The world of Brackenwake

Lore and lands

9 realms around the Caldera Sea. 95 named places, and a dragon with a long road ahead.

Begin with the last dragon

World lore and story plans. Some places, characters and events are still in development.

The Greenwold · Settlement
Hearthhome
A village on a green with a stone bridge, a church, an inn and a smith, all inside the ring of stones.
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The Greenwold · Landmark
The Mill Run
The river, the water mill, and the wheat either side of it, running east to the sea.
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The Greenwold · Dungeon
The Old Cellars
Eight descending depths beneath the mill: flooded ossuaries, tombs and a buried cathedral.
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The Greenwold · Wild country
The Beech Hangar
Old beech on the ridge above the village, deep leaf litter, badger setts.
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The Greenwold · Road
The Kingsroad
The Legion's paved road entering the Greenwold from the north east, milestones every mile.
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The Greenwold · Mine
The Chalk Pits
A white scar in a green hill, copper and tin in the chalk, a yard trodden flat.
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The Greenwold · Great landmark
The Standing Hedge
The ring of boundary stones half a mile across; nine of them hum at dusk, each twinned with a stone in another realm.
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The Greenwold · Camp
Highwayman's Hollow
A bandit camp in a chalk hollow off the Kingsroad, fires under an overhang.
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The Greenwold · Ruin
The Sunken Chapel
A chapel the river took, its roof a foot under the water, the bell still on the beam.
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Verdant Deep · Settlement
The Canopy Court
A village of platforms and rope bridges two hundred feet up in the blossom crowns, lit by lanterns at night.
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Verdant Deep · Great landmark
The Temple of Faces
The carved cliff and the temple cut behind it, entered through the mouth of the largest face.
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Verdant Deep · Dungeon
The Deep of Faces
Galleries behind the cliff where the first riders learned the sight, walls of eyes.
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Verdant Deep · Wild country
Blossom Fall
The valley floor where the whole canopy sheds at dawn and the river runs pink for an hour.
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Verdant Deep · Wild country
The Root River
The river braided under the trees, fordable at three places, alive with fish.
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Verdant Deep · Shrine
The Sunken Shrine
A dragon shrine half under the river where the roots have lifted the stones.
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Verdant Deep · Mine
Verdite Hollow
A cave under the cliff where the roots have gone green-gold.
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Verdant Deep · Landmark
The Hanging Gardens
Terraces of the old temple grown into the cliff face, reached by climbing roots and rope, a hundred feet of vertical garden.
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Verdant Deep · Landmark
The Moon Pool
A still pool under the canopy that shows no reflection by day.
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Verdant Deep · Cave
The Spider Wells
Sinkholes in the jungle floor webbed over, a cave maze beneath joined by silk bridges.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Great landmark
The Red Queen's Harbour
The pirate republic's capital across a dozen islets, chain bridges, a mast lighthouse.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Settlement
The Drowned Mill
A stilt-house on an old mill in the fen, the wheel standing in dry sedge.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Wild country
The Sedge Sea
The open fen, sedge and standing water, wisps at night.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Dungeon
The Leviathan's Rest
A sea cave under the largest isle where the last sea-wyrm lies, tide-filled.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Sea
The Thousand Isles
The archipelago itself, sailed not walked, channels, shoals, wrecks on every reef.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Ruin
Wreck Ward
A graveyard of ships driven onto one reef over three centuries, hulls stacked into a maze.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Mine
The Salt Cut
A cut in the largest isle's cliff, iron and silver, the yard washed at every high tide.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Road
The Tidewalk
A drowned causeway from the fen to the first isle, dry for an hour either side of low tide.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Camp
Smugglers' Cays
Three islets with caves at the waterline, boats hidden under nets.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Wild country
The Wisp Lanterns
The deep fen at night, lit by will-o'-wisps that move as you move.
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The Saltmarch and the Thousand Isles · Sea
The Kraken's Shoals
Shallows between the outer isles where the water goes black without warning.
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Ember Wastes · Settlement
