Ministry of War & Conflict | Headquarters: Stonehold Bastion, Emberpoint
“We shape the land so the land may protect.”
The Bureau of Fortifications and Defensive Works is the Kingdom’s oldest continuous military institution, dating back to the founding of the First Watchwalls. It is responsible for the design, construction, maintenance, and enchantment of all military defenses across Eyehasseen—from moats and walls to hidden traps and storm-break bastions.
This bureau trains siege architects, wallwrights, tunnelers, engineers, sappers, barrier-mages, and specialists in arcane structural harmonics (ASh).
Its guiding principle: “A well-built wall is not merely stone—it is memory, will, and warning.”
🏰 Core Responsibilities
- Design and maintenance of forts, strongholds, ramparts, border towers, and city walls
- Oversight of the Underground Shield—the subterranean defense tunnels beneath Crown lands
- Installation of fieldworks, including trenchworks, spike-lines, bastions, and modular barricades
- Siege defense innovations: anti-ladder systems, heated cauldron rigs, echo amplifiers
- Coordination with Royal Engineers and Beast Corps for terrain adaptation
- Advising provincial lords on peacetime defensive readiness inspections (DRIs)
🔧 Specialized Divisions Within the Bureau
🏗️ The Stonewrights’ Order
The elite guild of fortress architects, known for binding geometry with magic. Their sigil: a compass split by lightning. Responsible for innovations such as:
- Whispering Walls (carry sound across a fortress)
- Self-raising Portcullises (counterweight-free)
- Suncast Bastions (glow at night to deter attack)
⛏️ The Tunneling Corps
Mines beneath enemy siege lines or constructs underground escape routes. Works in total silence, trained to “listen for the earth’s warnings.”
🔮 The Enchanted Barrier Team
Arcane masons who embed glyphs of resistance, repellence, and alarm into walls and parapets. Require joint certification with the Ministry of Mysteries.
🏰 Famed Structures Under Bureau Protection
- The Crownwall of Drosgate — an 18-mile rampart enclosing the Capital Valley
- Fort Emberpoint — made entirely from red volcanic stone; withstands earthquakes
- The Northern Watchspires — designed to glow at dusk with no flame or lantern
- The Sea-Ward Barriers of Everlight Port — said to sing when touched by tide
- The Floating Ramparts of Isle Gravin — hover six inches above land, impervious to rot
🧱 Ceremonial Traditions
- The Laying of the Founder’s Stone — each new fort begins with a block blessed by three disciplines: mason, mage, and military
- The Vigil Without Roof — a tradition in which new recruits sleep under unfinished battlements to “hear the night as the stone hears it”
- Annual Wallwalk Parade — veterans walk atop the Crownwall in full uniform as banners of past fortresses are unfurled below
📜 Bureau Motto
“We shape the land so the land may protect.”