--- title: "The Journey" summary: "Three acts and an endgame, from the bottom of the world where you wake to the gate of heaven, then the same climb again a hundred years on, through a world your choice has made worse." status: concept # A proposal: the story, world and art direction, invented for Alex to keep, change or cut section: "The Journey" html: index.html source: www/lib/sections.ts (SECTIONS) and the pages of www/content/journey/ --- # The Journey *Three acts and an endgame, from the bottom of the world where you wake to the gate of heaven, then the same climb again a hundred years on, through a world your choice has made worse.* Three acts and an endgame, from the bottom of the world where you wake to the gate of heaven, then the same climb again a hundred years on, through a world your choice has made worse. The three acts and the two climbs are decided. Which region sits in which act, read bottom to top, is a proposal: see [the overview](../world/overview.md). 1. **Act 1: The Deep.** Where the fallen wake, with no memory: a floor of feathers, the heap of fallen grace that Velmarch mined, and the foundries and halls above it. Only your ember lights the way up. [The second climb](../game/second-climb.md): She is waiting where you wake, and this time you know her. A century more of your kind has been dug up and burned. 1. [Where You Wake](../journey/where-you-wake.md): The floor of the world: grey feathers, the cold embers of those who fell before you, and one shaft of light from very far above. (Daylight: One shaft from far above; Strangeness: Dreamlike) 2. [The Heartfire](../journey/heartfire.md): The great heap of fallen grace that Velmarch mined: white-gold, glass-floored, too bright to look at. (Daylight: Overexposed; Strangeness: Visionary) 3. [The Underhalls](../journey/underhalls.md): Foundries that burn your kind for fuel, then mine-halls too large to see across, and the Plumb’s cage hanging in the dark. (Daylight: Only your ember; Strangeness: Mythic) 2. **Act 2: The Drowned World.** Up the Plumb into Velmarch, mostly under the sea: a desert of salt, then the drowned capital, where its king still holds court and ends the act. [The second climb](../game/second-climb.md): The coast has drowned further and the front between heaven’s holds has moved. Orrin is on his throne either way. 1. [The Drawn Sea](../journey/drawn-sea.md): Out of the Plumb into blinding noon: salt flats, stranded fleets, whale ribs, and Saltreach hanging upside down in the sky. (Daylight: Blinding white noon; Strangeness: Surreal) 2. [The Drowned Coast](../journey/drowned-coast.md): Grey salt marsh, faces under the water, Saltreach’s spires in the sea and the Drowned King on his dry floor. (Daylight: Grey fog, cold shafts; Strangeness: Uncanny) 3. **Act 3: The Ascent.** Out of the fog into the Vale, where daylight comes back and Hearthold keeps a fire for you; then the kings’ forest, the moors of their graves and the High Pass above the clouds, to the gate of heaven: white, colourless, and at war. Hub: [Hearthold](../journey/hearthold.md). [The second climb](../game/second-climb.md): The fog has climbed the Vale and the children who watched you pass are old, or raised. A century’s fallen keeps the gate, and you arrive on your own banner’s ground. 1. [The Vale of Velmarch](../journey/the-vale.md): Up the low road out of the fog: orchards, hedgerows, and Hearthold on its hill, the last warm place. (Daylight: Golden afternoon; Strangeness: Grounded) 2. [Harrowwood](../journey/harrowwood.md): The kings’ forest of colossal oaks and yews, coals glowing in hollow trunks, the Gloamroot beneath. (Daylight: Dappled, then dusk; Strangeness: Fairy tale) 3. [The Barrow Moors](../journey/barrow-moors.md): Golden grass over the mounds of eleven kings, then the High Pass, climbing through snow above the clouds. (Daylight: Wind and cloud, then snow-glare; Strangeness: Eerie) 4. [The Gate of Heaven](../journey/heaven.md): A bridge over the cloud sea to a white gate, arches inside arches, and the city behind it at war. (Daylight: White without a sun; Strangeness: Sublime) 4. **Endgame: The Contested World.** The endgame: the world’s regions, held by heaven’s factions, opened as maps from your seat above; the Unlit under the fire; pinnacle fights in heaven. 1. [The Contested World](../journey/contested-world.md): The world as heaven’s board: every region held by a faction, opened as a map from your seat above. (Daylight: The world’s own light; Strangeness: Whatever holds it) 2. [The Unlit](../journey/the-unlit.md): Under the floor where you woke, where the fire itself is afraid, and light lights nothing. (Daylight: Light that lights nothing; Strangeness: Phantasmagoria) - [Where You Wake](../journey/where-you-wake.md): The floor at the bottom of the world, drifted deep in grey feathers and the cold embers of the fallen nobody found, where every climb begins. [concept] - [The Heartfire](../journey/heartfire.md): The great heap of fallen grace that Velmarch mined for three hundred years, white-gold and glass-floored, the first light a fallen comes to. [concept] - [The Underhalls](../journey/underhalls.md): The Cinderworks, foundries that burn fallen grace for fuel, then Velmarch's mine-halls climbing reign by reign to the Plumb, the way out of the deep. [concept] - [The Drawn Sea](../journey/drawn-sea.md): The Plumb comes up into blinding noon on the bed of the southern sea, emptied by the Tide: a desert of salt, stranded ships, and a crusade marching on a city in the sky. [concept] - [The Drowned Coast](../journey/drowned-coast.md): Where the Tide came in, a grey salt marsh with faces under the water, the spires of Saltreach standing in the sea, and the Drowned King on his dry floor. [concept] - [The Vale of Velmarch](../journey/the-vale.md): Up the low road out of the fog into the last green valley of Velmarch, all orchards and hedgerows, with Hearthold on its hill and the sea fog creeping up the low fields. [concept] - [Hearthold](../journey/hearthold.md): The first town of the climb. A hill-town in the Vale, built in and around the royal flagship the Tide left keel-up on the hilltop, with a fire for fallen hidden in its hull. [concept] - [Harrowwood](../journey/harrowwood.md): The kings' forest of colossal oaks and yews, and below it the Gloamroot, where the roots go down into the dark. Broken ground, where the world's own things run loose. [concept] - [The Barrow Moors and the High Pass](../journey/barrow-moors.md): Open golden grassland over the graves of Velmarch's kings, where their households march under white banners, then the High Pass, climbing through snow above the clouds. [concept] - [The Gate of Heaven](../journey/heaven.md): The top of the climb. A bridge over the cloud sea to a white gate kept by a fallen, the City behind it, the choice of a faction, and the second fall. [concept] - [The Contested World](../journey/contested-world.md): The endgame. The world as heaven's board, every region held by a faction, opened as a map from your seat above, where you go down as your faction's champion. [concept] - [The Unlit](../journey/the-unlit.md): The endgame's deep end. What the old miners swore lies under the fire, below the floor where the fallen wake, where the fire itself is afraid and the depths have no bottom. [concept]