Thornhollow Fields
A ranked 5v5 capture-the-flag battleground fought in a walled hollow in the old growth below Thornpeak, where two ruined keeps face each other down the length of a ravine and an older courtyard sits between them that neither has ever held. Two teams of five, two keeps, one goal: steal the enemy banner and run it home before they run yours.
Queueing up
Thornhollow Fields opens at level 20, and every member of a party has to meet it before the party can queue. Open the PvP button and pick the Thornhollow Fields tab, which is the one it opens on, then enter the queue solo, or bring a party of up to five and queue together: parties are always kept on one team, and the remaining seats fill with solo champions. When ten stand ready, the match seats both teams at their keeps for a short form-up before the flags go live. If a group of four or five would otherwise face nothing but solo queuers, the matchmaker holds the match briefly to see whether a second group turns up, so a party that size sometimes waits a few moments longer before the gates open. That wait is short and always gives way in the end, so nobody is left sitting in the queue for it.
The field
A walled, open-air field carved into three chambers: each team has its own field before its keep, and the walled Ruin Courtyard sits between them. Two curtain walls span the full width, and every move between chambers passes a contested crossing: the wide main gate, or the gatehouse, a small room straddling the wall whose offset doors force a jog past an ambush corner. Each keep is sealed except its mouth, so every flag run starts and ends through the same opening, and a low barricade breaks the straight charge into it. The courtyard holds the hollow heart ruin and the two flank Sprint Runes; the other two wait on the flag approaches. A Battle or Ward Rune (more damage dealt, or less damage taken, for a few seconds) waits at each main gate's courtyard mouth: both pads open the match on the same face and flip with every claim.
Flags
Each keep holds its team flag. Take the enemy flag and carry it to your own stand to score; the first team to three captures wins, and a timed-out battle resolves on score. A slain carrier drops the flag where they fell: an enemy can take it up again, while its own team returns it home instantly just by reaching it. The flag also refuses to hide: picking it up breaks stealth, and a carrier who turns invisible by any means drops it on the spot.
Falling in battle
Death keeps the classic rite: your corpse lies where it fell until YOU release, and the spirit rises in the fenced graveyard beside your keep, warded there until your team's next respawn wave. The wave raises every waiting spirit together, and the two team waves are deliberately staggered, so the fight never fully resets at once. There is no corpse run and no Spirit Healer bargain: release, wait out the wave, fight.
Carrying the flag
A carrier who holds the enemy flag too long grows more and more vulnerable, taking ever-increasing damage until the flag is captured, dropped, or returned. Hiding with the flag is a losing plan; running it home is the winning one.
What a match pays
Every finished match pays Honor: more for a win, a consolation for a loss or a draw, plus a small amount for every killing blow you land and every one you help with, so fighting away from the flags is still worth doing. Your first win of each day pays a bonus on top, and the panel tells you while that bonus is still waiting for you. That day is Honor's own, and it rolls over on its own clock rather than with the realm's instance reset. Meeting the same team over and over pays less for the match itself after the first, quickly settling at a floor instead of falling away to nothing, and a forfeited match pays nothing at all. Spend what you earn at either Warfare quartermaster.
Leaving early, and filling an empty seat
Quitting a match under way is deserting it, and a rated ladder cannot reward pulling the plug on a losing scoreline: a deserter takes the loss and the rating that goes with it there and then, drops the flag if they were carrying it, and their team fights on a player short. That last part is what the empty seat is for. While a match is short a fighter, the queue can offer the chair to somebody waiting, and it is always an offer you accept or decline rather than a teleport that happens to you; declining costs you nothing and passes it to the next in line. Only solo queuers are asked, so a party that queued together is never split up to fill a hole.
The ladder
Every match moves a persistent per-character battleground rating, win or lose, and the all-time board ranks the realm champions.