04 Night's Watch.pdf - Chaos Bleeds

Chapter 2: The Wall & The Giftlost. If any remain, it is likely they can be found in the vaults underCastle Black, if they can be found at all.The TorchesThe integration of the Andals into the Night’s Watch wasn’t a smoothor seamless affair. Though outright conflict was rare, the war between theNightfort and Snowgate being a well-known example, the Watch spent almosta thousand years being quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, divided.The Torches were built at a time when the Lord Commander wasone of the First Men. A plan was developed to build a series of signaltowers to spread warnings all along the Wall faster than men on horsebackever could. They built the first signal tower east of the Long Barrow.The stone was close, the builders as well. The tower went up quickly.And then the Lord Commander perished, died of a chill taken inan ill-advised foray west to treat with one of his less tractable Andalbrothers. His successor was an Andal with no interest in his predecessor’sfoolish dreams of building pyres all along the Wall, and he orderedconstruction halted.The First Men still held the command of the first signal towerthough, and they ignored the Lord Commander’s orders. They managedto build a second tower, inexplicably within two hundred yards ofthe first, before the Lord Commander ordered a force of loyal Brothersto put a halt to the intransigence of the men at the Torches.The First Men submitted without a fight and were dispersed to postsfar removed from their compatriots. No other pyres were ever built,but the Watch never wastes resources at hand. The castle remained inservice until it fell victim to the Watch’s decline in the last century. Nowit stands empty, just as so many of its brothers do. Its pyres were neverlit, the wood that stood in them waiting to give warning has long sincerotted and blown away as so much dust.GreenguardJust four leagues west of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, Greenguard stands betweenthe Wall and the headwaters of a deep-running river that flowsdown to the Bay of Seals. There are four square stone keeps and a half adozen smaller outbuildings along with another half-dozen dilapidatedsheds and barns. When the Watch was vibrant and vital, Greenguardwas where they built their ships. Great wooden cradles stood in thewoods around the stream and held the black galleys while they wereshaped and molded. Once complete, each ship was floated down thestream to an estuary twenty leagues south of Eastwatch and out ontothe Bay to take their places in the black brothers’ fleet.These days the Watch has only three galleys and hasn’t commissioneda new one in decades. Repairs that cannot be made in the docksby the lighthouse at Eastwatch are given over into the hands of theshipwrights of Skagos or farther south along the coast near Last Hearthand Karhold.The castle takes its name from the curious color of the Wall nearit. The legends say that as Brandon was building the Wall, a groupof Green Men, giants and Children of the Forest protested. They attackedthe builders as they neared completion of the Wall and weresoundly defeated. The Wall went on and was built right over thegraves of those that sought to stop it, but where the ice was laid overtheir bones, the blood of the fallen stained it green, and so it has beenever since.The GiftSince its founding, the Night’s Watch has depended on nearby rulers tokeep its forces fed, clothed, and in fighting form. If it isn’t Winter it willbe someday, and the Night’s Watch must be ready whenever the seasonsfinally turn. Winter is coming, as the Starks say, and no one knows itbetter than those who man the Wall.HistoryWhen the Watch was founded, it was supposed to be supported by tithesfrom the rulers who enjoyed its protection. In a moment of either gratitudeor perhaps foresight, however, King Brandon Stark (some say Brandonthe Builder, who built the Wall 8,000 years ago, while other maesterssay it was a later Brandon) decided that the Watch must be able to supportits own. To that end he gave them Brandon’s Gift, ownership andkeeping of the land twenty-five leagues south of the Wall. They were tofish, farm, brew and hunt there in order to keep themselves well supplied.For thousands of years, the stewards of the Night’s Watch did just that.As time passed, however, the membership of the Watch dwindled...perhaps inevitably. Threats out of sight are out of mind, after all, and itis a hard thing for a noble family to give up its sons for no purpose. InBrandon’s Gift, there were no towns to speak of short of the settlementof Mole’s Town, which has services aside from farming to provide, andthat place almost certainly of more recent creation than the Gift. It fellto the brothers to care for themselves, and as their numbers dwindled,61