Aldermouth & the Sunward Threshold¶
Aldermouth is the Hearth's first genuinely warm playable settlement: a brick-and-reed town at the tidal head of the Emberrun, where northern wagons must transfer their freight to shallow-draft river craft. It is not the ocean coast. The delta, open sea, and cities of the deeper Sunward Lands remain farther south and are not yet part of the room graph.
See Aldermouth's geographic and room maps in the Regional Atlas.
Getting there¶
From Millharrow, leave by the south counting room and take the Sunward Road. Its eighteen inhabited miles descend gradually through three readable climate stages:
- warm-temperate orchards and late northern grain;
- humid lowland fields, cane, irrigation, and heavier rain;
- warm tidal-river country, reed works, citrus, and shallow navigation.
The road crown is maintained freight ground. It remains quiet and contains no routine creature spawns. Mile refuges, repair evidence, travelers, drovers, closure notices, and changing crops make the distance explorable without turning the trade artery into a continuous hunting corridor.
The town¶
Aldermouth grew where an older dry dike met the last reach reliably navigable by inland barges. Its institutions are consequently concerned with transfer: road to water, private cargo to public relief, remembered channels to measured channels, and family craft to common standards.
| Place | Public work |
|---|---|
| North Water Gate | Arrivals, river height, quarantine, and relief-cart inspection |
| Causeway Square | Road, canal, ward, and market notices around the tidal clock |
| Canal Market | Northern grain exchanged for fruit, cane syrup, fish, dyes, and medicine |
| Reedwright Row | Storm screens, traps, baskets, roofs, and repair obligations |
| Fruit Quay | Spoilage records and the transfer from orchard cart to river boat |
| Relief Warehouse | Audited emergency stores with origin and destination still attached |
| Merchant Archive | Charters, failures, remissions, and the records behind present privileges |
| Relief Tribunal | Public hearings whose decisions alter standing and trade |
| Pilot School | A working floor model of the upper estuary and its changing channels |
| Layered Chart Room | Northern routes, river gauges, and testimony about the unbuilt delta |
The archive's restricted ledger and comparable institutional rooms require
regional standing. Earn that standing through public cases rather than a
password: PETITION, complete the field evidence, then PETITION TESTIFY for
one of the recorded outcomes.
People on the road and water¶
Aldermouth and its approaches use the ordinary NPC decision and memory engine. They are not static signposts. Gate Clerk Sella Dike notices arrivals and conditions; Market Factor Jun Citrus works supply; Asha Lattice turns reed craft into storm duty; Pilot-Teacher Nemi Sounding corrects remembered channels; Chartist Orra Delta refuses to invent a coastline from rumor; and Relief Porter Cado Lime moves audited aid through the wards.
On the road, Drover Pell Sunward offers a real escort into the relief hearing. Other trail walkers, flood runners, pilgrims, tollkeepers, and drovers wander their local ranges, react to known visitors, and discuss the work and history attached to the rooms they inhabit.
Observable economy¶
The canal market reads the same living conditions as the rest of the world:
- a completed caravan delivery restores imported stock and eases its price;
- a shortage substitutes local goods and raises honest purchase offers for scarce freight;
- storm, flood, cold snap, and road closure remove affected stock instead of merely producing ambience;
- local events release different goods and adjust buying and selling pressure;
- civic standing can improve or worsen the price offered to a particular character.
The fruit quay makes delay physical. A closed road means bruised fruit, smaller lots, higher replacement costs, relief work, and public argument about whose loss should be carried.
Hunting and exploration¶
All three hunting grounds leave the safe road on signed branches. Each is sparse: two regional forms, generally one creature at a time, with season, weather, or time conditions where appropriate.
| Branch | Levels | Ecology and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Sunward Feral Orchard | 16–20 | orchard mold and citrus-heart borers; quarantine, graft law, and crop loss |
| Flooded Shrine | 19–23 | a flood-drowned cantor and lantern-vein parasite; offerings, water memory, and relief duty |
| Delta Reeds | 22–27 | bell-shell matron and reedscale caiman; fishery pressure, armor plates, and warm-water predation |
The Warmwater Channels beyond the reed branch are quiet exploration rooms, not another hunting pocket. They explain public water engineering and the transition toward the estuary.
The Missing Relief Barge¶
Relief Provost Toma Clearcup can place the missing relief barge on the public docket. Escort Pell and his northern seed testimony to the tribunal, then choose whether ward need or merchant continuity has the stronger immediate claim. The outcome is recorded in the journal, remembered by the hearing NPC, reported as world news, and converted into Aldermouth standing.
What remains south¶
The road leaves a surveyed direction at the edge of town, but no playable exit pretends that the rest of the Sunward Lands already exists. Future expansion can continue through the lower delta, coast, ports, and older southern cities while preserving Aldermouth's current role: warm threshold and upper-estuary transfer town, not a misplaced seaside metropolis.