Aldermark
Aldermark is an old continent with a young name. Under it, deeper than any mine, burns the Ember: the buried fire the First Lanterns found when the world was still cooling. They built their orders on it, lit their lamps from it, and when the Choir came, things that wore borrowed voices and sang the living into their mouths, it was the Ember's heat, salt, and iron that sealed them away in nine prisons the Lanterns called the Silences.
That was six hundred years ago. The Lantern Orders dwindled to a few abbeys and shrines. The Silences became barrows and drowned bells and locked doors under mountains that nobody remembered locking.
Now the Ember is guttering. The seals are failing, one by one, north to south. And somebody, somewhere, is helping them.
The Unsealing
Six hundred years ago the Lantern Orders sealed the Choir, voice-thieving things that sang the living into their mouths, inside nine Silences scattered across Aldermark. The seals were salt, iron, and the Ember, the buried fire under the world. The Ember is failing. The Silences are opening, north to south, and each one you close brings you nearer to whoever is opening them.
- 1The Whispering Barrow · The GreymoorA moor village, a singing mound, and the first seal to fail.
- 2The Drowned Bell · The Salt CoastA flooded harbour city, a cult that worships the tide, and a bell that rings under the sea.
- 3The Cold Choir · The Ashen PeaksThe last Lantern abbey, a Deep Road under the snow, and the hand behind the unsealing.
- 4The Remembering Wood · The WealdThe forest that keeps every voice it has ever heard, and the two Silences it hides.
- 5The Hollow Court · The HeartlandsThe old capital, a market that sells voices, and the man who has served nine kings.
- 6The Glass Vault · The Glass ReachA desert fused to glass, a caravan of stolen voices, and a vault the Lantern Orders erased from their maps.
- 7The Cinder Choir · The Sunder IslesA volcano, a pirate fleet, the last two Silences, and the last of the Ember's fire.
Regions and places
The Greymoor
Sheep country at the edge of the world, all peat and drystone and wind. Hallowmere is its largest village, which is not saying much.
- villageHallowmere· A moor village of shepherds, a chapel bell, and one stubborn reeve.
- dungeonThe Whispering BarrowSilence· The first of the Silences to fail. A burial mound that learned to sing.
- landmarkThe Sheepfold Stones· Seven leaning slabs older than any wall in the moor.
- townHighwater· A market town where the moor road meets the river. Wool goes out, everything else comes in.
- landmarkThe Tinker's Rest· A burned cart in a fold of the moor, where the tinker who taught Hallowmere its song stopped for good.
The Salt Coast
Harbours, fisheries, smugglers' coves, and the flooded city of Saltmarch, which the sea has been reclaiming a street at a time for a century.
- townSaltmarch· A harbour city on stilts and causeways, half of it underwater at high tide. Loud, wet, and for sale.
- templeThe Drowned ShrineSilence· A Lantern shrine the sea took a hundred years ago. Its bell still rings under the water.
- landmarkGullwatch Light· A lighthouse on a spit of rock, kept by the last Lantern keeper on the coast.
- townDunmere· A fishing town and the last stop on the Trade Road before Saltmarch.
- wildWreckers' Cove· Where the tide-cult meets and the wrecks wash in.
The Ashen Peaks
Snow, silence, and the last true Lantern abbey. Under the peaks run the Deep Roads the Stonekin cut and abandoned.
- villageThornpass· The last village below the snowline. Mule traders, a smithy, and a very tired inn.
- templeLantern Abbey· The last true house of the Lantern Orders, built over the mouth of a Deep Road.
- dungeonThe Deep RoadSilence· A Stonekin highway under the mountains, sealed at its heart. The third Silence.
- townKarrek Dun· A Stonekin hold cut into the eastern face of the peaks. Its gates have been shut for a generation.
- landmarkWidow's Step· A rope bridge over a gorge that has earned its name several times.
- ruinIronvow Pass· A border outpost on the western pass, overrun in a single night and never garrisoned again.
- townStonefist Hold· An Ironblood clan hold above the snowline, built around a fighting ring older than its walls.
The Heartlands
Farms, market towns, and the river roads that carry everything to Ostenmere, the old capital.
- townOstenmere· The old capital, climbing its hill in rings. A city that has learned to trade in gestures.
- dungeonThe Old Mint· Windowless, by the river. It no longer mints coin. Under it, the Voice-Market.
- templeThe Hollow Court· A Lantern abbey the kings took for a palace. Every courtier speaks with one voice.
- dungeonThe WellSilence· A dry well under the throne room with a Lantern door on it. The sixth Silence.
- villageKing's Ford· Where the river road crosses the Aldwater. Ferrymen, drovers, a wayshrine, and more geese than people.
- landmarkThe Collegium· The river-university of the Heartlands, where magisters are made and some books are kept from them.
- templeDawnwatch· The eastern chapels of the Dawn, strung along a ridge road. Their bells have been silent for a year.
The Weald
A forest older than the roads, where the trees remember and travellers are advised not to.
- ruinThe Weald GateSilence· Two stone pillars and no wall. The forest begins behind them. The fourth Silence, the Threshold, sleeps in the salt line between them.
- villageHushing· A Sylvan village grown rather than built, where nobody has spoken aloud in six hundred years.
- wildThe Echo Glades· Clearings under split oaks where the wood gives back every voice it has kept.
- landmarkThe Hollow OakSilence· A tree the size of a keep, hollow as a bell. The fifth Silence, the Heartwood, sleeps in its column.
- ruinAshwood· A Sylvan village at the Weald's northern edge. Burned more than a year ago, every door clawed open.
The Glass Reach
Dunes fused to glass by some fire nobody wrote down. Caravan cities cling to its edge.
- townMirrash· A caravan city at the edge of the glass dunes. Guides, salt, water, and goggles pushed up on every head.
- wildThe Sleeping Dune· A dune of glass that has not moved in six hundred years. It sings at night.
- dungeonThe Buried VaultSilence· Under the Sleeping Dune, over a shaft to the Ember. The seventh Silence was sealed with the fire itself.
- landmarkThe Glass Shore· Where the glass runs into the sea. Ships put in here that put in nowhere else.
- campThe Midreach Wells· The last water on the old caravan road across the Reach.
- ruinAmmar· The last town in the Reach when the Reach was sand, burned with it and struck from every map. The wind uncovered its lamp-tower when the Sleeping Dune sang.
The Sunder Isles
A scatter of volcanic islands off the southern coast, and the pirates who claim them.
- townTallow· The fleet's haven on the flank of the Cinder. Tar, fish, sulphur, and forty captains.
- wildCinder IsleSilence· A volcano the pirates use as a lighthouse. Under it, two doors, one over the other: the last two Silences.
- dungeonThe Sea-CaveSilence· On the Cinder Isle's north shore. The lower door is under it; the sea is its salt.
- villageSkerrow· A low isle of ash and salt-pans south-west of Tallow, beyond the reef the fleet calls the Teeth. Forty salt-boilers, and an old Lantern beacon on a stack off its shore.
Module authors: name your place: lines after these places and they light up on the world map. See the module guide.