POST №3 About the town on upper Wendwater, the river, Kingswood and some town names.
As I mentioned in my first post, I propose having a small town on upper Wendwater, on the side of Stormlands, where Kingsroad crosses the river, because town here feels logical. I have some more thoughts for this suggested town.
First of all, it is quite a young town in history of Westeros. It grew only in last 300 years, after the Conquest and establishment of the Targaryen dynasty. Before that, the forest, today known as Kingswood, was much bigger, densely covering Wendwater banks and Northern Stormlands. Only a few settlements were scattered here. Stormlanders hadn't colonised the region, because, in my opinion, the old "Kingswood" was quite an unpleasant land for cultivation. In addition to being a dense forest, I suggest that Kingswood should have some swamps as well, as the forest lies in a lowland. especially at the western bank of lower Wendwater. But most importantly, there was no trade routes encouraging people to settle here (in my opnion, the road from Bronzegate westwards, to the Reach, including southern offshot to the Marches, existed from old times, leaving old "Kingswood" aside). As such, old "Kingswood" served largely as a natural northern border of the Kingdom of the Storm, remaining largely a wild, unsettled area. (But its southern and eastern outskirts around Felwood, Haystack and Sweetport were already in process of slow-paced clearing and colonisation. Remember, that in most ancient days Kingswood and Rainwood were two edges of one giant forest, covering most of the Stormlands. So, the large-scale clearing and settlement started around southeastern part of Northern Stormlands and gradually expanded in the northern, western and (to lesser extent) southern directions, dividing the primeval forest into two: Kingswood and Rainwood, leaving only forested uplands and patches of forest between).
The whole situation changed drastically after the Conquest and, more concretically, after the establishment of King's Landing as new socio-economic centre of Westeros. KL from the start became a "magnet" for trade, and so, many new trade routes appeared. For Stormlands it largely meant the two: the Kingsroad was cleared through the Kingswood to directly connect KL and Stormlands; and Wendwater became a valuable river route to supply evergrowing population of KL with agricultural products from Northern Stormlands. This quickly sparkled the colonisation of the region (old "Kingswood" and Wendwater). However, this struggled with new legal realities. As the new border between Stormlands and Crownlands was established largely on Wendwater course, the old "Kingswood" was largely devided into two legally different parts. The bigger, Crownlands', part of the forest became the King's wood, the Royal property, and clearing and settlement were largely prohibited here. While the smaller part, on the other side of Wendwater, that remained in Stormlands, had no such laws prohibiting clearing and settlement. Collision between economic interests and legal realities led to colonisation of upper Wendwater, but only on Stormlands' side of the river. A not big town quickly grew on the place, where Kingsroad crossed Wendwater and bridge was built, serving as trading point, where goods were loaded on cargo boats for shipment to KL, as well as market on Stormlands' Kingsroad, closest to KL. On actual WC map, I suppose there can be a big wooden bridge and contrast between Crownlands' and Stormlands' banks of the Wendwater, with dense forest and the town with cultivated surroundings on the respective sides.
I have several naming ideas for this town, as well for some other towns in Stormlands. For the town on the upper Wendwater I propose following name suggestions: 1. Oryston (or Orysbridge) in honour of the first Baratheon to rule Stormlands; 2. [Targaryenname]'s Bridge (or Town), renamed to Robertsbridge (or Robertstown) after the end of Targaryen rule (and is named so currently); 3. Just Kingsbridge, as it stands on Kingsroad. All the names are connected to the towns location on the very border of Crownlands and Stormlands and indicate complex relations between Targaryens and Baratheons.
For the inland town in Storm's End lands, the biggest town in Northern Stormlands I propose following names: 1. Durranton (nuff said); 2. Durrangard; 3. Stormsgard/Stormgard. The ending -gard is largely to indicate some olden and Eastern European (ending -grad/grod would be too much explicit Slavic, while -gard is more universal Germano-Slavic) character of Stormlands, as well as etymologically deriving from meaning of "guarded from storms", as the town is built away from the coast specifically to be safe from the storms ravaging the coastland.
For the town with small port near Griffen's Roost that I proposed I suggest just name it Connington, named after the lords of Griffen's Roost (or vice versa, the house is named after the town). The town remains named Connington despite it isn't controlled by Conningtons anymore.
I personally prefer Robertsbridge, Stormsgard/Stormgard and Connington.
See the map in the first post for towns location,
alrighty.
