First Fort

The First Fort, which has given its name to the town around it, Firstfort, is a small border fortress of ancient Weldic design - guarding the borders between traditional Elosi, Bolmor, and Alder lands. Originally, only the central tower was built - part of a series of towers local nobles built to protect mining and agriculture among the foothills of the Alder mountains. By the time of the Empty, a fortified keep had been added, alongside a curtain wall and a small gatehouse. Beside this had grown up a second encampment - circled by a wooden wall - for the training of the White and Black Sentinels.
When the Empty arrived, the Harko family had been lords of Harko's Tower (as the fort was then known) for as long as anyone could remember. The then-Lord Harko swore to the King that they would hold the fort for two weeks - long enough for the mass of refugees from across Sammerden to pass by towards the Alderi Dominion. As it happened, they lasted less than a week. Kelmorn Harko, the heir to the title, was secretly practicing Blutvik, and was an admirer of those mages who had attempted to storm the Creator's Realm. Believing that the Empty were a necessary step on the path of magical progress which would allow the mages to purify the world and access the Creator's Realm at last, Kelmorn sacrificed his entire family in an attempt to join the Accursed Ones. He failed, and was killed - half transformed - the next morning by a contingent of armed refugees under the banner of Lord Tevdalwick.
The ferocity of the subsequent resistance to the Empty saw half the White Sentinel trainees killed, the Sentinel camp totally destroyed, the gatehouse corrupted, and all buildings but the tower burned. In this decaying state the fort remained for the two decades that all of (living) Weldmere sheltered behind Guthrum's gate, 600 miles away. The ruins were not seen by living eyes until three weeks after the great Battle at Guthrum's Gate. The Allied Scouts - a mix of Welds and Bolmor on horses and Elosi on wardogs - ranged ahead of the army, and arrived at the tower at noon of the second day after the battle. Wilfer Teargon (their commander) was the third son of a former eastern lord, who had grown up learning of Hakon's Tower as the edge of civilisation - he had spent two decades dreaming of marching past it to his home.
In the event, he and his forces faced three days of hard fighting - first into the ruins of the fort, then two days repulsing determined (but leaderless) Empty who had nested in the ruins since they first fell. On the third day, King Conrad's vanguard arrived - and, at length - the King himself laid foot on Weldic soil for the first time in his reign. Wilfer Teargon was named the new lord, and the tower was briefly known as Teargon's Tower, before Conrad agreed to Wilfer's petition, and duly invested him Lord of the First Fort, and Warden of the Sentinel Order.
In the eight centuries since, the Teargon family has faithfully kept the tower, and generation after generation of White and Black sentinels have trained to standards higher every year.

Founding Date

Antiquity

Alternative Names

Tagon's Tower; (formerly) Harko's Tower

Type

Fort

Parent Location

Firstfort