splinter-keep/session/world.md

# The World

## The Realm

_A land bleeding at the seams._

The Realm was not always broken. Once, it was a province of the Old Kingdom — a fertile valley ringed by grey mountains, ruled by a line of kings whose names have rotted out of memory. The Old Kingdom fell three centuries ago, not to war or famine, but to a **tear in the sky**. No scholar agrees on what caused it. Some say the king's sorcerers dug too deep. Some say a star fell and cracked the world. Some say the gods simply left, and without them the fabric of reality went slack.

What remains is a land where **wild magic surges** roll across the moors like weather. Where time loops in sunken glades. Where the dead sometimes forget to stay dead. The old roads still hold, but travel between settlements means gambling with the Chaotic — the ambient instability that warps flesh, memory, and landscape alike.

### The Calendar & Sky

The Realm keeps time by the **Chime**, a distant bell-toll that rings at dawn and dusk from no tower anyone can find. The sun rises amber and sets green. Two moons hang overhead — **Luna** (bright, pocked, always full) and the **Splinter** (a jagged shard of what was once a second moon, trailing dust that glows on clear nights). Star charts are useless; the constellations shift every few years.

### Known History

| Age | Events |
|-----|--------|
| **The Old Kingdom** (?? — 300 years ago) | A prosperous realm of nine duchies. Stone circles, chalk roads, and underground vaults date from this era. Magic was orderly, taught in academies. |
| **The Sundering** (300 years ago) | The sky tore. The king's castle vanished overnight — just a crater left, bedrock still warm. Half the population was lost in the first year. Reality became porous. |
| **The Bleed** (300 — 100 years ago) | Two centuries of chaos. Monsters poured from rifts. The old nobility died off. Settlements walled themselves in. The chalk circle network was discovered/rediscovered. |
| **The Present** (last 100 years) | A fragile equilibrium. The Keep rose as a de facto capital. The Empire sniffed at the borders. The Darkmal began spawning beasts in the deep wilds. People rebuilt, but the land remembers. |

## The Keep

_A muddy fist of a town, walled and wary._

The Keep started as a refugee camp after the Sundering — a natural choke point where two rivers meet beneath a granite outcrop. A warlord threw up a palisade, then a stone wall, then a second wall. Now it holds roughly two thousand souls, packed into crooked timber-and-stone buildings that lean into each other like drunks.

**First thing you notice:** the smell. Woodsmoke, wet wool, horse dung, and something metallic underneath — the tang of Chaotic residue that clings to anything brought in from the wilds.

**Second thing:** the bells. The Keep has seven bells — dawn, noon, dusk, market open, market close, gate open, gate close. They ring at odd intervals and never quite harmonize.

**Third thing:** the look in people's eyes. Half hopeful, half haunted. Everyone here is either fleeing something or looking for something.

### Districts

- **The Gut** — lower town, packed earth streets, tanneries and cheap taverns. Where the Splintered Tankard sits.
- **The Crown** — upper town, cobbled streets, the old garrison, a tiny temple, a few stone houses of well-off merchants (including Jaggard's).
- **The Market Square** — between Gut and Crown, open-air, a permanent scrum of stalls, pickpockets, and rumour-mongers. The notice board is nailed to a dead oak at the centre.
- **The Warren** — a slum of lean-tos and caves pressed against the eastern wall. Not lawless — the Watch goes in pairs — but close to it.
- **The Underkeep** — old cellars and sewers beneath the town. No official map exists. Every so often something comes up from below.

### The Splintered Tankard

A two-storey tavern built around the stump of an enormous black tree. The taproom is low-ceilinged, smoke-stained, warm. Mistress **Otta Venn** runs it — a broad woman in her fifties with one good eye and a no-nonsense manner. She was an adventurer once; she still wears a curved knife at her belt.

**Menu:** Thick barley stew (2 copper), bread and cheese (1 copper), roasted root vegetables (3 copper), the Tankard's Special (unknown, 5 silver — changes daily based on what Otta finds).
**Drink:** Water (free), weak ale (1 copper), strong ale (3 copper), mead (1 silver), "something Otta won't name" (3 silver — might be hallucinogenic).
**Rooms:** 3 silver a night, includes breakfast. Shared room (dirt floor, straw pallets) is 5 copper.

### Services

| Service | Location | Details |
|---------|----------|---------|
| **Splintered Tankard** | The Gut, Tankard Alley | Inn, meals, gossip, storage |
| **Weber's Smithy** | Market Square, west edge | Weapons, tools, horseshoes. Weber is a hunchbacked man who talks to his hammer. |
| **Temple of the Echo** | The Crown, bell tower | A single priest, **Mother Alda**, tends a silent flame. No official god — she says she tends "the listening silence." Heals for donations. |
| **The Guild Hall** | The Crown, old garrison building | Board of Trade meets here. Also the Watch headquarters upstairs. |
| **Fenna's Curios** | Market Square, north corner | A cramped shop of salvaged Chaos-touched oddities. Fenna is a twitchy woman with too many rings. |
| **Grain & Salt** | Market Square, granary | Bulk supplies, rations, feed. Run by a consortium of farmers. |

