Falkeame

Falkeame is a designated Watch compound located within the Simulami Empire. The personal domain of JayRed1, it is also under the jurisdiction of Bel Amir, leader of the Watch. Falkeame is the primary headquarters for the Watch, an organisation dedicated to evicting squatters, demolishing ruins and improving infrastructure across the lands it operates in. Located in North-West Nieden, it lies on the bank of a valley between the former Escharian duchies of Escania and Varmerion. The facility itself consists of a main castle complex, outfitted with defensive capabilities, as well as a storage and meeting room. Within the grounds lie stables, blacksmiths and barracks, with plans to upgrade with a forge and dedicated armoury. Apart from being a hub for Watch activity, Falkeame is used as a direct launching and defensive point for the Watch during squatter wars.

History
Before being repurposed as a Watch facility, Falkeame's previous history is a near mystery. Formerly known as Falkenhayn and Ekona respectively, the area lay partially in ruin with an exposed series of underground passageways and corridors. Not much is known about Falkeame's time as Falkenhayn, but a few details about the history of Ekona are available. The castle itself remained mostly intact, but the grounds and surrounding walls required serious work. For an unknown period of time, Falkenhayn remained unclaimed and exposed to the wilderness. However, with the founding of the Watch, a dedicated facility was needed to house the resources of the expanding guild. The leader of the Watch, Bel Amir, tasked a Watch member, JayRed1, with reclaiming Falkenhayn and retrofitting it for the Watch's use. Alongside this, JayRed1 was granted the title of Watch General and personal ownership of the claim. From there, the reconstruction of Falkenhayn began.

Before JayRed1 began to reclaim the area, a name change was agreed upon. Both Bel Amir and JayRed1 came to the consensus that Falkenhayn should be renamed to Falkeame, partly because of linguistic issues. With the injection of Watch resources into Falkeame, JayRed1 almost singlehandedly rebuilt much of the area and fixed the ruins across Falkeame. After the stables and blacksmith were patched up, the barracks building was built. From there, the interior of the castle was redesigned. A new meeting hall for the Watch was installed, the storage room was refitted, and a ground-level balcony was made more accessible. JayRed1 was also designated a personal quarter within the castle, then work began on landscaping the courtyard areas. The lower courtyard had a firing range and a rally area added and was generally gentrified. The upper courtyard had a large fountain and an outdoor area installed, but the fountain would later cause leakages into the ground level of the castle. The environment throughout the grounds was also juiced up with plants.

Falkeame Membership
As a part of the Watch, Falkeame requires special permission to be accessed. The main requirement is that only Watch members can enter, with little exceptions. To be trusted in the claim, one of two things must occur. Either a squatter war is being prepared/declared, in which participating Watch members are granted access to the claim; or specific Watch members are performing roles such as resource restocking. Falkeame membership is never permanent unless they are a prominent Watch member or a member of the local ruling class.

During a squatter campaign, Watch members are allowed access to all areas of the main castle except for the storage room and personal quarters. They are primarily stationed in the barracks and courtyard areas for rallies. Within the barracks is accommodation for up to a dozen soldiers, with a storage, sleeping and PVP area. Watch members can be granted access to Falkeame's stables to use the horses during war.

There is also a clause that allows military personnel to be stationed in Falkeame. For example, the Varmerion regiment of the Escharian Army was based in Falkeame before its disbandment.

Griefing of Falkeame
During early redevelopment, Falkeame faced a series of griefing attacks which ranged in severity. Because funding for Falkeame was still being organised, the claim boundaries hadn't fully expanded to beyond the walls, which enabled griefers to attack. Early attacks mainly consisted of attacks over the walls and trespassing, but before long, this was dealt with by terraforming the area outside the walls, restricting the ease of unauthorised access. Another, more targeted attack, was against the main entrance to Falkeame. Once more, funding was to blame for claims not covering the entrance fully, which enabled the attacks. This caused a series of repeated offenses against the main staircase and entrance, in which they'd need to be replaced each time. The legacy of the griefs can still be seen today, as the front entrance of Falkeame was partly remodelled to conceal the damage. After a set of signs warning against griefs was destroyed during another attack, the Watch took a stance and managed to locate the name of the griefer. With the exposure of the griefer, further attacks against Falkeame were halted.

Road Griefs
Similarly to the griefing of Falkeame, the main road leading to it faced many of the same issues. A series of attacks against the road disrupted infrastructure and forced the Watch to subsidise resources from Falkeame to fix it. After a short investigation, it was discovered that a griefer had been repeatedly using an abandoned house built into the underside of the hill on which the road ran on top of as an entrance to the redstone under it, which had steadily been stolen. After repairing the road, the front of the house was demolished and disguised behind terraforming to hide its entrance to the redstone.

Brothar Incident
On August 5th 2022, a sudden development involving squatters occurred just outside of Falkeame. Rather suddenly, a huge new squatter town named Brothar had been created just outside of Falkeame. Owned by Bertilowitz, a squatter who was already on the Watch radar, plans were immediately formulated to launch an attack from Falkeame to destroy the settlement. This came rather contrary to Watch protocol, as usually a period of negotiation would occur beforehand. However, since Bertilowitz had been a burden to the Watch before, and with rampant Watch member support, the decision to open a war campaign began.

As resources and equipment began being directed towards Falkeame for the upcoming war, the Watch attempted to establish communication with Brothar and Bertilowitz. It was discovered that Brothar had no interest in joining Escharia at the time, instead favouring independence with the adoption of its own flag, which flew from atop a tower and banners from walls. This defiance only invigorated Watch members to begin the campaign. But just as Watch members were gearing themselves up and organising battlegroups, a diplomatic breakthrough was made with Bertilowitz. With the threat of war quite literally at his doorstep, Bertilowitz agreed to disband the claim and was offered citizenship in Escharia. After the claim had disbanded, it was instructed that Watch members who chose to help demolish the claim would take a percentage of its resources as pay whilst contributing a portion of its resources to Falkeame; but due to the size of Brothar, much of it still lies undemolished and in ruin today. In total, the incident lasted around two weeks.