Stood, as I am, at the tallest tower of my Keep, I can see every inch of this ancient, sacred Stronghold. Immediately surrounding my Keep, is the Courtyard. Within it are the houses of my servants, and the quarters for my elite knights, archers, and monks who guard its walls. Dotted at regular intervals, small lookout towers, suitable only for eight archers, protect my inner sanctum. And, to my west, a small gatehouse, little more than a portcullis built into the wall. It provides the only means of access to my Courtyard.

Outside the Courtyard is the Castle. Situated on a tall, lone mountain, this fortress has but one entrance, a path, to the north, with rolling logs situated at the top of it, and a small trail, all under the watchful eyes of the crossbowmen who stand atop the wall. As if that wasn't enough, there are larger towers spaced along this wall. They are the largest towers humankind can build, but still, the square ones can only allow eight archers at the top. Not including the ballista, and the priest, of course. At the four corners of my Castle, a giant round tower sits. Taller than even my large square towers, and with room atop for thirty archers and more, and room to spare for a ballista and priest. Along all the walls in my Stronghold, lit braziers allows me to know exactly where my walls are, and, with those near enough, to see what goes on beneath them. In my Castle, for example, the lives of my noblemen and high peasants, such as my Tax Collector, my Kitchens, my Armourer and Training Sergeants. All go about their lives, seemingly oblivious of the squads of swordsmen with Knight Commanders, and the entire division of Warrior Monks, who constantly patrol and drill in these grounds.

To the north of my Castle, down the steep mountain path, lies my Castellum. It is here that the vast majority of my peasants live and work. Some in the Church, others in the Inn, but most in the many different types of industry within these walls. An industry to suit every need of those unfortunate people. Granted, those within my Stronghold think themselves lucky, with Double food rations, Double beer rations, regular tournaments and festivals.... Even when I do need to levy crippling taxes upon them, they hardly seem to mind. And, to protect them, walls lined with archers, with towers that have more archers and a ballista each on top. A gatehouse provides access from the north, east and west walls. Each gatehouse, Grand in size and in power, has a full complement of archers, crossbowmen, an honour guard of eight swordsmen, and one knight commander, assigned Gatekeeper. Not to mention the priests. I have explained the reason for all these men of the cloth, haven't I? No? Well, as I said, this is sacred ground. My forebears were assigned by the Church to protect it. Supposedly, somewhere within some of the many great forests, lie a few ruined monasteries. I have been tasked to find them and restore them, as apparently they contain artefacts of great religious value. And so, the priests come to 'heal my troops fractured souls' and the warrior monks defend the lands of God. I don't need to tell you who is more welcome. Anyway, where was I? Ahhh, yes. The Castellum. Well, outside its thick walls is a very large moat. Very difficult to fill in under fire, so I'm told.

To the East and West of the Castellum, and to the South of the Castle, lie different Work yards. At the base of Castle Mountain are the Natural Work yards. No, the workers aren't naked. They mine natural resources. Iron, from the ore, is smelted into ingots and sent to the Castellum for manufacture into weapons and armour. Stone is quarried and sent to the Castellum for building repairs and trading. And tar, from the swamps, is sent to the Castellum for refinement into oil. For boiling purposes. To the east, I only have a Medium food camp. To the south and west, they are large. The food camps produce, obviously food. But food for the peasantry, not me and my noblemen. It produces such lowly foods as apples, meat from birds lured by the hunters, cheese and cows. The sheep there are also used to produce wool, for sending to the Castellum for the weavers. And there are also wheat farms and windmills, to send flour to the Castellum for bakers to make bread. Of course, there are numerous hops farms, so the commoners can have their brew they like so much at the Inn. Ale, I believe they call it. Never in my life have I tasted such a, well, common drink. It lacks all the refinement and taste of the wine I was brought up on. Probably as well, or the commoners might take to stealing off of my vines. That brings me to the reason why, in the east, there is only a medium food camp. Because, in the east, I have my Small Cuisine Camp. In it, we have numerous vegetable gardens, pig farms, and of course, grapes on the vine. Not to mention the Eel Farms, that sometimes also attracts geese. Such high quality food cannot be given to the serfs. And I must continue in the manner to which I have become accustomed, so, to produce food for my nightly banquets, we must keep the high cuisine camp functioning. I do tell my kitchen staff that, should we need more room in the store, we are to take the oldest food and give it to the soldiers, but the priests claim it all for themselves. Like they never took a vow of poverty. Damned leeches.

