Watches in the east

Far to the Shadow Elves' east, two caverns serve to connect the Gilfyn and Sojourner rivers. Together the caves detour around the Lost Souls. The Sojourner river is in the text; the Gilfyn is not.

In the map, the northwest corner of Starpoint underlies Alfheim. In the text, the shadowelves don't get there from here: they get there from Losetrel's route to northwestern Darokin. As for the dwarves, that connexion is more-canonical. Rastignac guards the Alfmyr mines from Rockhome, on that main Sojourner approach. More exactly, this village supplies the secret lookouts, unmarked on the map. The dwarves remain (officially) ignorant of the elven kingdom here, and this strategic arrangement ensures that lie. Rastignac's defence is in the Shards southwest, and eight miles of almost solid rock north.

The text's omissions are understandable - for Rastignac. This is all VERY out of the way from the City's perspective. As I said, Rastignac is canonical-enough. That yuuge cavern south of that is another question.

One possibility has the southern cave's elves face east. Here, Saulia was the watergate; Jeredor is the town square, and Noran is a frontier village. The elves here struggle uphill against the Reaches of Salandria. For this orientation's Saulia I say "was" because there's no real need for it to be walled anymore. Assumed is that Elmglow is a thriving farm-community. That there's nothing wrong with the desert called "Lost Souls" north of the woods.

If however we orient this cavern's elves westward, then Noran and Jeredor are not the frontier - the Ilrondal lake is the frontier. Saulia is this cave's active line of defence.

I prefer that the cavern face west, against the Lost Souls. The next question is, do the mainline shadow elves own it; or do rebels own it - starting with the lost clan but maybe even surface agents. It's all far enough away we can't rule rebels out.

If not under City command, the caves can be pushed further east - in which case, Rastignac would come under dispute, and we'd be tempted to add another cave between Alfmyr and Rastignac, more firmly under the army. If mainline I don't know if the routes between the City and these caverns are wide enough that the City can post and rotate many skinwings. The mainline option further constrains how far east we can push these caves. My investigation doesn't take sides on which elves, except to generalise the inhabitants as elves.

The Starpoint terraforming so far has ensured that the region is self-sustaining, plus enough to feed an armed defence. The Delnador Flow between Joran and Jeredor is the "civilised" part of the cave.

Over the south Gilfyn, Narfrendal's Krak (crag?) is a freestanding watchtower. This implies the elves don't much dare the Salandria "reaches" along the Gilfyn southeast. If there be sentient aliens here, I'd look to the geonids. Whatever be here haven't conflicted with the elves, nor really communicated with them at all.

I assume this cave has mines not noted in the map. More metallic than crystal, since crystal would get noted.