### Notable NPCs

| Name | Role | Notes |
|------|------|-------|
| **Mistress Otta Venn** | Innkeep, Splintered Tankard | Former adventurer, one eye, wears a curved knife. Knows everyone worth knowing. |
| **Weber** | Smith | Hunchback, talks to his hammer. Does good work. Hard of hearing. |
| **Mother Alda** | Priest, Temple of the Echo | Elderly, serene, blind. The silent flame in her temple never flickers. |
| **Fenna** | Curio dealer | Twitchy, wears too many rings. Her shop smells of dust and ozone. |
| **Captain Rekke** | Watch captain | A tired woman with a scarred face. Does her best with too few guards. |
| **Jaggard** | Rich merchant | Well-dressed, cold eyes. Holds a grudge against Dillion. Lives in The Crown. |
| **Lark** | Errand boy, stable hand | A scrawny kid who knows every shortcut in the Keep. Can be hired for a few coppers. |
| **Rina** | Locksmith (companion) | Gaunt, sharp-tongued. Hired to crack a chest at the mill, ambushed and left for dead. Indebted to Dillion. Equipped with light crossbow, dagger, padded leather vest. Skilled in locks and traps. |

## Beyond the Walls

_Chaos hasn't swallowed everything — but it's winning._

### The Roads

Three main roads leave the Keep:

| Road | Destination | Condition |
|------|-------------|-----------|
| **The King's Road (east)** | Toward the coast and the old capital crater | Best maintained, patrolled (sporadically). Several hamlets and farmsteads along it. |
| **The Old Pilgrim Road (north)** | Into the hills, past abandoned monasteries | Overgrown in places. Strange lights at night. Hermits and bandits. |
| **The Fen Road (southwest)** | Down into the marshlands and beyond | Muddy, treacherous. The marsh absorbs sound. Witchlights lead travellers astray. |

### Known Geography

| Region | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| **The Amber Hills** (north) | Rolling hills, old orchards gone wild, abandoned hill forts. Good hunting. Also home to wildlings and worse. |
| **The Weeping Marsh** (southwest) | A vast wetland of black water and standing stones. Mist clings year-round. Follow the witchlights and you disappear. |
| **The Ashwood** (east) | A forest of pale, leafless trees. The ground is ash-grey. Fires burned here once — or something else did. |
| **The Scar** (far east) | The crater where the Old Kingdom's capital once stood. Still warm. No one goes there. |
| **The Spine** (northwest) | The grey mountain range that borders the Realm. Old dwarf tunnels rumoured. Something rings like a hammer deep inside at night. |
| **The Deep Fens** (beyond the marsh) | Unmapped. The Wilds come from here, some say. The Darkmal's territory. |

### Factions at Play

| Faction | Agenda |
|---------|--------|
| **The Empire** | A powerful realm beyond the Spine. They claim the Old Kingdom was theirs once. Scouts have been seen on the passes. The Emperor wants the Realm's resources — and its secrets. |
| **The Reaper** | The Emperor's agent. A figure in a rust-red mask, seen in the Keep twice in the last year. Collecting something. Looking for a path to lichdom. |
| **The Huntswoman** | Works for the Reaper. Hunts weavers — those who practice arcane magic. Some say she's not human. |
| **The Wilds** | Feral humanoid packs from the deep wilderness. They're getting bolder. Raids on outlying farms have doubled this year. |
| **The Darkmal** | An entity (or force) in the deep wilds. It spawns beasts — warped creatures that serve its will. No one knows what it wants, only that it's growing. |
| **The Ghast** | Daughter of the Darkmal. Works against him. A rumour, mostly — no one in the Keep has met her. |
| **The Ancients** | A scattered cult that prophesied the Darkmal's coming. They believe the Paragon — a being buried somewhere in the Realm — can kill him. They're looking for it. |
| **The Guild of Weavers** | A secret network of magic-users. Illegal under Empire law, barely tolerated in the Keep. Weavers keep their heads down. |

### Arcane Traditions (Weavin')

Magic in the Realm is called **weavin'** — the act of pulling on the Chaotic threads of reality. It is **unpredictable, dangerous, and often illegal**. Practitioners (weavers) draw on one or more of six traditions:

| Tradition | Source | Risk |
|-----------|--------|------|
| **Wild Magicks** | Drawing raw Chaos from the environment | Surges, mutations, reality glitches |
| **Blood Magicks** | Using one's own life force | Physical exhaustion, permanent HP loss |
| **Bone Magicks** | Using remains or tokens of the dead | Attracts undead, spiritual attachment |
| **Storm Magicks** | Tying to weather and sky | Uncontrollable in calm weather |
| **Veil Magicks** | Dealing with spirits and the dead | Spirits can lie, possess, or follow |
| **Rune Magicks** | Inscribed, prepared in advance | Time-consuming, rigid |

The Huntswoman hunts weavers. The Reaper collects them. Most practice in secret.

### Rumours

| # | Rumour | Status |
|---|--------|--------|
| 1 | Old mill at Three Bridges clicks at night — gears turning on their own. Someone's been in there. | Resolved — creatures killed, chest looted, tunnel found |
| 2 | Merchant caravan on the Eastern road vanished. Cargo found intact. People gone. No tracks. | Active |
| 3 | Baron's hunters in the Amber Hills found a pit of bones. Pays silver for every skeleton brought back. | Active |

### Active Threads

- Dillion is a newcomer to the Keep. People don't know his face or his past yet.
- Jaggard the merchant is in the Keep. Their paths haven't crossed — yet.
- Mill job complete — 2 creatures killed, Rina rescued, iron chest looted (contents taken by hooded figures), tunnel discovered under the river. Need to report to Weber and gear up Rina for a return trip.
- Brass button crest (fist + gear) — inner Guild Hall circle. Leads on who hired Rina and took the chest contents.

## Lore Notes

- The Splintered Tankard's namesake black tree stump has a hollow centre. Otta keeps her private stock down there. She also hides a chalk circle — "for emergencies."
- Fenna's Curios is built over a sealed Underkeep entrance. She denies it.
- The bell tower of the Temple of the Echo predates the Keep. The seven bells were found, not forged.
- The name "Chaos" for the ambient instability was coined by a scholar named **Velden** eighty years ago. He was found dead in his locked study, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes turned to amber.