Emoryn's Watch

First Founding (776-779)

In truth, the site we know of as Emoryn's Watch is in fact its second location. The first founding was found and settled for several months between 776 and 777 but was abandoned not long after the walls of the keep had been raised. The walls were made of an oily black burnished stone which had been mined from caves the expedition had found only a few miles inland from where they had landed. The men were impressed by the stone's light weight and strength. The walls were quickly raised around their encampment and celebrations soon followed. Several weeks passed without but the steady progress at Emoryn's Watch was not to last long. It was a dark night with Ulthiri, The Red hanging high overhead in the stars above when a watchman, at post began complain of a screaming headaches lasting from dusk to dawn. When the next night's watchman complained of the same, and the two men assigned the day after that complained of similar were concerns raised. After another week, the ailments effecting the Nights Watchmen worsened, first weakness of the legs, a tremor that left the Watchmen's bow useless and a looseness of the bowels.

After a month of these, the now beleaguered Watchmen began reporting sightings of groups of naked copper-skinned mutes standing among the dark of the trees with some nearly as tall as the walls of the Keep. Those who saw them spoke of two shimmering azure lights where their eyes might be penetrating the darkness of the jungle. It is believed now that these had been a sighting of the savages of Bronze Eye. At first, it was just sightings, this followed days later with the Tall Men, as they began to be called, leaving the carcasses of unknown jungle animals. After this, it was the livestock of Emoryn's watch which were slaughtered despite the watchful eyes of the Night's Watch. These incidents grew worse and worse with each passing day until at last in the middle of the night on the hottest day of Sun's Breath did terror truly come to the men of Emoryn's Watch. It cannot be said for certain what had happened on that night just that, when shortly before the sun began its peak over the trees, a man rising early to relieve himself before the day's labor bore witness to a massacre. The whole of the Night's Watch had been slaughtered to a man, each with their heads severed crudely from their necks. The alarms were roused and all men were made to awake, it was then that it was noticed nearly half of the sleeping men had similarly been slaughtered. Emoryn had to do all in his command to keep the survivors from mutiny in that moment and kept control only once he had promised their immediate departure for nearby Ghurron Doz. In the mid-day sun, as the ships departed from Emoryn's Watch, to the horror of the men some saw the Tall Men breach from the tree lines, walking among the encampment.

Second Founding & Discovery By The Shoraq (780-824)

Spending most of Harvest's Dawn in Ghurron Doz, Emoryn Valrak could only convince his men to return after a contingent of Dwarven Mercenaries who claimed to know of the many horrors of Ebura and would guide them to a safer part of the Island.

Having secured a loan from the court of the Grand Duke some ten years after the second founding, Emoryn returned to the original site, now backed with by the famed Manyblooded Regiment of the Sunshield Company. What he found perplexed him. The wooden structures they had built all still stood, the skeletons of the livestock abandoned remained, the weapons and armors were all still where the Blacksmith had left them. Two things of note were gone, the bodies which Emoryn had been forced to leave behind were all gone, and most mysteriously, were the stone walls put up by the Expedition. While the Manyblooded scoured the jungle interior for any signs of the Tall Men, Emoryn inspected the site. Though time had passed, no signs showed of how the stones were removed much to Emoryn's bewilderment. When at last they came upon the cave from which the stones had originally been mined, it was as though they had never mined it at all.

Recent History (824-1134)