A Visitor's Guide to Nokt: Outside of Nokt: Ender's Prison

Ender’s Prison was originally constructed on Ereland by a coalition of forces native to Foerl, where they would send their political exiles to live out their days. By no means a luxury prison, Ender’s Prison is a hulking behemoth of a jail, built like a castle in order to keep the prisoners in – and marauding bugbears (and, perhaps, rescue parties!) out.

Being sent to Ender’s Prison was always something that you feared, as a Foerlian. Mothers would taunt their misbehaving children with the threat of incarceration there – “If you don’t behave, you’re going to be sent to Ender’s Prison!” Everyone knew it existed, but nobody knew where it was – it was one of the best-kept secrets in Foerl.

And for good reason – Ender’s Prison was never on Foerl! As legend has it, the Prison was raised in a single night by a conclave of mighty wizards. They worked powerful magics to raise a fortress on an easy-to-defend peninsula in a far-off land, where the wilderness teemed with native life forms just waiting to kill you. A powerful, modified Ring Gate was created, with the “sending” end in Foerl – and the “receiving” end here in Ereland. It was by means of this system that prisoners would be sent to the prison, a one-way ticket to their last days in the bowels of the squat, dark fortress.

As the success of the fearful prison became more well-known across Foerl, the number of captives, naturally, increased. Guards needed to be stationed at the prison, and even guards need recreation and down-time. So a few meager colonies were established by enterprising Foerlians: Val Xanar was the first, followed by Valaise shortly thereafter. These two colonies never grew into much beyond large shantytowns, but the third colony, Norfin, became a decent-sized city in its own right.

Docks were added to the complex at Ender’s Prison, and when a guard was on leave, it was increasingly common for them to spend their time in one of the colonies – which one depended on how much time the guard had available to him. Travel by water was the fastest means available to the staff at the Prison, and it was then that a weakness in the defenses of the facility became apparent – though they had the land approach covered, nothing was in place to deter a rescue attempt by sea.

Thus began an ambitious project to fortify the waters around Ender’s Prison against attack. The end result of this program was that the waters around the Prison are now strewn with tightly-stretched lengths of spiked chain just below the surface of the water. These chains are magically strengthened in such a way that they can stop the progress of even the largest of galleys, slicing into the ship’s hull and causing them to take on water. The chains are also quite a hazard to those who would swim amongst them, as the spikes are magically razor sharp still to this day. There are now but two ways to approach the Prison by the water, and each of these ways is a narrow channel through the maze of chains, a path that is so subtly marked that only the trained guards at Ender’s Prison know the way.

The Prison itself is reminiscent of a castle in construction; approach from the south side, via land, and you will encounter a large stone wall with a gatehouse in it. This stone wall spans the width of the peninsula, even running out into the water in an attempt to keep potential rescuers from skirting the wall. Past this outer wall is the main complex itself, which consists of the large prison building/tower and its surrounding protective towers. There are four of these towers, at each cardinal compass point, and these towers are connected to each other via a curtain wall. None of these towers, or the wall, make contact with the prison keep.

Entrance to this outer circle of buildings is via the south tower. You enter the courtyard also via the south tower, proceed to the north tower (which also boasts a lighthouse to aid in navigation to and from the prison), and then, to enter the prison building itself, you would climb down the stairs in the north tower to an underground tunnel, which leads to the cell block. The cell block is, in itself, a small fortress designed to keep both the inmates in and potential rescuers out.