Stephen's Folly was the last and worst attempt to expand the kingdom of Rhen. After consolidating the four duchies the new kingdom had a string of conflicts both north and south. The rather narrow stretch of land to fight over in the south made for a very straightforward string of back and forth conflicts that ended with the admission that further expansion southward was a lost cause and the guardian towers were placed where they made the most sense.
In the north the conflicts were more complicated. The Kings Range mountains have a number of trade paths but only one large pass. Passholt features prominently here and has been razed and rebuilt, or claimed by groups from both sides of the mountains through its history. Likewise there was at two points a northern duke appointed centered in what is now a flat stretch of farmland just north of the main pass. Neither lasted long, and for one of them their “capitol” never progressed past the first crude structure.
Stephens Folly, was led by King Stephen and the basic plan was to feint for the pass but take boats across the bay. The folly first comes in where the core assumption was that the northern Orcs and tribesmen were somehow going to dig in at the north end of the pass and happily wait to be outflanked. The feint was successful, partly because it was indeed a well armed supply caravan that was intended to resupply the victorious king. But unfortunately the northerners were not so stupid as to be completely blind to the movement of troops across the bay and those troops were being moved by far too few boats at far too lazy a pace. In the end the northern forces were able to reverse the feint and then split their forces, harassing the kings forces until eliminating them against a shore with no boats to take them home. Then also crushing that resupply convoy and sacking passholt one more time.