Fort Briggs

The northernmost border of the human country of Orszag is marked by the Barbs, the mountain range that heralds the start of Goblin territory. During winter, the passage down from the mountains is frozen past the point of navigability, but come the thaw bands of goblins, hungry and frustrated from a bleak winter cooped up in their caves, will cascade down into the human farmlands below. The first obstacle standing in their way if Fort Briggs.

Fort Briggs has definitely seen better days. There are very few farmsteads and hamlets in the far North, so the government prefers to focus the bulk of its defences further to the South, where the forts are easier to man, maintain and supply, and the civilian population is substantially greater. Briggs, by comparison, is staffed by a skeleton garrison, and during the Thaw its forces need to be bolstered by volunteers from the local community, and any passing adventurers who want to pitch in.

The fort is essentially an eight-foot high stone wall around a large courtyard and central keep. The keep contains enough sleeping space for around two dozen people, an armoury (meagre), a food store (depleted) and a sanatorium (barely worth the name). Growing through the centre of the courtyard is a large oak tree – no-one is quite sure which came first, the keep or the tree, but despite fears that the roots will damage the foundations of the walls, the tree has been kept – partly as a recognisable symbol, and partly because, being much taller than the walls, it’s an excellent look-out spot.

Despite its dilapidated state, Fort Briggs has proved an effective bulwark against most of the invading Goblin hordes. One way in which it and its garrison hold their own is that they have become skilled in seeding the shallow end of the pass with rockfall traps and other obstacles during the winter, which can significantly quell the goblins’ momentum. The efforts of the soldiers manning the fort reduce the goblin numbers even further, meaning that those that do make it past are more easily dispatched by forces further South. Even when Goblin forces do make it past the fort, defender casualties are usually comparatively few – the defending force knows when to pull back to the fort and seal the doors, and any Goblins that make it past are usually far more enthusiastic to head straight on to the much more weakly defended farmsteads below than try to break into a sealed building with no loot to speak of.

However, although the Lowlanders do not yet know it, a new threat has recently emerged within the Barbs. The charismatic Goblin war chief, Kmron, has set his sites on taking Fort Briggs for himself. While it’s a feeble castle by Human standards, it’s an architectural marvel to the Goblins, and if Kmron can establish a base of operations south of the Barbs, he and his forces will be able to bide their time and attack more strategically than being forced out of the mountains by the caprice of the weather. Briggs’s defenders are very used to regular, predictable tactics – so could Kmron’s new plan see the fort’s days finally numbered?