The Last Well
The Ashwalkers' camp around the one sweet well, tents and a market that moves with the season.
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Ember Wastes · Great landmark
The Brass City
The walking foundry, a moving dungeon whose door opens when it kneels at a well.
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Ember Wastes · Dungeon
The Brass Works
The city's insides: forges, walkways over furnaces, the engine room.
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Ember Wastes · Dungeon
The Firstfire Crater
The crater where the pact was made, a Legion foundry cut into its wall and the throat beneath.
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Ember Wastes · Road
The Glass Road
The line of fused sand running to Cinderreach, hot at noon, mirage over it.
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Ember Wastes · Wild country
The Salt Pans
White flats that blind at noon and freeze at night, bones of caravans.
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Ember Wastes · Mine
The Ember Cut
Four cuts in red rock, warm to the hand, rails warped by heat.
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Ember Wastes · Camp
The Recruiter's Tents
Clean tents in a filthy country at the Wastes' western edge.
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Ember Wastes · Landmark
The Mirage Palace
A palace of white towers on the horizon that is never there when you arrive.
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Ember Wastes · Dungeon
The Buried Library
A tower of the old people buried to its roof in sand, dug into from the top.
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Ember Wastes · Camp
Bandit Ridge
A red mesa with caves in its face, ropes and ladders, raiders who prey on the Legion convoys.
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Ember Wastes · Wild country
The Singing Dunes
Dunes that hum in the wind, a different note for each.
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The Stormpeaks · Settlement
Cairnfoot
A highland village of stone and turf at the mountains' foot, sheep and a brewhouse.
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The Stormpeaks · Road
The Cairn Road
The path to the Eyrie, a cairn for every fallen rider, speaking when the storm is near.
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The Stormpeaks · Camp
The Legion Pass
The Legion's mountain fort in the only pass, palisade and towers.
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The Stormpeaks · Great landmark
The Eyrie
The riders' hall on the peak, the landing steps, nine stone perches, ghosts keeping watch.
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The Stormpeaks · Dungeon
The Eyrie's Roost
Three levels cut into the peak down to the mounting stair.
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The Stormpeaks · Wild country
The Black Lochs
Three lochs in the high glens, cold, deep, a drowned rider hall under the largest.
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The Stormpeaks · Mine
The Thunder Shaft
A mine driven into the lightning peak's side, silver and coldiron, humming in a storm.
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The Stormpeaks · Landmark
The Sky Bridge
A rope bridge across a chasm a thousand feet deep, invisible in cloud.
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The Stormpeaks · Landmark
The Storm Anvil
An iron anvil on the highest bare rock, struck by lightning every storm.
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The Stormpeaks · Wild country
The Echo Chasm
A gorge where a shout comes back nine times and brings the scree down.
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The Stormpeaks · Ruin
The Drowned Rider Hall
A riders' hall under the largest of the Black Lochs, its roof forty feet down.
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The Boneyard · Landmark
Ninefall
The nine skeletons in a rough ring, each with a name cut into a rib by its rider.
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The Boneyard · Great landmark
The Skull Lodge
The hunting lodge inside the largest skull, lights in the eyes.
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The Boneyard · Dungeon
The Trophy Throat
Down the skull's throat into the neck bones, trophies on every vertebra.
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The Boneyard · Hamlet
Riders' Rest
A tomb-keeper's hamlet at the plain's edge, the only living people, who bury what the wind uncovers.
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The Boneyard · Ruin
The Rider Tombs
Barrows of the nine riders along the plain's edge, every one opened.
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The Boneyard · Wild country
The Ash Sea
The open plain, ash to the knee in places, storms that stand the dead dragons up for a minute.
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The Boneyard · Mine
The Marrow Mine
A mine driven into a dragon's thighbone, the ore grown in the marrow.
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The Boneyard · Great landmark
The Rib Cathedral
The largest dragon's ribcage, each rib a vault a hundred feet high, the wind playing it like pipes.
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The Boneyard · Camp
Gallow's Outriders
Hunting camps of the Skull Lodge on the plain, hides drying, cages.
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The Boneyard · Wild country
