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The Grey Song

The Saga

Under the bread, the stone. Under the stone, the song. The north has always told it that way. This is the long history of the realm, told the way the old folk tell it, with the twists left for you to find.

  1. Before memory

    The first stone

    Under the fields, under the fjords, under the roots of the mountains lies the Kavor: the bedrock, the first stone, the one that holds the world up. It sleeps, and in its sleep it dreams of being still.

    Stone does not sing. But stone can be made to remember being alive, and the old folk of the north always knew it.

  2. Nine hundred years ago

    The Unbanked Coal

    Fire is the one song stone cannot echo. So the story goes that Hallveig, the First Kindler, walked north out of the burning Muspel Ashlands carrying a coal in her bare hands that would not go out.

    From that coal she lit the Old Hearth in the vale, the lanterns of the Myrkwood, and every fire that keeps the stone asleep. The Kindlers have tended it ever since.

  3. Seventeen winters ago

    The Hungerwinter

    Two winters came with no spring between them. The vale starved, Saltvik lost its fleet, Jarnholm’s granaries burned and the peaks filled with the frozen. The north prayed, and the gods did not answer.

    Everyone old enough to remember lost someone. The realm still carries that wound, and some people carry it worse than others.

  4. Twelve winters ago

    The black seam

    Hearthmere was a quarry town, and the stonewrights cut deep. One day their picks struck the black seam, grey rock that answered when it was hit, and the whole quarry cracked open.

    Something came up out of the dark. And down there, under the noise, was a tune in no tongue: the Grey Song.

  5. Now

    The stones are waking

    Stone that hears the Grey Song sickens, grows grey veins and pushes up out of the ground. Beasts and the restless dead near it forget what they were. Wolves come to the gates with grey eyes.

    Somebody is singing on purpose. A slate token with a scratched mouth turns up in the heart of a broken stone, and a long road opens: to an iron city in the north, the drowned coast, the black forest and the frost peaks, into the ashlands, across the river of the dead, and up to the gods themselves.

“Nobody here is evil for its own sake. The monsters are animals and dead folk a song has made forget what they were. And the one singing it is grieving.”

From the Kindlers of the Old Hearth

The people of the north

Who you will meet

Poor, practical and dry. People in the north joke because the alternative is crying, and every one of them wants something small and human while the world ends.

Pedreira Vale

Hearthmere

Your home: a poor, stubborn quarry town whose Reeve keeps a tally of everything the town has left.

Old Hearth

The Kindlers

Keepers of the first fire. They know what the Grey Song is, and how little stands against it.

Jarnholm

The Iron Jarldom

Proud, bitter and owed a great deal. Their oaths are sworn in iron and meant to be kept.

Ashfjord Coast

Saltvik

Fisherfolk who lost their fleet in the Hungerwinter, and now watch it walk back up the shore.

Myrkwood

The Lantern-keepers

They keep the forest paths lit with fire from the oldest coal. Off the paths, the Myrk eats people.

Always a step ahead

The Grey Choir

Widows, orphans and outlaws in grey wool who carry slate tokens with a mouth scratched on them.

Eleven chapters

The road north

The main story runs from your first morning at the gates of Hearthmere to the cracked sky above the gods. Each chapter is a region, a people and a piece of the song.

  1. 1
    Dogs at the GateHearthmere
  2. 2
    The Black SeamOld Hearth and the Quarry
  3. 3
    Iron and OathJarnholm
  4. 4
    The Long HuntPedreira Vale
  5. 5
    Salt and the DrownedAshfjord Coast
  6. 6
    Lanterns in the MyrkMyrkwood
  7. 7
    The Frost-CountHrimfell Peaks
  8. 8
    Ash RemembersMuspel Ashlands
  9. 9
    The Ferry of the DeadGates of Helheim
  10. 10
    The Bifrost HeightsBifrost Heights
  11. 11
    The Shattered FirmamentThe endgame realm

See the regions of the realm

Chapter one

Come up the south road with nothing

The Reeve of Hearthmere needs hands at the gate. The rest of the song is waiting to be found.

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