The White Mile
Open snowfields and the remains of the old crossing.
Cold
The World
128 kilometres of Deep Winter.
One road north through the wide country, with wilderness streaming out for kilometres on either side.
The road north
A thousand sections, one road.
The road runs 128 km north, in a thousand sections of 128 metres, through nine regions about 18 km across.
Off the road, the wilds stream out across the wide country: forests you can fell, outcrops you can mine, rivers in their gorges, horror dens and bandit camps, settler camps and roadside scenes about every hundred metres.
The world is seeded. Every journey's road meanders its own way, in S-bends and slow sweeps, and the regions fall differently each time. The land rises into hills everywhere and into mountain ranges of 60 to 150 metres in the highlands and the scar country, while the road itself stays graded, never steeper than 6 percent.
Along the verges you will find traces of other journeys.
Someone repaired this wheel with wire, then wrapped the handle in cloth. They expected to keep going.
The milestone has two distances carved into it. One points north. The other has been patiently scratched away.
Under the ashes: a cup, a button, and the outline of a second bed. Nothing here says who left first.
Nine regions
The wide country
Each region has its own trees, rock, water and cold. The highlands are the harshest.
The Black Pinewood
Dark conifers packed to the verge; the road runs in their shadow.
Cold
The Red Thicket
Crimson brambles, skeletal birches and lost wayhouses.
Cold
The Forgotten Parish
Broken towers, roadside memorials and abandoned shelters.
Cold
The Crag Highlands
Wind-scoured crags and hard climbs between high ridges. Ranges reach 60 to 150 m.
Cold
The Black Escarpment
Tall dark rock shoulders and exposed stretches of road.
Cold
The Reed Fen
Frozen pools, reed beds and a causeway raised above the wet.
Cold
The Ash Barrens
Grey ash drifts, dead snags and old burn scars. Mesas and plateaus.
Cold
The Hollow Wood
Twisted old growth where the light goes strange at dusk.
Cold
Seasons and weather
The year begins in the Deep Winter.
Four seasons of six days each. Weather fronts move across the world with the wind: a blizzard is a place, with an edge you can watch approach.
I
Deep Winter
Sunrise at eight, sunset at four. The cold bites hardest, food keeps longest, and more foes walk.
II
Thaw
Longer days, softer snow. Animals return and the land starts to give again.
III
Brief Summer
Light until half past eight. Plants regrow fastest, and food spoils fastest.
IV
Frost-fall
The dark comes back early. Store what you can.
Light snowHeavy snowFreezing fogBlizzardsAurora nightsClear, cold days
The seasonal giants
Signs come first.
From the second season on, once a season, a giant walks the country toward your nearest settlement. Meet it, or let it trample what it reaches and walk on.
The Rime Walker
Deep Winter
Tracks cross the road, each one deep as a grave.
The Mire Father
Thaw
The meltwater runs black and smells of peat.
The Ash Pilgrim
Brief Summer
Ash falls from a clear sky.
The Antler King
Frost-fall
The herds run north, all of them, at once.
26 named places
Places with a name
Built and dressed after the concept paintings. Their names show as you walk in, and on your map once seen. Hover or tap for night.
Lived-in places
Dramatic places
Below the hills
Mines, barrows and drowned chapels
Under the wild country lie barrows, ice caves and drowned chapels, with sealed doors, traps, chests and the things that guard them.
The Old Cut is a real mine: a headframe and lamp room at the entrance, winding tunnels with timber sets, lanterns, rails and ore carts, and 19 veins of coal, copper, quartz and red ember geodes. Worked-out veins regrow. Seven kinds of cave foe fight back.
The field guide
What lives out there
35 species of animal, 14 of them tameable, and 56 kinds of foe: bandits, horrors and bosses. Herds migrate; the codex fills in as you track, kill and tame.
Animals
Foes
Bosses
Every sixth night the dark lasts twice as long, and one of the great foes walks in it. Kill it and take its trophies.
The Spine Lord · The Ash Giant · The Gatekeeper
Bandits
They raid the stash and the beasts, and a bright camp draws them from further off. Bandits shout; horrors shriek, rattle and howl.
The Wolf-cloak Captain · Snow raider · Cutthroat
Horrors
They walk at night and hunt in eight ways, from the rusher that closes and strikes to the leech that clings and drains.
Wisp shepherd · Bell-throat howler