**Type:** Ruin / Haunted Watchtower **Current State:** Abandoned, though beacon fires still appear **Region:** East of the Deadwood, perched on the dry edge of **Crowfen Marsh** **Past Affiliation:** Built and manned by the **[[Duskwatch]] Wardens**; later briefly occupied as a signal relay during Coalviel’s western campaigns --- ## Overview Fenwatch Keep was raised by the **[[Duskwatch]] Wardens**, a militant order sworn to guard the shadowed borders east of the Deadwood. Perched above the marsh, its beacon was meant to warn villages, wayfarers, and hamlets if the Deadwood’s curse crept too far or if its creatures strayed outward. Though long abandoned, villagers still swear the lantern fires gleam at night, as if the watch is kept by unseen hands. --- ## Location & Role - **Crowfen Marsh:** The keep sits on a limestone rise at the fen’s northern rim; any who skirt the marsh use its silhouette as a landmark. - **The Broken Causeway:** Old sightlines allowed for signal relays back toward [[Duskwatch]] outposts to the south and west. - **Old Veil Bridge:** Sentries once flagged travelers across the gully by coded lantern flashes. - **The Thornbelt:** Patrols once cut lanes through the thorn tangle to maintain supply paths; these lanes are long since swallowed. --- ## Construction & Condition - **Architecture:** [[Duskwatch]] stonework, solid and utilitarian: narrow arrow loops, thick lime-mortared walls, and a lantern gallery built for signaling. - **Flooded Levels:** The lower barracks and cellars lie drowned in tannin-black fen water. - **Beacon Chamber:** The mirror-pan lantern is still intact, and its clockwork winch curiously uncorroded. - **Wards:** [[Duskwatch]] glyphs of warding remain faintly visible on thresholds, most eroded or cracked. --- ## History - **[[Duskwatch]] Foundation:** Built as part of a chain of warning towers during the early expansion of [[Duskwatch]]. Meant to anchor the frontier and offer refuge to marshland herders. - **Whispers in the Fen:** The garrison fled after soldiers complained of voices rising with the marsh fog. A dozen men vanished; several others were found drowned in dry barracks. - **Coalviel Occupation:** When Coalviel held the Dark Tower for a season, they co-opted Fenwatch as a relay post. The locals never forgave the desecration of [[Duskwatch]] wards with foreign ciphers. - **Abandonment:** Since then, no official force has reoccupied it, though the beacon still ignites at strange intervals. --- ## Local Lore - **The Fenwarden:** A spectral captain, dressed in [[Duskwatch]]’s black-and-silver livery, is said to tend the beacon still. Some claim he warns; others that he lures. - **The Drowned Without Water:** Victims are sometimes found near the keep, dead of apparent drowning though their lungs are dry. The whispers are blamed. - **Coalviel’s Mark:** Folk spit when speaking of the “double-claimed keep”—as if the ghostly fires are the [[Duskwatch]]’s punishment for Coalviel’s intrusion. --- ## Mystical & Regional Connections - **[[Lantern Wastes]]:** The beacon’s flash pattern seems to echo the drifting trails of the ghost-lights in the [[Lantern Wastes]]. - **Gallows Stones:** Names half-erased from the Gallows Stones appear scrawled on rotted ledger books found in Fenwatch’s upper chamber. - **[[The Rift Scar]]:** The lantern gallery’s shutters sometimes cast blue light toward the Scar on moonless nights, as though aligning with it. --- ## Adventure Hooks - **The Three-Night Signal:** The beacon blazes for three nights in a row—the [[Duskwatch]] code for “an army approaches.” But no army can be seen. - **[[Duskwatch]] Legacy:** A [[Duskwatch]] scion seeks a lost family standard said to rest in Fenwatch’s armory. Recovering it may restore the order’s honor. - **Lay the Fenwarden to Rest:** The spirit of the captain asks adventurers to return the drowned soldiers’ names to the Gallows Stones. But the stones erase any names by dawn. - **The Mirror Pan’s Bargain:** The beacon’s mirrored lantern houses a trapped spirit. It can answer three questions truthfully each night—before twisting its answers into riddles.