Scorval Blight
| Scorval Blight | |
|---|---|
| Capital | Veilspire |
| Located in | Western Continent |
| Population | 300,000 |
| Landmarks | Veilspire; Storm-Bastions; Null Psalm Enclaves; Aethergrave Verge; coastal shadow ferries |
| Settlements | Veilspire; outlying griefglass camps; storm-bastion enclaves; echo-guide caravan rings |
| Factions |
|
| Coordinates | |
| Campaigns | The Echo Below |
Scorval Blight festers in the northwest corner of the western continent, where the polar ice sheet presses from the north and Mellheiller’s western tides batter the coast in cold, violet-streaked waves. Once a green littoral of pine forests and cliffside towns, Scorval shattered when resonance storms bled down from the Aethergrave’s northern bay, searing soil into griefglass and twisting rivers into poisoned skeins. Today it is a realm of black ridges, frozen marshes, and glassy wastes where memory itself grows brittle.
Its people are castaways from the rest of Velthuryn: Gravenreach oath-breakers, exiled Lexharrow archivists, Fleaspark inventors too volatile even for spark-guilds. Many fall into cult-circles that revere griefglass storms as omens or drift into raider-bands that scour neighboring borders for grain, lawstone, and spark-goods. What other nations call a curse is here a commodity: griefglass shards, echo-storm prisms, and memory-tainted relics smuggled to Sunlash markets or Fleaspark workshops.
To its neighbors, Scorval is both scar and lure. Lexharrow denounces griefglass but secretly buys it. Fleaspark smugglers race patent-kites through its storms. Gravenreach sends oath-choirs to burn corruption, though every thaw reveals new shards rising from beneath the ice. The Blight endures as a wound at the edge of the continent...one that remembers every broken promise.
Covenants of Power
Three rival covenants shape Scorval’s spiritual and civic life, carving dogma directly into griefglass:
The Pale Accord
Whispering ascetics who believe identity is a burden to be shed. Followers carve their names into griefglass prisms and abandon them; to speak one’s name again shatters the prism and the self it held.
The Choir of Glass
Fanatics who etch hymns into tall griefglass spires and weaponize resonance. Agony is liturgy; storms are scripture. Their hymns can drive listeners into ecstatic madness.
The Null Psalm
Masked zealots who pursue absolute negation. Their faces blur, shadows fade, and they chant erasure into being. To them, the purest faith is dissolution.
Their covenant-wars scar both sky and land with prisms that bleed light, charcoal veins of sorrow, and wind that carries lament thick enough to choke breath.
Spiritual Fabric
| Religion / Sect | Tenets | Practices |
|---|---|---|
| Pale Accord | Identity is a burden. | Names carved into prisms; self shed at moonrise. |
| Choir of Glass | Pain reveals the divine. | Hymns etched into shards; singing consumes memories. |
| Bone-Root Way (outlying farms) | Sorrow grows renewal. | Root-crypts absorb grief; thorn-vines harvested as balm. |
| Null Psalm | Perfect emptiness is truth. | Silent processions; ash lacquer masks; erase expression. |
| Echo-Guides (Ribbet & Simiah) | Voice anchors across silence. | Harmonic chants guide caravans during Silence Pulses. |
Trade & Materials
| Export | Buyers | Perils |
|---|---|---|
| Griefglass Ingots | Sunlash chronomancers; Aeterron data-oracles | Shatter violently if exposed to feigned joy. |
| Soul-Charcoal | Thirasil mourners; Tarkhos forge-priests | Ignites near unresolved guilt; burns hotter with regret. |
| Resonant Inks | Lexharrow archivists; Fleaspark inventors | Spills can rewrite local architecture. |
| Ash-Veil Cloth | Null Psalm cults; Fleaspark shadow-brokers | Dissolves in full sunlight. |
| Silence Shards (contraband) | Aurex and Velkar black markets | Breaking one mutes sound in a 20-foot radius for an hour. |
Routes & Smuggling Networks
- Frostwaste Trail: Hidden polar caravan route; griefglass disguised as ice-ore.
- Lexitunnel Vein: Secret tunnels into Lexharrow; banned relics hidden in false libraries.
- Fleaspark Skyrunners: Goblin storm-barges trading mid-air.
- Coastal Shadow Ferries: Oathless Orc and Drakona crews running griefglass through violet fog.
Hazards & Hospitality
- Resonance Storms: Psychic tempests weaponizing sorrow; hurl shrapnel of remembered shame.
- Wailing Tithe: Taverns require guests to bottle a secret; breaking the seal releases grief.
- Glass-Jackals: Crystalline predators echoing doubts before they strike.
- Mirror Pilgrims: Fractured doubles of travelers caught in silence pulses.
- Guest Law: Shelter granted only if you present a truth-token. A false token reshapes streets into traps.
Aethergrave: The Shattered Verge
The Aethergrave tears openly into Scorval. Each thaw collapses another cliff into jagged griefglass; rivers hum with resonance; snow falls violet-tinged.
Three forces dominate here:
Storm-Bastions of the Choir of Glass
Cliffside forts carved from griefglass. Hymns etched into the walls resonate when lightning strikes, turning storms into weaponized liturgy.
Null Psalm Enclaves
Ascetics vanish into resonance rifts for seasons, returning faceless and shadowless, chanting negation.
Griefglass Smugglers
Scavenge prisms from shattered bays; a single cracked shard can spill storms that replay broken vows across leagues.
Walking the Verge is to wander a geometry that hates you—glass labyrinths, violet chasms, whispers of ancestors you never had.
Living Mysteries
| Enigma | Hook |
|---|---|
| Stone Infanta | A child-statue weeps prophecy shards beside new graves. |
| Heart-Eclipsed Sun | Veilspire’s sunrise fails for seven dawns; who stole the light? |
| Null Choir’s Last Note | A psalm said to mute the Aethergrave; every singer vanished. |
| The Violet Oath | A mercenary’s oath-anchor vanished with him—can vows be eaten? |
| Echo-Floods | Inverted rivers pour upward, drenching travelers in whispered regrets. |
Relations & Reputation
- Gravenreach: Provides resonance dampers; fears Scorval covenants may unleash Silence intentionally.
- Sunlash Coast: Buys griefglass pigments; wary of storms poisoning star-iron veins.
- Aeterron: Publicly condemns Scorval; secretly purchases contraband for chrono-tech.
- Tarkhos: Respects soul-charcoal but distrusts Scorval raiders.
- Lexharrow: Uses resonant inks in forbidden rune-work.
- Remainder of Velthuryn: Views Scorval as a cursed scar and a treasure chest of illicit power.
Ancestry Distribution
Predominant & Integrated:
- Orcs: Exiles who become raiders or covenant warriors.
- Humans: Refugees carrying fractured memory-songs.
- Faeries & Infernis: Outcasts who find grim belonging in the Blight.
Minorities:
- Ribbet & Simiah: Echo-guides offering survival through harmonic chants.
- Dwarves: Shattered fragments of Gravenreach lineages.
- Drakona: Oathless wanderers seeking meaning or death in storms.
Scorval Blight is a crucible where secrets forge heroes or shatter them into echoes. In this land, memory is a weapon, silence a scripture, and truth a force that reshapes stone.
