09The Story how the Hearthlanding came to be
Four peoples. Four elements. Each one wants the land, and you.
The rules the story never breaks
- Only the demon lord knew how to command a true gate, and his secret died with him. Nobody since, not the four, not the rogue mages, not players, can open one.
- The rupture was an accident: the rogue mages forced a broken gate without the secret, and it burst.
- Everything on the Hearthlanding was dragged there by the storm, or born there since. Nobody chose to come.
- Player portals and realm dungeons are not gates. Portals fold the Hearthlanding's own magic and never leave it; realm dungeons are wounds the rupture left.
- A faction's magic is learned only by carrying its mark, and only the opposite mark can cure it.
- No side is good and none is evil. Each wants the land.
I. Long ago: the first invasion
Long ago, an extremely powerful demon lord found a way to violate the laws of the universe, and sought to use that knowledge to conquer other worlds. He could not create gates like the great entryways to the heavens and the hells. To open his own "portals" he needed willing sacrifices. So he used a mortal pawn to begin his conquest, opened a gate into the living realms, and through that gate he poured a terrible invasion of fire.
He was defeated, but at a terrible cost. He had planned to conquer every existence, but he was no fool. He knew he was defying the laws of even the heavens and the hells, and that even if the chance was slight, he could lose. He needed this power to be his alone. So he bound his generals and commanders to his own life, so that with his death all of them, and all knowledge of how to work the gates, would be lost. When he died, they died with him, and the power to command the portals was lost for all eternity.
II. The forbidden ruins: the gates remain
The portals lay in ruin from the war, broken but not gone. The wise of that realm sealed the sites and forbade all who would enter them. But as with any rule, someone broke it. A group of knowledge-seeking rogue mages, wizards, shamans, necromancers and sorcerers secretly studied the gates, and at last they tried to power one again. They did not have the lost knowledge, and they had no willing sacrifice. So they did the only thing they could: they forced raw magic into a broken gate and hoped.
III. The rupture: the storm between worlds
The gate did not open. Without the demon lord's secret, it could not. It burst. Wild magic tore loose in a blast that split space and time, shattered realms and cracked whole dimensions apart. Ripples of wild magic raced outward like a storm with no eye, ripping creatures from every realm they touched and hurling them through, unwilling and unprepared. Entire planets and whole civilizations, beyond counting, across all of time, space and the universe, died in an instant. Many others were not so lucky.
IV. The refuge: the Hearthlanding
Mages from some of the stricken realms worked together as the storms raged. They raised the Hearthlanding, a land woven from magic, strong enough to weather the portal storms. It is where the survivors gathered. It is where we find ourselves now.
V. The four: everything here wants something
The storm did not only bring survivors. It brought four peoples that each want the Hearthlanding, and there is no good side and no evil one among them. Each wants to invade the land, infect whatever lives on it and infest the ground itself, and each is trying to stop the other three from doing the same.
- The Unliving. Demons, the risen dead and dead beasts. Fire and shadow magic.
- The Living. Angels, and the living peoples and beasts that follow the light. Ice and light magic.
- The Wilds. Dragons, were-beasts and the wild beasts that follow them. Stone and the natural elemental magics: storm, wind, thorn and tide.
- The Swarm. Insects of every size, neither living nor dead. Acid that dissolves anything that is not insect, and biological weapons: venom, parasites, plagues and the Progenitor, the virus that infects all. It works like a switch in the brain: it hands control of the host to others and enslaves it. The survivors believe the swarm mothers are its source, because they evolve faster than anything else.
Every element has an exact opposite: Fire (chaos) and Ice (control), Stone (structure) and Acid (destruction). So does every magic: Shadow curses and drains, Light blesses and renews, Nature protects and heals at once, the Biological weakens the body and heals by eating.
VI. The hatreds
The Unliving hate the Living. The Living hate the Wilds. The Wilds hate the Swarm. The Swarm hates the Unliving. So each hunts one and is hunted by one, round and round.
The Living tolerate the Swarm, and the Swarm leaves the Living be, for now. That is how the virus gets close to them. The Unliving and the Wilds tolerate each other in the same uneasy way.
VII. Caught in the middle
We are not a faction. We are the survivors on the Hearthlanding, caught between all four, and we are trying not to be killed, turned or, worse, eaten.
- Branded by the Unliving: die with the brand and you rise as one of them.
- Bound by the Living: your soul serves the light.
- Were-cursed by the Wilds: at night you become a beast.
- Infected by the Swarm: the Progenitor takes your mind and hands it to the Swarm.
Each mark is cured by the opposite magic, and only someone who carries the opposite mark can work it. So the marked need each other: the bound cure the branded and the branded cure the bound, the were-cursed cure the infected and the infected cure the were-cursed. To survive one faction, you learn to use another's power.
VIII. The Hearthlanding today
- The hearth holds you. The mages wove the Hearthlanding to hold the survivors, body and soul. When a survivor dies here, the land weaves them back at the nearest hearth, a little less than before. That is why players come back, and why no mark ever takes a player fully: die with a brand and your old body rises as one of the Unliving, a risen that wanders where you fell, while you wake at a hearth as yourself. Creatures the storm brought have no such hold, which is why the marked monsters stay turned.
- Kinship. No single mage could have raised the Hearthlanding. It took many of them, from many realms, working as one, and the weave still remembers that. It answers most strongly to people who stand together. Between survivors who share the road, the fire and the fight, the weave draws threads of kinship, and strength runs along them: one person's gear lends its virtue to all their kin, and kin can do together what none could alone. It is the opposite of the demon lord's way. He bound his generals to himself by force, and they all died with him. The hearth binds only by choice, and a thread outlives the parting. A guild that raises a hearth makes a small piece of the first weave, and the land holds its own close by it: they are woven back there when they die.
