[QUEENSTOWN] Forgotten Fields

There are many who believe that the Gift is for no one other than the Knights of the Night Watch, that the men go no where other than one end of the icy fortress to the next. But those are foolish beliefs. The Gift offers so much more, towns and houses, fields and stalls. People who live nearby the wall to produce food for the men who serve upon it.

Yet, there are times when the fields are left forgotten by the men who swore to keep the peace, forgotten and misused by the Knights of the Night Watch and the men of the Gift alike.

Farming Fields of the Past

Long ago when the land was first given to the Nights Watch, the men of the Wall and fellow farmers drove the harsh lands into grazing fields of various wheats, vegetables, and fruits of all kinds – anything which was capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of this snow covered land. Together they worked to prepare the farming lands, learning from the experienced hands of the farmers how to take care of the fields, when to watch them grow, and when the time came to cut the grasses down for provenance. For miles the fields stretched in pale green and yellow shades, casting a drop of colour into this winter wonderland.

Yet as the numbers of the men in black cloaks began to vanish, so did the efforts of keeping the farming lands growing. The miles of farming lands were reduced to small fields here and there which soon became forgotten by the Nights Watch completely. Unable to deal with the amount of work, the farmers too left the fields to wither away, ensuring that the town’s crops were flourishing.

Marshlands

Over the years the abandoned, forgotten roads of fields were reclaimed by nature, the once well ploughed and kept soil grew damped with the fallen snow, melting by the warmth of the sun until they became nothing more than shallow marshlands. Cold and empty; casting the picturesque scenery into a portrait of death with the darkened soil and ever lingering fog.

Its ever innocent emptiness invites the many fools who wish to take a path away from Kingsroad, to escape the fate of life upon the Wall, only welcoming it to the unpassable bogs, destined only for death. These countless fools' corpses litter the ever unchanging bog; few travellers who make it through the marshes claim that bones of the fallen can be seen sticking out of the places in which they fell. Flesh still clinging to their rotting bones, the scent of it's rot lingering in the air as a warning for all who pass.