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Our 45th Jörðgarð (TM) Map of the Week comes from our forthcoming puiblication "The Northwest."

Prison Towers of the North Kingdom

There are three prison towers where vampires feed upon the incarcerated in the kingdom. They are a part of the castle complex in each of the three ducal seats, Green Meadows, Grain Meadows and Timbertown. The ruing vampire draug, Mstislav,o has issued strong edicts regarding the handling of the prisoners in the towers. His orders are based upon a desire to maintain as high a quality level of blood in the prisoners as possible and the wish to have the towers draw as little attention as possible. Unlike many of the other vampire draugs, Mstislav does not underestimate the ability of the human population to start a rebellion against its rulers, should its fear of them and the bloodsucking monsters of which they are aware overwhelm them.

Mstislav also has learned that humans who live on the brink of insanity (or over it), in a constant state of fear, produce blood that is of inferior quality from the standpoint of a vampire draug's needs. Because each prisoner feeds vampires with some regularity, there is no way that Mstislav can completely remedy this situation. After a prisoner has fed a vampire, it is weakened and it notices the wounds upon its throat. It knows that one of the bloodsucking monsters has attacked it.

However, Mstislav theorizes that a prisoner's reactions to an attack are less strong when he or she becomes aware of the attack only after it has happened. Therefore, all vampire draugs are under orders to use their sleep command upon prisoners in a tower and to make certain that the command has succeeded before they feed. This prevents any prisoner of being aware of the feeding until it is past and eliminates possible screams in the night.

The three prison towers are run by trusty-jailers and their wives. The trusties are not free men but rather privileged tower prisoners who are appointed by the dukes in whose prison towers they work. All of the current trusties are convicted murders who have spent at least five years as vampire fodder in a prison tower. When a new trusty is placed in charge of a tower, he or she must meet certain conditions. A new trusty must have a husband or wife who is willing to live with him or her in the tower and share the jailer's duties. Tower prisoners who are troublemakers or who have been convicted of heinous crimes are not considered. He or she also must be able to read and write.

Together, the trusty and his wife are required to see that the tower's prisoners have heat in the cold months and that they are well-fed year round. Food is delivered daily to the prison tower, and firewood is delivered whenever a new supply is needed. There is enough of both delivered to take care of the trusty and his wife as well as the prisoners. The trusty and his wife also are required to take care of the prisoners' urine urns and bed pans. There are no jakes in the cells.

Key to the Prison Tower Dungeon Plans

All three prison towers in the kingdom are identical. Each tower is 70 feet/21m high. Each consists of eight stories, each with 8-foot/240 cm high ceilings. The ground floor is of stone. The floors of the upper stories are made of oak beams six inches/15 cm thick. The peaked roof complex is 3½ feet/105 cm high. The ground floor is the jailer's lodgings. The seven identical upper stories each has four prison cells.
 
Ground Floor - Jailer's Lodgings

1. Jailer's Reception Room. This room contains a desk and a bookshelf with prisoners' records. These contain information on each prisoner's crimes, sentence, date of entry in the tower, dates when the prisoner has fed vampires, notes on incidents involving the prisoner and the date of death or departure.

2. Well Room. The well is here along with a cupboard containing extra bedpans, urine urns and other supplies.

3. Lodgings. The trusty jailer and spouse dwell here.

4. Spiral Staircase. Extends from the ground floor to the eighth story.


Upper Floors - Prisoners' Cells (each floor identical)

4. Spiral Staircase. Extends from the ground floor to the eighth story. At the top, the staircase extends to the crawl space beneath the roof, to facilitate roof repairs.

5. Bed.

6. Footlocker.

7. Table with a Single Chair.

8. Wood Stove. The jailer and his wife fire it from the outside. Prisoners are not allowed access to fire.

9. Slot for the Bedpan and Urine Urn.

10. Barred and Locked Cell Door. The torches on the stairway wall are the only light sources for the cell in the dark hours. The torches are kept burning 24 hours a day. Prisoners are not allowed access to fire.

11. Slot for Food and Drink.

12. Stovepipe. It extends directly below the ceiling from the wood burning stove to a bronze chimney outside the wall.

You can get the dungeon plan of the prison tower in two versions:

1. The Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 map in FMP format, fully editable, from our Jörðgarð web page (20 MB).

2. As two JPG flat map of 11280 x 1280 Pixels each (total 2.1 MB), available above.

Both versions are released for personal and commercial use under the Open Game License Version 1.0a, which you can read on the Jörðgarð web site.

The Jörðgarð web site:

http://www.vintyri.org/joerdhgardh/joerdhgardh.htm

Next: The town of Vladimir's Throne in the North Kingdom.