Keepers of the Fortress
Malevolence | 5/5 | Keepers are aggressive toward sentient entities and humans. |
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Interaction | 2.5/5 | At the moment, despite most of the Keepers began to gradually destroy, but there are enough of them in unexplored corners of the Fortress. |
Pritoria Index | 3.75/5 | An encounter with the Keepers can easily end in your death, if you hear a knock on the stone, get out as soon as possible. |
Guards
The Keepers of the Fortress are the animated statues of knights who inhabit and maintain the Fortress, treating sentient beings as pests. They tirelessly patrol the corridors, taking the lives of all who cross their paths.
Structure and Behavior
Since the Keepers are living statues made of sturdy materials such as stones and bronze, most weapons are ineffective at taking them down. Despite the heavy material the Keepers are made of, they move freely and swiftly as if they weighed nothing. Their movements are like that of a human wearing heavy armor. The weaponry of each Keeper varies. Some wield swords, halberds, maces, spears and other edged or blunt weapon of solid marble or bronze, while others wield weapons made of standard materials that use moving parts, such as wooden long bows and crossbows made of crimson wood, or flails.
Each Keeper differs in size ranging from just smaller than average humans to 3 meters tall. The larger Keepers sometimes struggle to move in the compact Fortress rooms. However, most of the larger Keepers roam the gardens where there is more room to move. Any Keepers with helmet designs that would reveal the face of the one wearing them instead show a blank slate.
As previously stated, Keepers do not tolerate the presence of sentient beings. They make no distinction between outsiders like me, or between sapient creatures such as the Enchromes and brutally kill anyone they find. If these sculptures do their work, the victim remains will be placed in an opening niche in the nearest wall, then disappear without a trace. When not hunting, the Keepers repair any damage to the Fortress. During this process, the Keepers kneel, all passages to the room are closed, and after a couple of minutes, the Keepers will leave the fully repaired room. Keepers are only able to restore objects within the rooms they are repairing. As an example, Keepers are not able to repair the furniture of a dining room if the furniture has been taken out of the room. If the furniture is destroyed in the dining room, the Keepers will be able to repair the furniture. In case the Keepers have nothing to do, they will stand up and take the form of a statue while waiting.
Keepers do not appear to have intelligence, instead they act like mindless automatons following the programs. This is most evident in their actions towards certain things. For example, taking shelter where Keepers can’t reach will cause the Keepers to try and pluck you out of the room or wait endlessly until you leave your shelter. Some Keepers have been found already damaged, with no trace of who did it, and some Keepers have fallen apart before your eyes for no apparent reason.
It is still unknown who or what is enabling the Keepers to move. However, the one of true theoriees is that the Keepers are like the immune system of the Fortress for which all have not arrived with it in the Transitional Forest are an infection that must be destroyed.
Counteracting
Because of their structure, it may be unclear to many how a living stone or a piece of bronze that has no organs or nervous system can be destroyed.
The most effective way to fight the Keepers is with explosives. Logical that fragmentation and other explosives used against living force are innafective, but explosives used for demolition or mining can easily destroy Keepers, but considering the technology level in both the Fortress and the Forest, you will only have access to primitive black powder ones. Heavy blunt objects such as hammers or maces are also effective tools to destroy the Keepers. Also, many Enchromes handled the Keepers by pushing them off the high ground or dropping them with their feet tied beforehand. All of these methods, except explosives, are only effective against Keepers carved out of stone. The Keeper will continue to act as long as his torso is intact, and if it loses its head, it will lose the ability to hear and see.
Use
As previously stated, the Keepers are statues, so if they are destroyed they can be disassembled into materials. Many sculptors, builders and masons will pay you generously for large fragments of Keeper's stone. Enchromes employed in metallurgy and blacksmithing will pay you for all the bronze you can get from the Keeper as are the enchromes-ritualists, although the presence of special properties in Keeper body materials is still in question. The Research Society of House Album offers a high reward for an intact Keeper for further research.