- The peoples. The survivors are every people the storm touched: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, goblins, trolls, ogres and giant-kin, none of them native. Each of the four has its own humanoid people who live among the survivors and reach them with bargains, oaths, bites and gifts: the Ashborn of the Unliving, the Hallowed of the Living, the were-folk and dragonins of the Wilds, and the insectus of the Swarm. A mark carried long enough changes the body too, which is why there are Ashborn orcs, Hallowed goblins, were-trolls and insectus who were once elves. Some of the four's own people heard the hearth and walked away; they are the Hearthsworn, and their old faction hunts them hardest.
- Peacehaven and the Stillmarket. At the heart of the heartland lies the place where the storm's eye touched down. There all four elements pour in at once, and every element meets its exact opposite and cancels: fire against ice, stone against acid, shadow against light, nature against the biological. Magic goes still there, so nobody can fight. The turned of all four built a town in the ruins, because it is the one place they can trade without killing each other, and named it Peacehaven. Its market, the Stillmarket, is the worst place on the Hearthlanding. They still hate each other, so they cheat instead: they gouge the factions they hate, sell them gear that breaks when it's needed, and offer every unmarked survivor a mark with the change. Everyone needs to go there sometimes, because the four's goods are sold nowhere else and a cure needs the goods of the faction that hates you. Nobody goes if they can avoid it.
- Hearthwarmed. A hearth is a small piece of the first weave, and the weave shares what is woven into it. Stand by your guild's hearth and the skill of every crafter beside it runs into you along the threads of kinship: the cook's care, the smith's eye, the farmer's patience. Leave and the warmth stays with you a while, the way a fire's heat stays in your coat.
- Stormstones. Where the storm's wild magic struck hardest it did not fade; it hardened into stone, deep in the caves and the realm wounds. Stormstones hold raw element (fire, ice, stone, acid and the rest) and some hold whole skills. A stone makes a blade burn but cannot teach anyone to cast fire; that still takes a mark. Stones grow with use, and a stone that has given all it can seeds a new one, which is how the rare ones spread from hand to hand.
- The Hearthsworn at the guild hearths. As a guild's hearth grows, Hearthsworn of the four come to live by it: people who walked away from their faction and serve the hearth now. Each trades honestly, and well, with members who carry their old faction's mark, and with nobody else. A guild with all four is a guild whose members never have to set foot in the Stillmarket.
Marks and magic (decided Nov 9, 2026, from message 92)
To learn another faction's magic, you must carry its mark. Survivors start with their own humble magic. Fire and shadow, ice and light, stone and nature, acid and plague can only be learned by someone the faction has marked: branded by the Unliving, bound by the Living, were-cursed by the Wilds or infected by the Swarm.
- The price shows. A marked player is hunted harder by that faction's enemies, some towns close their gates to them, and the mark pulls at them: the branded weaken by day, the bound burn in the dark places, the were-cursed change under the moon, the infected hear the Swarm.
- A cure exists, at a cost. The opposite magic burns a mark out, and the magic learned through it fades with it. Nobody is trapped.
- The first mark is a story moment, so new players meet the idea safely, not by bad luck.
- One mark at a time to start; carrying two at once is something for later, and dangerous.
Will we survive?
Decided Nov 8, 2026 (decisions page)
- Fall repeats Spring's ring of danger; Winter repeats Summer's.
- The proposed omens stay (Light, Nature, Biological, Shadow by smoke, Stone by earthquakes).
- Seasons start Mondays at midnight Central; Spring begins Monday Nov 9, 2026.
- The Unliving and the Wilds tolerate each other, as the Living and the Swarm do.
- The 18-element chart becomes the sub-elements under the four primaries.
- The four gods and their 36 lords return as faction leaders and bosses.
- A player turned, bound, cursed or infected who isn't cured comes back as themselves, with a small loss.
- Players can learn the elements and magics themselves: by carrying the faction's mark (Nov 9, see Marks and magic).
- No PvP, ever.
Bonding and skills (decided Nov 8, 2026, from message 55)
- Bonded beasts: players collect animals, raise and care for them, and after days of care bond with them. A bonded player can shift into that animal's form at will, for a limited time and with a cooldown. Each form gives a benefit: wolf (speed, scent tracking), bear (strength, toughness), hawk (gliding, far sight), stag (stamina). The were-forms are our own models. A bond is not the Wilds' mark: it gives the animal's body, never the Wilds' stone and storm magic, and it does not change you at night.
- Up to three bonds per player.
- Humanoid skills: Crafting, Cooking, Fishing, Farming, Architecture, Gathering, Magic (spells you collect) and Traveling. Each rises by doing it.
- Insects: the swarm stays an enemy faction, but players can raise and bond giant insects (beetles, moths and others) as mounts and companions. They must be raised from the egg, far from any swarm mother; an insect raised by survivors never hears the Swarm's call.
Roaming monsters (in the game Nov 8, 2026, from message 67)
- Each faction roams its own climate: the Living the cold north (knights, angels, white stags), the Wilds the dry west (dire wolves, boars, drakes), the Swarm the wet east (giant ants, beetles, mantises, spiders, centipedes, ticks, wasps, moths, locusts), the Unliving the warm south (the risen dead, imps, hellhounds, brutes). The heartland gets all four.
- Bands wander round their home ground and rest. They watch you when you come close; the Swarm and the Unliving come at you. No fighting yet.
- No skeletons yet: they bob, scuttle, hover and hop. Real walk and attack animations come with the animation packs.