Still, my camps. I do not see the need to defend them well, as, if we get besieged in the Gardens (that's what the commoners call the grounds around the Castellum, by the way) Then all my fortifications have a good months store of food, and the Castellum and the inner workings of it have a good years worth, at all times. So, the camps have gong pits to take care of the excessive animal waste, falconers to keep the rat problem down (and, apparently, supplement the peasants' diet.) and wells and water butts in case of fire. Oh, and at the entrance, they have a guard post, to make sure nobody is stealing things off of me. Around all of that, they have a simple wooden wall. Not much, but it provides the archers and crossbowmen with a height advantage over their attackers on the ground. And, because even peasants armed with pitchforks can bring down a wooden palisade, there is a moat running around the outside of the wall. It won't stop an opposing army, but a peasant revolt won't get through it.

Apart from my Work camps, the Gardens extend in all their natural glory to the base of the CliffWall. This almost square formation of unusually sheer and tall cliffs is what led this place to being declared holy ground in the first place, as it was clear to the Church that God wanted us to build a fortress within it. Upon the cliffs, we have first a line of square towers, spaced regularly, but interspersed between every one is a giant beacon, symbol to all that we are here, and we own this land. Atop each tower are eight archers, a priest, and a ballista. With the added height of the cliffs, they can fire for many miles, even though they are not as tall as Castle Mountain. Running just in front of this line of towers and beacons is another wooden wall. Of course it runs just in front. Silly me. The towers are also the only way up onto the wall. On the wall stands ready a single archer in front of each tower. But, should something appear on the horizon, a quick shout will bring the rest of his comrades spilling forth from the tower, and quicker than an eye can blink, the wall will be bristling with notched arrows. This is enough to make entire armies think twice before even marching past us, let alone against us. But we still have not seen the full defences of my Stronghold. In front of the palisade is one long row of fire ballistae. Whilst they are good at spearing entire squadrons of men in a single salvo, they are not put there for that. They are there to set alight siege engines long before they come within range of my precious Stronghold. Trebuchets, catapults, battering rams, all are a raging inferno the instant they come within the huge range of these deadly, oversized crossbows.

And now, we come to the final layer of the defensive onion that is my Stronghold. The Gapforts. There is one situated in each of the four entrances, north, south, east and west. And they are all designed with the sole intention of being a complete pain for enemies to pass through. From the outside of the Stronghold, first you must get past a wide moat. Then, filling the gap in the Cliffwall perfectly, is one large Gatehouse. Thirty four crossbowmen ranged along the front. Forty archers behind them. And, to get through the gatehouse itself, you must first kill the Knight Gatekeeper and his honour guard of swordsmen. And then you get to the fun part. You see, now you come into range of the forts sixty four archers, eight ballistae, and walls lined with armour piercing crossbowmen. To get across to the rear gatehouse opposite, you must run across a killing field of mantraps and war hounds. If you are unlucky enough to be the first to survive that, you have a good twenty or so warrior monks to deal with. If you survive all that, then is when you start to appreciate just how deadly these traps, ah, Gapforts, are. You see, to now open the gatehouse, you must either have a battering ram that can take all the punishment being dished out by the fort long enough to knock a hole in the gate, or you must capture the gate house. The latter being the most likely option. There is a tower either side of the gatehouse you can go up, each of which is filled with warrior monks. Should you get to the top of the tower, and manage to destroy the ballista and kill my archers, you will probably want to kill the crossbowmen, archer and ballistae occupying the rest of my fort. At which point, you should notice the warrior monks pouring forth from the rest of the towers. And of course, all this time, you've been under fire from the archers and ballistae up on the Cliffwall defences. Now, you may have asked yourself, 'But surely, that little fort would only need a few ladder men, and they could just climb up the wall, and then put ladder down the other side. But ancestors thought of that. We placed a moat on the inside of the fort, so you would have to fill it in before putting the ladder up, and while you were filling it in, you would probably get shot by the crossbowmen on the other wall, whom you turned your back on.

Assuming you did get up there, and somehow cleared you section of wall of my troops, you would then notice the moat on the outside of the fort as well. So, to put ladders up, you would have to get outside, fill in the outside moat, and then put your ladder down. And to get outside, you must go through the gatehouse. Foolproof, Genius proof, some of my relatives even have the temerity to claim it as God proof. Impenetrable, in other words. Lord, were we wrong.