Frost's Death
Purpose / Function
Frost's Death was built to block the single safe pass through the Kingdom's Scar mountains. The Steeled Men send the most heinous criminals they receive to this fort, but a seldom few volunteers are stupid/brave enough to follow those terrible fiends to their almost guaranteed icy death. There is no return once you arrive at Frost's Death, and this makes it's men fight all the better as running will surely mean death.
Frost's Death guards a pass that connects to other forts within the mountains, and is the only way through the mountains that doesn't surely spell death. The walls of this keep have turned away several attempts of the savage snow orcs to enter the mainland. The keep is built to be self sufficient, since it is difficult to send supplies to it from many other forts.
Alterations
The Fort was built slowly, so at first it was an outpost that stood in the center of the path, but over time it grew into the imposing iron and dark wood fortress it now is. The Count was the first to be finished, but the Countess was completed not long after. The bridge between the two forts was difficult to craft, and many men fell to their deaths in the making, but when the bridge was finished and the iron gate was raised for the first time, the cheers that rose up from the men could be faintly heard at Last Hope.
The last addition was Little Wish, the small lighthouse in the middle of the bridge. This tower was made for Lord of Steel Darwin Magathor, who wanted to hear if any shouts were to be raised from either side of the fortress. In that time it was just known as Darwin's tower, or Darwin's Dick by the less mature of the iron brothers, but it was renamed after Darwin went on expedition into a blizzard. The storm came upon his party so hard that he could see no more than 10 feet in front of him, but when all seemed lost and his men were almost frozen, Darwin howled at the gods for help, and when no answer came he slumped against a tree and looked around at his men. He closed his eyes and whispered to himself that he wished he could give his life to save his freezing brothers. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a light. His squire had lit a lantern in the top of the tower, and this faint shimmer of hope was just enough to see the brothers home. After that Darwin named the tower little wish, for what he uttered to himself that night.
Architecture
Frost's Death is a structure of mostly pine wood and iron, and is intended to provide utility over beauty. The only decorations are a few sconces that flicker out unless lit with frost petal, a strange, white flower that grows in the north and produces a white, nigh-inexstinguishable flame, and the weathered banners of the Steeled Men.
Frost's Death consists of two main keeps, The Count and The Countess, and a third small tower in the middle known as Little Wish. The Count is where men are trained and where the main barracks are. The main sight here is the freezing men fighting away until they are relieved by their Iron Warden.
History
In the early years of the Steeled Men the iron brothers would struggle to handle all the raiders that would flow through the narrow paths in the mountains. There were simply to many ways for them to approach an individual keep, and while surprise attacks had almost always been pushed off, the men's numbers were still dwindling. The Adamantine Shield of the time Gerald the Red set out to find a solution further north, and he found that most of the paths through the mountains fed out of one pass on the far end of the Scar. He was determined to build a fort there with his best men to keep the savages of the North from funneling through. That fort became Frost's Death.
Alternative Names
End of the World, Hell Frozen, Gate of Oustar
Type
Fort
Parent Location
Owning Organization
Characters in Location
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