Grayrock

Attention: Fable Legends Content This article contains information mainly related to Fable Legends and is considered canon to such game. Due to Fable Legends’ cancelation on 7th March 2016, its canonicity status within the Fable series is uncertain.

Attention: Novel Content This article or section contains information original to the novel Fable: Blood of Heroes, which is a licensed Fable work, but does not necessarily conform to Lionhead's Fable canon.

Grayrock is a town featured in the novel Fable: Blood of Heroes, and was the place of the main events of the novel.

Description

“

Grayrock was a pit. Literally. — Glory's description of the town

”

Before its destruction, Grayrock was town located northeast of Brightlodge, and has been the greatest mining town in all Albion history.

After its foundation, many generations of quarry workers had dug the town deeper and deeper into the base of the mountain where it was located in order to supply Albion with bricks, cobblestones and high-quality throwing stones.

As Grayrock was founded right next to a river, the city had to build a dam to avoid being flooded by the waters that constantly threatened to.

The mining work was so intense that the town was almost depleted of any color, as the gray dust originated from the mines covered the entire region, and by the time of the novel, one of Grayrock’s main landscapes was an odd tree made of stone in the middle of the town.

Story

Grayrock was founded centuries before the events of Blood of Heroes by the hero William Grayrock, who, at the time, was called William Fisher, but changed his name after a pike took his line and pulled him onto the water, dragged him upriver until he could swim to the shore. The place where he got out of the river was where Grayrock was founded. William’s first act as a mayor was to declare pike illegal in his city. Later he would be the one to plant the tree in the middle of the town.

William’s rule over the town would only end with his death. Having departed to try to kill the cannibal witch Yog, William would be mortally wounded, but not without cursing the witch first. William’s curse would prevent the witch in absorbing the power of any hero she might consume in the future, which was a habit she had, and, as his curse was related to his own blood and life, for as long as his descendants lived within the walls of Grayrock - his home - his bloodline and memory would linger, keeping the witch’s curse strong.

Legends said that before dying, William was somehow able to bury a magic treasure somewhere in the city, and many centuries later, the search of such would result in the destruction of the town.

After William’s death, his many descendants would populate the town, and centuries later, almost everyone in Grayrock was somehow related to his blood, thus keeping his curse as strong as ever. The townsfolk even built a small shrine for the deceased founder in the woods nearby.

Fable: Blood of Heroes

Centuries after the foundation of the town, heroes had finally started to appear in greater numbers, and then Yog, having already developed a plan to lift her curse, started to put it in course.

The mayor of Grayrock at the time, a selfish man, was manipulated by Skye, a nymph servant of Yog, into believing that the supposed treasure that William buried was located below the dam. The mayor fell for it and started to recruit miners to dig and soon a tunnel was created below the dam. Yog sent other of her servants there, Headstrong, an ogre, to watch the digging site and prevent the workers to stop digging. At least four miners tried to escape and were killed, their deaths were covered by the mayor as “suicides” of stress.

Yog’s real intention was to have the digging to damage the dam’s structure so it would burst and the town would then be flooded and the citizens forced to move out of Grayrock, ending William’s legacy and with that, lifting her curse for good. To avoid having her plan messed up by heroes that could show up there, Yog had Skye capture a boy, Ben, and turned him into a wooden doll, using it to force his sister, Greta in spying the town and any hero that could appear.

The heroes, after arriving in the town and uncovering Yog’s intentions of flooding the town, but yet not knowing about her curse, were able to stop the digging under the dam and rescue Ben, riding Greta of the burden of having to work for Yog.

The heroes were also able to determine that if such treasure existed, it couldn’t have been buried by William below the dam, as the dam was built way after his death. Instead, the treasure was buried under the stone tree in the middle of Grayrock, and after digging there, they found a stone chest and inside of it, a doll also made of stone.

This stoned-doll was Kas, Yog’s husband, who was accidentally turned into a wooden doll when Yog was trying to kill William after being cursed. The wooden doll Kas was captured by William’s descendants and buried under the tree that William had planted in the town. Fearing to rot, Kas turned himself into stone, but his spell also turned the chest and the tree to stone.

Kas lied to the heroes saying that he was a friend of William, and that Yog was after him. With this, a magical storm, sent by Yog, started to rain over Grayrock, turning everyone who got soaked into greencaps, creatures that after a while would become redcaps.

In the climax of the battle against Yog’s redcap army, the heroes had to destroy the dam themselves so the creatures would drown. With this, Grayrock was flooded and the remaining populations forced to move, and with this, Yog’s curse was lifted.

After helping the survivors get to Brightlodge, the heroes parted to defeat the uncursed Yog. Even though they were betrayed by Kas, who was loyal to Yog all along, the heroes were able to send Ben, who was still a doll and also one of William’s descendants, back to the flooded Grayrock as he wouldn’t drown (cause dolls don’t breathe).

This strategy gave the heroes enough time to turn the tables, and even after Yog turned Ben back to human, forcing him to get out of the flood, lifting once again her curse, the heroes were able to kill the witch just outside of Grayrock.

After the battle, the already flooded Grayrock was even more destroyed, and the citizens decided to move out there for good. With this, Grayrock was abandoned and it’s existence forgotten over the years.

Trivia

• On the first fifty years after the foundation, the town was constantly flooded by the river, until a dam was built to prevent it from happening.
  • It would have been built sooner, but the records office where the mayors filed the drafts of the dam was one of the buildings being constantly flooded.

• Grayrock had a very unique yet chaotic political system after William Grayrock died, as no one there really known how to proper held elections or what a mayor should really do.
  • In the past, Mayor Floatsam became mayor after impeaching his mother with an axe.
  • Floatsam himself would be later removed from the power by enraged citizens armed with pitchforks and torches in a Recall Referendum.
  • Mayor Frankfort Snogsworth Mudwater III, the mayor during the time of the novel, was in charge for at least twenty one years, having earned the title after his father, who was also mayor, tallied himself the votes of the election.
  • After Frankfort’s reckless selfish actions which led to the death of the miners digging the dam and almost destruction of the town, the citizens tried to have the hero Sterling become mayor.
  • After Sterling rejected the proposal, the citizens tried to elect a chicken for the charge.
  • The last known mayor of Grayrock, before its destruction, was the hero Glory, who, unlike Sterling, accepted the role after throwing Frankfort, who was trying to recover his title, off a tower.