so kindness here has a weight, a vessel and a place in the keeper’s day. Travellers inherit its benefit simply by reaching the road.
The worked wards offer refuge while the unexplained winter gift remains a story told beside them. A new wick proves that something has been left; it does not identify the hand. Those resting beneath the light may wonder about the visitor without being obliged to invent a name.
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Witch Beacon 14 · Blackreed’s Eye
Recorded unlit · Issue 004 · 16 Emberfall, Year 221
Blackreed’s Eye stands on the marsh’s eastern mainland margin, west of Reedbridge. The keeper’s path sank, and the Issue 003 register described an unlit lamp, a low moving light among the reeds and a drowned bell heard twice that year.
Issue 004 still recorded the beacon unlit and the keeper’s path tied off. A Warden working at the rope reported a faun in shallow water beyond the boards; neither tower nor rope showed signs of being touched. The report kept the marked main causeway distinct from the closed keeper’s path. No pursuit was ordered.
A beacon’s promise is difficult to set aside when darkness gathers, which makes the closed approach especially troubling. The moving light among the reeds can resemble the reassurance a traveller hoped to find. The rope and the recorded closure are clearer guides than that resemblance.
Kept Witch Beacons are warded refuges, but no traveller should assume that a neglected station offers dependable protection. Blackreed’s Eye belongs among the questions brought back to Marshwatch. Its condition, the faun and the drowned bell remain separate particulars; none supplies permission to cross the sunken keeper’s path.
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Witch Beacon 17 · The Bridgeward
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
Highbridge’s toll keepers tend the Bridgeward. Its bell is rung at the flood mark, while rope, hooks and a river ladder wait below for night rescues. The oldest bridge survey is kept in the toll room.
Much of its story lies in things made ready before they are needed. A ladder has its place; so does a length of rope. Against the great stone crossing, these ordinary objects explain how a bridge becomes part of a town’s care for the people passing through it.
The bell and the wards answer different dangers. One calls the attention of people close enough to hear; the other gives the station its character as a refuge against hostile forces on the road. Neither replaces the hooks and ladder when somebody is in the water.
Toll keepers pass this knowledge on through tasks rather than ceremony. A rope returned to its proper place, a clear reading of the flood mark and a lamp tended before evening all belong to the same duty. Travellers may remember the great bridge; those rescued remember the hands below it.
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Witch Beacon 19 · The Split Lantern
Recorded damaged · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
The Split Lantern was found cracked after a windless night. In the Issue 003 account, a repair crew heard their own voices calling from the East Hills and returned under Warden escort. Black stakes marked the unsafe verge; workers would no longer approach alone.
The account leaves both the breakage and the voices unexplained. What it makes plain is the crew’s decision to come back together. A damaged lamp needs repair, but the people sent to mend it must first have a way to return.
The damaged warding makes this a refuge that cannot be relied upon. Something in the East Hills called to the repair crew in their own voices; the account does not identify the speaker, but it explains why workers returned with a Warden escort. A familiar-sounding call is not evidence that a companion is safely ahead.
Keep outside the black stakes and do not approach alone. Until repairs and the station’s condition are confirmed, choose a maintained refuge instead. Report any renewed calls from a safe position, including where they seemed to come from. Following the voice would carry a traveller towards precisely the danger the crew withdrew from.
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Witch Beacon 22 · The North Vigil
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
The North Vigil is the last kept lamp on the Highfold road. Travellers sign the keeper’s book before the pass, and the lamp’s hood is closed in a whiteout. Beyond it, cairns are said to change places in falling snow.
A line in the book gives a journey a beginning that someone else has seen. The register offers no explanation for the wandering cairns. It records the useful things beside that story: a keeper, a lamp, and the point where a familiar road gives way to greater uncertainty.
The keeper’s book contains the small particulars that survive when a journey becomes uncertain: a name, a direction, companions travelling together. A visitor bends over the page while another holds a pack out of the weather. Beyond the station, such ordinary preparation may prove more useful than confidence.
Within its worked wards, travellers have a place to gather themselves before the pass. Refuge is not a promise that the country beyond has become safe. When the hood closes in white weather, the familiar light is withdrawn for a practical reason, and local advice matters more than a distant glimpse.
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Witch Beacon 23 · The Southward Lamp
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
The Southward Lamp’s hood points towards Brindlekeep. Carters leave a bent nail beneath the post so, as the custom has it, the road will remember their return. Each spring, the keeper gathers the nails into jars.
The station marks the winter turning place for loaded wagons. Its small collection belongs to journeys finished and journeys still hoped for: worn iron left by working hands. A traveller can understand the wish without knowing every person who placed a nail there.
No two bent nails tell their history plainly. One may have come from a wagon repair, another from a stable door; in the jar they become a collection of returns wished for rather than an inventory of iron. The keeper’s seasonal gathering leaves room beneath the post for the next traveller’s offering.
The station’s warding gives waiting carters a refuge while weather or the condition of the road settles their plans. A loaded wagon that turns here has still completed a useful journey. Goods brought safely home leave another season in which to try the road again.
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Old Beacon · The Nameless Wick
Recorded abandoned · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
The Old Beacon is entered in the register as the Nameless Wick. No ledger gives its keeper’s name, and no maintained road reaches it. The Issue 003 survey recorded the station abandoned.
Its account describes a flame sometimes seen in an empty basket, with the iron cold when approached. Ravens nest in the cap each Harvestwake and leave before dusk. The birds have a season and a habit; the light has only witnesses. The register preserves those particulars without supplying a keeper, a cause or a safe path to the post.
