// THE PREMISE
What this world is
Aldermere is an arcane academy nine hundred years old, perched on a cliff above the mist-drowned town of Hartwick. For nine centuries it has taken in the gifted - children who set their cradles alight, who heard the dead, who turned the river to glass - and made of them mages and scholars and the quiet hands that keep the realm's deeper dangers asleep. You arrive a first-year with a satchel and an untested wand, and a place that has to be earned rather than given.
This is coming-of-age first: friendship, rivalry, first crushes, exams, and the slow discovery of what you are actually capable of. Magister Sorcha Cindral drills the pyromancers of House Cindral like soldiers. Mistress Veridian Wysteria's healers nurture you and collect your secrets in the same breath. Magister Lyra Volkov teaches the Old Way of House Mourne, the one branch of magic the others pretend is forbidden but secretly need. House Vantor's artificers want Aldermere to stop hiding from the modern age. And Headmaster Gareth Crane, ancient and tired, knows what is buried under the school and has spent forty years keeping the lid on.
A ward in the tunnels beneath Aldermere is failing, and the Magisterium is split over what to do - replace it with artifice and sell the secret, feed it the old way at a hidden cost, wake what sleeps and kill it, or keep everyone calm and tell no one. What begins as house rivalry and exams becomes the question of who at Aldermere can be trusted, and whether your own strange talent is a gift or the thing the wards were built to contain.
// PLAY PROFILE
What this world plays like
Start with the sorting, a lesson, or a conversation in the Hall of Echoes. Make a friend before choosing a rival. A failed cantrip can be as revealing as a successful duel.
Follow the House rivalries into the Whispering Library and the Underwarren. Cindral, Wysteria, Mourne, and Vantor offer different kinds of belonging, and the teachers' interest may come with a price. You can pursue school life, investigate the failing ward, or let the two become tangled.
When the secrets beneath Aldermere draw you in, decide whom to trust. Help Headmaster Crane hold the school together, challenge a teacher's plan, or ask why your own talent feels connected to what the wards contain. Your school life and the mystery below it can pull you in different directions.
// FACTIONS IN MOTION
Principal factions
The reclusive River-Folk who inhabit the misty marshlands at the mouth of the Hart. They adhere to ancient folk traditions, viewing the river as a living entity and the academy's large-scale magic as a violation of the natural Balance. They act as quiet guardians of the estuary, protecting it from both mundane greed and magical pollution through sabotage and subtle misdirection.
A secret society within House Mourne, privy to the darkest truth of Aldermere's founding: that the entity in the Underwarren is intelligent and must be appeased. They secretly practice the 'old way' of blood sacrifice to placate the entity and strengthen its prison, believing Headmaster Crane's philosophical approach to The Balance is dangerously naive and risks catastrophe.
The ruling council of Aldermere Academy, composed of the Headmaster and the four House Masters. They are the supreme authority on magical matters in the vale, dedicated to the advancement of magical arts and the preservation of the academy's deepest secret: the true nature of its power source. Their primary goal is maintaining stability and controlling access to magical knowledge.
A powerful consortium of mundane merchant families who control all mundane trade flowing through the town's quay. They profit immensely from servicing Aldermere but deeply resent their economic dependence and the mages' monopoly on lucrative enchanted goods. They perpetually seek to expand their own influence, often by leveraging their control over essential supplies.
A clandestine network of Hartwick locals, resentful scholarship students, and expelled mages who oppose Aldermere's rigid control. Operating from the oft-flooded lower districts, they believe magic is a birthright being hoarded by an elite. They engage in smuggling stolen reagents, trafficking forbidden texts, and fomenting anti-academy sentiment among the mundane populace.
// KEY FIGURES
People you'll meet
// SITES OF RECORD
Places that matter
The ancient academy itself, a breathtaking sprawl of towers, courtyards, and vaulted halls carved into the very top of the highest cliff. Brass telescopes gleam from observatories and the air hums with contained power. This is the seat of all authority and arcane knowledge in the vale.
The sprawling, manicured lands surrounding the academy proper on the cliff-top. This area includes the Glasshouse, dueling practice lawns, the Headmaster's private gardens, and several small copses of ancient, magically-influenced trees.
Nestled at the foot of the cliff, Hartwick is a town of winding cobbled streets, slate-roofed houses, and smoking chimneys, perpetually damp from the river-mist. It is a working town, home to the merchants, artisans, and families who support the academy above.
A vast, old-growth forest that presses against the western edge of Aldermere and Hartwick. The trees grow unnaturally dense, and the perpetual mist is thickest here. Strange, pale fungi grow on the trees, glowing faintly in the deep twilight beneath the canopy.
The bustling river harbor of Hartwick, a line of sturdy wooden docks and stone warehouses where river barges unload their cargo. The air smells of wet rope, tar, and smoked fish. Ward-stones, maintained by Vantor, hum at the mouth of the harbor to guide ships through the thickest fog.
The remnants of Old Hartwick, abandoned after a great flood two centuries ago. It's a maze of crumbling, half-flooded buildings, overgrown canals, and treacherous alleyways. The area is unstable and largely reclaimed by the river's marshy ecosystem.
// STORY PASSAGE
A passage from the published profile
Magister Lyra Volkov does not look up from the ward-diagram. "House Cindral would burn what sleeps down there. House Vantor would sell it. I am the only one who will tell you the truth, which is that none of them know what it costs to keep it asleep." She finally meets your eyes. "You felt it, didn't you. In the Underwarren. It felt you back."
She already knows which House should have claimed you, and it is not the one that did.
Selected story passage. Your choices can lead elsewhere.
BEFORE YOU ENTER
Choose a first decision
Start with a person you want to meet, a place you want to see, or a problem you want to understand. You make choices through written actions and read the Narrator's response. The people and places above introduce this world; they do not promise a fixed sequence of scenes.
Completed turns save to your account. Review the latest scene and the relevant in-game information when returning. Check current access and Spark allowances before a longer session, and use the player guide for help with saves, artwork, possessions, and other supported features.
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