Faulmoor Overview
Faulmoor is a low, wet barony of marsh, floodplain, reclaimed farmland, ports, and old trade routes. In the second year of the Rotmire Blight, failing roads and drainage works are allowing water to reclaim abandoned fields and settlements while the region's noble houses struggle to preserve authority, trade, and access to silver.
Overview
Before the Blight, Faulmoor's practical strengths were productive farmland, navigable routes, and its position within regional trade. The discovery of rich silver veins in Fenmire later made the barony even more important.
Its crisis is therefore visible in mundane failures as often as dramatic ones: a road not repaired, a drainage ditch left choked, a ferry route abandoned, or a market opening with half the goods people once expected to find there.
The Blight disrupted the ordinary labor that kept the landscape usable. Roads go unrepaired, drainage fails, fields soften into marsh, and abandoned settlements flood from the ground upward. Routes once regarded as seasonal inconveniences can now become impassable barriers.
Faulmoor remains inhabited and traveled, but survival is uneven. Fortified cities, isolated villages, river stations, smuggling ports, quarantine zones, and ruined settlements may lie only a few days apart. Farmers, ferrymen, soldiers, traders, scavengers, smugglers, and refugees all compete to keep movement possible across a landscape that becomes less dependable every season.
History
Faulmoor was governed through House Valkenmar, with House Wilthorne of Ebonmoor and House Harrowden of Fenmire serving as powerful vassal houses.
That arrangement depended on military protection, trade, and access to resources moving between the three regions. The Blight placed all three under pressures that reward isolation and self-preservation, weakening relationships that were already unequal.
The first year of the crisis produced several containment disasters that hardened later policy across the barony and left entire stretches of countryside abandoned.
Present Day
House Valkenmar retains baronial authority from Valkenheim, but its forces and administrative reach are stretched thin. This is particularly visible in places such as Greymire, where formal authority still exists but practical control depends heavily on local operators and negotiated tolerance.
Ebonmoor remains strategically important for trade and controlled access. Fenmire's silver gives House Harrowden leverage far beyond the political weight the marsh region once held.
Across the barony, quarantine policy, scarcity, smuggling, private violence, religious revival, and local improvisation increasingly shape daily life. Faulmoor is not uniformly ruined. Some settlements continue to function, but the distance between a working market and an abandoned road can be very small.
Notable Locations
Valkenheim
Valkenheim is the seat of House Valkenmar and the traditional political center of Faulmoor. Its fortifications and administrative importance have only grown as the surrounding region has become less reliable.
Vexenford
Vexenford controls the mainland approach toward Ebonmoor and the major crossing leading toward the island. Its layered construction, checkpoints, and strategic position make it one of Faulmoor's most important controlled gateways.
Greymire
Greymire is a coastal trade and smuggling hub where legitimate commerce, contraband, information brokerage, refugee movement, and relic traffic overlap.
Oldfen and Ashenmoor
Oldfen is a ruined quarantine settlement whose failed containment wall became one of the defining disasters of the Blight's first year. Nearby Ashenmoor fell rapidly after Blighted from Oldfen reached its unfinished defenses.
The Pale and Blackholt Fort
The Pale is one of Faulmoor's best-known quarantine regions, a broad drowned landscape where abandoned infrastructure and prolonged Blight exposure have reshaped the countryside. Blackholt Fort, farther south, remains Faulmoor's largest major fortress and an important military landmark.
The Ash Peaks
The Ash Peaks rise near Valkenheim and remain one of Faulmoor's least controlled regions, known for difficult passes, abandoned workings, and persistent relic legends.
Southvale
Southvale was once known for fertile countryside and river access. The arrival of wealthy refugees during the Blight transformed its social order and intensified conflict over food, property, and local power.
The Harrowgate Ruins
The Harrowgate Ruins are a partially submerged ancient site southeast of Valkenheim, visited by pilgrims, scholars, and relic-seekers despite their reputation for strange phenomena.
Major Regions
Ebonmoor
Ebonmoor is an island domain ruled by House Wilthorne. Its trade routes, bridge access, and relative isolation give it unusual leverage within the barony.
Fenmire
Fenmire is a difficult marsh region ruled by House Harrowden. Its silver deposits, waterways, and isolation have become central to Faulmoor's survival economy.