Lastshard / The story
The last lit shard
Aldermere is the last world with its lights still on. This is how it came to be alone, and why you are there.
Four ages, in order
The people of Aldermere tell it the same way everywhere. It happened in this order, and the last part is still happening.
One world, broken into many
An age ago the world was split into mirrored copies called shards. Each held its own people, its own kings and its own wars.
The shards go dark
One by one, their lights went out. No one who stayed behind was heard from again.
The ruins wash up
Pieces of the dead shards still land in Aldermere: drowned castles, sunken halls, and things that should not be alive.
You cross over
You are one of the souls who got out. You wake at a tetherstone outside Highmarch with the clothes on your back.
The first age
One world, broken into many
Nobody alive remembers the world before it broke. The old books agree on only a little. There was one world, and then there were many, each a mirror of the first.
The scholars call them shards. Each shard had the same hills and rivers at the start. Then each went its own way. Different kings rose. Different wars were won. A town that burned in one shard still stood in the next.
For a long time the shards lived side by side and never knew it. A few mages claimed they could feel the others, like a voice through a wall.
The second age
The shards go dark
Then the shards began to go out. The mages who could feel them felt one fall silent, and then another. There was no warning that anyone understood.
On clear nights you can still see the fragments of them in the sky over Aldermere. They hang there, cold and broken. One shard still burns among them. That is Aldermere.
Its people know they are the last. They do not know why, and they do not know how long it will last.
The third age
The ruins wash up
When a shard dies, it doesn't vanish cleanly. Pieces of it come loose and land in Aldermere. A castle appears in a valley overnight. A stair opens in a hillside that was solid rock the week before.
Whatever lived in those places comes with them. Some of it is treasure. Some of it is hungry. Every dungeon in Aldermere is a piece of a world that ended, and every relic in one belonged to someone who didn't get out.
The brave and the greedy go down into them. Not all of them come back up.
The fourth age, now
You cross over
Some souls escape a dying shard. You are one of them. You don't remember much of where you came from, and you brought nothing with you.
The crossing binds every soul to a tetherstone, the old standing stones on the hills above Highmarch. You wake there with the clothes on your back. When you die, you wake there again. Your body and everything you carried stay where you fell.
That is the only promise Aldermere makes you. The rest you have to earn.
Highmarch
Highmarch is the capital of Aldermere and the first town every new soul walks into. It is a walled river town with a stone bridge, a market square, a bank, smithies and inns. Guards keep the peace inside the walls.
The townsfolk are used to strangers arriving with nothing. They will sell you a knife, pay you for hides and teach you a trade for a fee. They won't fight your battles for you.
Past the gates the land opens into farms, forest and hills. That is where the work is, and the danger.
What the storyline asks
Lastshard has an optional storyline. It follows two questions that everyone in Aldermere has asked at least once.
- Why did the shards go dark?Something put them out, or they burned out on their own. The ruins hold clues, and so do some of the people who crossed over.
- Is Aldermere next?If the other shards could fall, this one can. The storyline asks whether anything can be done about it.
You never have to follow it. You can spend your whole life in Aldermere smithing, sailing or robbing travellers on the road. The storyline is there for people who want to know, and it pays in special loot along the way.