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The Hearth & Umbrath

The world is called the Hearth. The faiths say it is the ash and ember of something older — kindled from the Long Dark by the Phoenix, burned and rekindled age after age. Those ages are called Sagas; the present one is the Fifth, the Saga of Embers, and the year is 1214 SR. Why any of that is so — the First Fire, the gods, the thing chained under the mountains — belongs to the Lore of the Hearth. This page is the traveler's version.

At the top of the world lies a whole cold landmass: Umbrath, the shadowland. Scholars will tell you the name means exactly what it says — the chained god's shadow, given a coastline, and that the cold of the far north is not weather but consequence. Northerners do not use the name. To anyone who actually lives there, the continent is the mountains, south, and the ice, and that is map enough.

Atlas of the known north

Open the full-size geographic atlas

Geographic atlas of Umbrath, with the hooked Frostspine turning east toward the Wyrmcrown, the Pale Steps to the west, the Skorl Floes and sea to the east, and the Emberrun corridor descending south

Umbrath, the known north of the Hearth, 1214 SR. North is up; routes and distances are generalized.

Geography and room charts

This is the official macro-geographic view: coastlines, climate, broad bearings, watersheds, and the relationship between regions. The charted-room map is a topological travel schematic. It is authoritative for which room connects to which, but its Worldbuilder coordinates use a compressed regional frame rather than latitude or mileage. Its Geographic layout preserves the same macro bearings as this atlas while keeping local rooms readable. A multi-mile road, an interior stair, and a five-minute sea crossing can still each occupy one edge on that chart.

The shadowland by compass

Umbrath is far larger than any road yet cut through it. What is known of it, quarter by quarter:

  • North and northeast — the Wyrmcrown. The Highreach first climbs north of Coldhollow; beyond Lanternwatch the hooked shoulder runs far east to the high heart of the range and the Iron Gate sealed from the inside. Time opened a gap beneath it. Wyrmshoulder and the full Crownward ladder are now walked from the Graven Stair through the Crack, with a thin chain of staffed returns rather than towns.
  • West — the Pale Steps. Glacier country, shelf above shelf, crossed only in summer and not always then. Under the western spurs sits Hammerdeep, the dwarven mother-hold, and above it the High Shelves climb into the under-ice toward doors that are depicted, shut, and unexplained.
  • East — the Skorl Floes. The frozen sea: worked ice, Skorl fleets, and the Brinemoot truce-market where the Salt Peace was sworn. Since 1212 SR a peak of the drowned country stands above the water again — Kingsholm, green against all latitude, the packet Kittiwake working the leads to it.
  • South — the Thawlands. Follow the Emberrun out of the mountains and the world turns gradually kind: Runmede's grain-lands, the barge road to Southmere, and the hedgerow Sunfall Shire. The north's larder, and its gentler neighbor.
  • Far south — the Sunward Lands. The first warm threshold is now walkable: the eighteen-mile road from Millharrow reaches Aldermouth at the upper tidal Emberrun. Beyond it, the delta, open coast, and old kingdoms remain rumor — "mind the soft ground."

Where you come in

The mountain range that walls the top of the world is the Frostspine — the rampart the Forgefather raised, the prison-wall the last dragon still patrols. The playable world is one inhabited seam of it: a handful of lit sanctuaries hanging on at the edge of the oldest dark, and everything between them hostile ground. The towns are not the region's centers; they are its exceptions.

Start with the Map of the World to see every charted room at once, or use the Regional Atlas for paired geographic and room maps. Then read The Frostspine for the region proper — its havens, roads, clock, weather, and the chapter pages for each town and wild beyond it. For progression, use The First Fifteen, Three Roads After Fifteen, and Roads Beyond Thirty.