An abandoned beacon carries the shape of a welcome without dependable protection. No keeper maintains its wards or the approach, and the reported flame may draw a traveller onto rough, unkept ground. The register identifies neither a creature nor a cause for the light. It does not certify the station as a refuge.
Do not leave a known route to reach the basket, particularly after dark. Seek a maintained beacon instead and report what was visible from safety. Ravens returning to the cap are ordinary witnesses to a place with an extraordinary reputation; their presence offers no assurance that a traveller should follow them there.
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Báknsíðastr · The Last Beacon
The final ward east of Fangelburg. Beyond its light, no rescue can be promised.
East of Fangelburg, an ancient Witch Beacon stands near the broken ice of the high mountains. Its builders are beyond living memory. In the old prison account its light remains steady while snow lashes the guards and their torches struggle against the gale.
The name Báknsíðastr means the Last Beacon. It marks a limit that has less to do with a line on a map than with the reach of human protection. A sound beacon’s ward offers a small refuge. Beyond it lie the dark ice shelves and mountain country where even armed pursuers cannot promise to bring their companions home.
Here the warden of Fangelburg stopped after following three escaped prisoners through a blizzard. Their tracks descended beyond the light. He raised his hand, halted the guards and ordered a return. The prisoners had gone Fram Bákn, beyond the beacon. The account does not say what found them below, or whether they survived.
This station is distinct from the North Vigil on the Highfold road. Do not confuse its ancient name with a numbered entry in the road register. If you reach it, shelter within the ward and turn back with company when conditions permit. A light behind you is not protection for the ground ahead; the fact that a path continues is no assurance that anyone should follow it.
- The Copper Crow
Tavern and printing house at the west end of Highbridge.
- Blackreed Marsh
Marked causeways only; mist hides water and track.
- Kingsbridge
Principal town: Highbridge, quays, market halls, Warden office and the Copper Crow tavern and press.
- The Weeping Wood
Keep to the road. Answer no voices.
- Highfold Fall
Boats land above the drop; rapids rise after rain.
- Watcher’s Ruin
A necromancer’s broken stronghold. Strange lights still keep watch above the river.
- Greyfen
Northern market, mill and four gates; wool, salt and Highfold notices.
- Barrow Wood
Old mounds beneath the oaks; company advised.
- Southmere
Ferry and quay; Lowbank stores the winter grain and St. Orra’s tends the sick upstream.
- Darkermere Vale
Pack beasts balk; bells carry in still air.
- St. Orra’s Convent
Physic house and river hospice above Southmere.
- Old Ford
Shallow in settled water; closes after upland rain.
- Mireholt
Small road hamlet on firm ground between the Weeping Wood and the South Road.
- The East Hills
Wolves, old cairns and abandoned shafts.
- Riverside Watch
Flood gauge, patrol bell and relief post.
- The Old Road
From the Issue 003 survey:
Ruined causeway; patrols increased since the incursion.- Reedbridge
Carts cross singly; yield to patrols.
- White Cairn Workings
Ancient Duergar diggings, now haunted by Knockers whose tapping draws travellers deeper, never to return. Locals barred the entrance after the disappearances.
- Lowbank Granaries
Public scales and Southmere’s winter reserve.
- Blackstone Redoubt
Warden post and Old Road patrol muster.
- Marshwatch
Last staffed shelter before Blackreed.
- Stone Ford
Safe only below the eastern water mark.
- Southmere Ferry
Last passage at dusk; flood orders govern.
- The Western March Valley
The far western valley: scattered upland holdings, long roads and the edge of the familiar March.
- Fangelburg Prison
An ancient mountain prison; the Last Beacon stands farther east among the frozen peaks.
- The Stonespine Heights
The northeastern peaks: yetis, broken ice and country beyond reliable rescue.
- Highbridge
The stone crossing that binds Kingsbridge to the western roads and the Copper Crow.
- The Marchwater River
The waterway carrying trade, weather and news through the River Marches.
- Oakridge Hall
A roofless hall on the wooded northern shelf, above the roads near Greyfen.
- Reedbank Fields
Terraced fields and farm roofs above the western river crossings.
- The Westroad Watchtower
A weathered tower beside the winding upland road west of Greyfen.
- Eastroad
The eastern road climbs from the settled March towards the hills and distant Eastridge.
- Southmere Inn
A stopping place among Southmere’s roofs, where river news meets the southern roads.
- Witch Beacon 6 · The Miller’s Lamp
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 9 · The Quay Light
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 12 · The Widow’s Watch
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 14 · Blackreed’s Eye
Recorded unlit · Issue 004 · 16 Emberfall, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 17 · The Bridgeward
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 19 · The Split Lantern
Recorded damaged · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 22 · The North Vigil
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Witch Beacon 23 · The Southward Lamp
Recorded maintained · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Old Beacon · The Nameless Wick
Recorded abandoned · Issue 003, Sheet II · 34 Harvestwake, Year 221
- Báknsíðastr · The Last Beacon
The final ward east of Fangelburg. Beyond its light, no rescue can be promised.
- Hallow Coven Caverns
Beyond the clustered cave mouths, flooded halls carry whispers from the dead. A witch coven controls the crossings, marking its chosen paths with candlelight. Follow those lights carefully. Some voices in the dark know your name.
- Noc-Vespers Vale
A forgotten burial road lies beneath pale mist and an ancient necromancer’s parting gift. More than a thousand years later, the haunting still claims travellers.
- Gallowgold Hollow
Gold glimmers beneath the roots of the southern marsh’s oldest tree. Its little green-coated keeper offers travelers a bargain, but those who follow him inside may lose far more than their coin.
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