“This sacred tale is full of gaps. It has been told from teacher to student for generations, and in each retelling, the teacher kept some small part of it secret. This is called the teller’s portion: every teller who has ever held the mantle has kept back a portion for themselves, such that every succeeding generation has less of the tale than the last, and therefore can access less of its power. It is said that one day the tale will diminish to such a point that it will lose all power and meaning—a new tale will be told then, and the world will begin anew.”
— The Book of Days
Before anything was, there existed only cold and long night. When light bloomed and the many worlds were born they refracted from a single point, and for a time were all one. Now, long after, the numerous worlds are dispersed; separate; but there are times and places where the edges blur, patterns that bring about echoes and reflections of other domains.
Sahrfri
also called terra firma, the fundament, or earth.
The earth we walk on once lived. A great hot beast, breathing out fire and molten rock, its constant yearning was to reach the stars. This was before all living. Now we New People have come, and the world has gone to sleep. But in its dream it thinks of life and stirs, and tries to once again shape itself into the form of the living.
We are not the first to live here—there were ages before the ages we know. Of them, little is known. Some Old People (for we are New Persons) still live, though they are rarely seen. From them a few stories have been gleaned, but even their kind wonder at what came before.
Our history goes back to the first red age, heralded by the discovery of the first cardinal stone: the ruby of Umber Hill. This marks the beginning of the historical record, about 4000 years ago.
Staying grounded
- Rivers, roads
- Cities and farms
- Domesticated animals
The Wood
also called the weald, the copse, or the deep forest.
Cities have no name for me: they are places without leaves, separating The Wood from itself. We draw no such distinctions. What line is there that distinguishes between inside and out? What separates the rumble of cart wheels from the howls of wolves?
The Wood is not one forest, but all forests. It is the ideal. Denizens of the Wood largely care not for the ways of Sahrfri, though sometimes show interest in individuals or small communities. Its various peoples, creatures, and forces have long shaped the history of our world, as we have shaped theirs. The Wood is the spirit of all forests, and they in turn are its flesh, and the life they support a sign of its health.
Other things lurk in the deepest part of the Wood—things that have lived too long, things distorted by time and shadow. Colloquially they are known as demons; reciprocally they both hunt and are hunted by the fieldwardens, who travel further than any would otherwise dare, to find and excise their rotten hearts.
Patterns of the wood
- Tall trees, dense foliage
- Getting lost
- Deer, bears
- Enclosed meadows
Denizens
- Demons
- The Lady of Winter
- The Lord of Winter(?)
The Roots
also called the dark, the hollows, or ‘way down below’.
The roots are not just another strata, they are another world entirely. No one knows how deep they extend; layer upon layer of history long forgotten. Rumors abound of the wonders buried deep below the earth, of forgotten cities and oceans of salt, of gates to unknown places and life unlike anything that walks upon land. Of horrors, too; of eyeless face and razor tooth.
Rumors they remain, for it is easy to lose one’s way in the dark.
Signs and symbols in the dark
- Cavernous spaces
- Deep shadows
- Magma, metal
- Bats, olms
The Winds
also called Aeolia, the vault, or “on high”.
Heaven’s ebon vault
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world.
We have always looked up at the sky and wondered. As far back as there is record, there have been tales of floating castles, wish-granting birds, and beings traveling among the clouds. If any could answer, it would be the Harp—or perhaps the people of Uisgetaigh—but conclusive proof eludes.
Tidings upon the winds
- Large birds
- Sun and moon(s), stars
- Favorable breezes, great heights
- Arrows
- Sylphs, moths
The Abyss
also called the deeps, bathús. or ‘what lies beneath’.
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,—
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea
It is believed that some of the first beings came from the abyss: swimmers in the vast sea of stars, who found their way through darkness to the blue waters of Sahrfri. They brought with them knowledge from far away worlds, and passed it to those who would leave the sea to walk upon land.
Invocations of the abyss
- Deep water
- Whales, sharks
- Absolute dark
- Shadows beneath the surface