Shield of Teseria

The Shield of Teseria was built in the age of miracles and construction took over 20 years. The construction was started before the War of the Black sun by Teserinis Malavan, who was the king of Teseria in those times. Teserinis was a genius war chief and understood that the weak spot of the shore shouldn't be left unprotected. He however was only one who supported this massive fortress. Entire project was widely suspected and people thought that a smaller fortress would have done the same thing. The fortress however didn't manage to complete in lifetime of Teserinis and the work was completed by his son and next king Teserinis II. The Shield of Teseria was completed just before the War of the Black sun touched Moon island. Construction of the fortress was an enormous process and every construction period needed a lot of workers. The job was considerably eased by that the stone needed were got close to fortress. Enormous quarries close to the fortress produced a construction material in a fast pace and the stones were not needed to be transported a long distances.

Even though the needed stones were achieved close to the fortress, the job was enormous and tested the economy of entire nation of Teseria. Citizens had a change to pay their taxes by taking part of the construction. And because of the construction of the fortress, taxes were very high in that time. All help was needed and so after a long and awkward negotiations also dwarves were assured that should the Moon island be seized above ground, then either dwarven halls wouldn't be safe. This was a great step toward a bombastic plan of Teserinis, the Shield of Teseria. In the negotiations dwarves promised to come building the Shield and also promised to hand over some of their holy black metal for the construction. Teserinis however had to pare last gold coins from the bottom of his chest. All prisoners throughout Teseria were also ordered to a construction work and unfortunately many of them died in the Shield, because of worse treatment of prisoners.

A lot of wood was needed in construction and therefore all forests around the Shield have been hacked clear. At one time that caused a crack to a relations between humans and elves. The elves still haven't forgotten the cutting down of their eternal forests. They even refused to take any part for the construction of the fortress in any way.

The fortress itself is about ten kilometers long and only about 200 meters wide and follows a coast line where possible. The wall on the seaside joins about as high primary rock as the wall and that makes circulation of the castle impossible. Distance between the wall and waterline varies from few meters to few tens of meters, but practically the fortress has been built as close to waterline as possible. Foundations of the fortress have been rooted into the primary rock. The walls in the seaside are about 15 meters high and about 5 meters thick. Elsewhere the walls are about 15 meters high and three meters thick. Thickness of the wall is thickness on ground level, because the walls narrow upwards a bit. This narrowing is larger in the inner side of the walls. The wall against sea has to endure, in addition to possible attacks, also weather, rage of the sea and freezing. The walls have large towers that have diameter of about 15 meters and height 25 meters. In the seaside a distance between towers is about 100 meters and elsewhere about 200 meters. Every tower has a flag of Teseria flapping on a top of it. Also commonly idea of the fortress is to repel an attack coming from sea and therefore the defense on a land side is not as well planned nor paid attention.

Equipment of the fortress consist of numerous large siege weapons, of which the largest ballistas have been placed on a top of towers. In time of war smaller ballistas that are easier to move are placed on the wall. These smaller ballistas are intended to be used for eliminating important targets by two men. On a seaside every tower has three large ballistas on a top of it. Other towers have only one ballista on a top of each. The walls and towers have a parapet giving a protection for defenders. Every tower also have a winch, which is used for lifting ammo of siege weapons on a top of towers.

In the yard behind the seaside wall is large trebuchets, which can hurl hundred kilos weighing rocks even up to distance of 500 meters. There usually is two of these massive siege weapons between each tower. Every trebuchet has a man directing it on a wall. This profession of "director" is highly respected, because turning and directing trebuchets is not an easy task and there is no time for many misses. So it ultimately depends on the director does the rock hit the target. Trebuchets can be turned about 30 to 50 degrees depending on their position. Just trebuchets are used, because they have a very high trajectory and therefore hurling rocks over the wall is easier. Trebuchets are mainly used against stopped or slowly moving damaged ships.

Walls and towers have wooden roofs. Although the wall is not entirely covered by the roof. In time of war, roofs are pushed down from the wall and when the enemy is closing tar is poured upon the woods and then it is ignited. This way the shelter of peacetime turns to an one obstacle more to be cleared for an enemy.

The fortress is very barren place. Wind blows from the sea nearly all the time and waves beat base of the wall and splash water even on a top of the wall. Dwellings of a soldiers are very simple and mainly wooden buildings.

The Shield of Teseria is still an active fortress nowadays and in full readiness its man-power is about 10000-15000 men. Maintenance of the fortress is organized in addition to a normal soldier training. The fortress has a two working garrisons. Man-power of each is about 500 men. Both garrisons have about 5 kilometers of fortress to be maintained and a small competition between them brings some color to a grayness of weekdays in the barren fortress. Using soldiers for maintenance have both economical and military benefits. For certain intervals, dwarves and carpenters for instance must be employed to renovating walls, keeping siege weapons in a good condition and making up the fortress.

In addition to dwellings of soldiers the fortress has also other buildings inside. For instance there is medication huts, soldier huts and kitchens. The fortress also has ore rails for transporting trebuchet ammo. Rails lead behind every large trebuchet and this way it is easy and quick to move ammunition for them. If needed, ammunition can be infused with tar and ignited.

Guarding is usually task of recruits and some older soldier supervises them. Guarding the fortress is not kept very important nowadays, because it is not believed that any large army could surprise Teseria. Also commonly guarding is only mainly a formality and an old habit and training for recruits. Guarding is also a way of discipline. In the daytime the fortress has about 20 soldiers guarding on walls and a land side gates. In a nighttime the number of guards is about 50 and they patrol close to huts and other dwellings and some eyes have also always been directed to the sea. When guarding, the soldiers are always fully equipped. In the daytime armor must shine and especially then if an important persons are visiting the fortress. Messages and orders are send via a particular horse couriers, whose task is to transport messages of commanders to a different parts of the fortress. Yard of the fortress also has an alarm bells in an even distances. With the bells, the alarm can quickly be ringed through the fortress if needed and after that the horse couriers ensure that entire fortress have been alarmed.

The Shield of Teseria has only been attacked once during its history. This happened in the War of the Black sun when army of Gxotar tried to conquer the Moon island. The fortress amazingly endured the attack. The battle called The battle of the Shield of Teseria took lives of thousands and thousands of soldiers on both sides. Also elves that got angry when the fortress was built were defending the fortress, because they understood what defeat could cause for their homelands. The elves, however, never admitted necessity of cutting down the forests. Naturally the attacker suffered greater losses than the defender. Sea in front of the fortress is full of wrecks of sunken battleships of Gxotar's army.

Names of those defenders, who fell in the battle, have been inscribed to the wall by words of the king: "Your sacrifice, our victory, honor to fallen, for these rocks and this land have been cleaned." -Teserinis II-