The World
Notes toward a general geography, compiled from the surviving sources.
The Banner-lands
One continent, shaped — the old charts agree on this much — like a kidney. To the west and south lies the Sleeping Sea; few ships that make for deep water return, and the wise trade along the coasts. To the east and north stand the Silent Mountains, and beyond them nothing certain — only rumors of “the houseless.” At the heart of the continent lie the Ash Fields.
The Light Heights
High, silent valleys in the northwest, where goatherds keep their flocks and House Whitehart keeps the Bell of Silence. It is a country that listens. Book One begins there.
The seat of power
The seat of power carries three disputed names — Ederhamn · Elvestad · Ederstad — never resolved, never translated. The sources disagree, and the sources are all we have.
The Tenfold Compact
Sworn in the year 0, at the end of the War of the Unification. Every year since has been counted from it. The oath bound the Great Houses to one realm, and the realm has held — by one measure or another — for nearly four centuries.
The coming jubilee
The 400-year jubilee of the Unification is four years away. Across the Banner-lands, House Blackcrest gathers the realm’s testimony for the occasion.
The rivers
The rivers of the Banner-lands go unnamed in this archive. The charts never agree.
Where the sources disagree, the disagreement is kept.