The Bone Orchard
Where the dragons' blood soaked in, a grove of bone-white trees that grow nowhere else.
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Frostreach · Settlement
Coldseat
The frost giants' hall at the glacier's mouth, a roof of whale ribs, fires big as houses.
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Frostreach · Great landmark
The Ice Vault
The glacier with the fortress and the tenth dragon inside it, the Legion cutting toward her.
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Frostreach · Dungeon
The Vault Below
Down the Legion's cutting through the glacier to the frozen dragon.
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Frostreach · Wild country
The White Pines
Black pine forest under snow, the White Pack's ground, tracks everywhere.
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Frostreach · Ruin
The Frozen Fleet
A Legion barge fleet caught in the fjord ice a century ago, crews still aboard.
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Frostreach · Mine
The Rime Cut
Mouths that breathe cold, a yard that has never thawed.
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Frostreach · Camp
The Long Night Camp
A giants' outpost that lights the glacier from inside on the day the sun does not rise.
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Frostreach · Landmark
The Aurora Shelf
A glacier shelf a mile wide, blank white by day.
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Frostreach · Cave
Icefall
A cave behind a frozen waterfall, blue light, the water still moving under the ice.
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Frostreach · Landmark
The Hot Springs
Steaming pools in the pine under the glacier, the only warm ground in the realm.
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Frostreach · Wild country
The Mammoth Steppe
Open tundra where the giants' herds graze, mammoth and musk ox.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Landmark
The Reef Stair
Stone steps climbing out of the sea onto a reef, the king's nightly round.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Dungeon
The Drowned Palace
The king's own, entirely under water, air pockets as rooms.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Great landmark
The Drowned Coliseum
The arena on the sea floor, lit by the glow, full on the full moon.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Landmark
The Glow
The thing on the sea floor that turns and lights the city: the sea-wyrms' egg chamber, empty.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Wild country
The Avenues
The drowned streets, fish moving down them, shops with doors open.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Hamlet
Pearl Reef
Pearl's camp on the reef where the towers break the surface, boats and drying nets.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Mine
The Pearl Beds
Oyster beds on the reef and a drowned mine under them where the kingdom took its stone.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Landmark
The Air Gardens
Palace terraces where the drowned kept air in domes of glass, still holding, gardens still alive inside.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Great landmark
The Drowned Bell Tower
The tallest tower, its bell chamber at the surface on the lowest tide.
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The Sunken Kingdom · Sea
The Whale Road
A channel where the great whales cross the Caldera Sea each dawn.
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The Ashen Throne · Town
Cinderport
The Legion's harbour town at the volcano's foot, black sand, barges, a slave market that is not called one.
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The Ashen Throne · Landmark
The Outer Works
The Legion army's lines on the slopes: earthworks, siege towers, ten thousand tents.
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The Ashen Throne · Great landmark
The Ashen Gate
The gate with nine skulls, opened from inside by Serle Vane or not at all.
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The Ashen Throne · Dungeon
The Throne of Ash
The fortress, the crater, the heart-hall.
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The Ashen Throne · Wild country
The Glass Slopes
Black glass that rings underfoot, lava rivers, cinder, sulphur.
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The Ashen Throne · Mine
The Cinder Cut
The Legion's voidrock mine on the glass, a yard that rings when you walk on it.
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The Ashen Throne · Landmark
The Steaming Shore
Where the lava meets the Caldera Sea, a wall of steam a mile long.
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The Ashen Throne · Landmark
The Lava Falls
Rivers of red dropping into the sea in three falls, crust cooling on the surface between.
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The Ashen Throne · Camp
The Slag Camps
Deserters from the Legion living in the slag heaps below the Works, fires in old furnaces.
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The Ashen Throne · Landmark
The Obsidian Bridge
A natural arch of black glass across the crater's mouth, half a mile long, no rail.
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The Ashen Throne · Landmark
The Heart Cages
The wall behind the throne, nine iron cages, nine hearts beating.
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