The World of Hearth

Hearth is a very cold world. And wet, oh so wet. The rain is ever present, whether it take the form of a light mist or a roaring blizzard. The sun is but a red myth beneath the unabating cloud cover. And always there are the mountains, many pouring with icy waterfalls into equally icy rivers. A thousand or so mile band of green encircles the equator where temperatures normally remain above freezing year round. Most of this green is in mountain valleys, for very little in this world approaches flat.

Slightly over 40,000 miles around the equator, Hearth is vast in area, though comparatively scarce in metals, so as the world's gravity is only marginally increased. This increased gravity is just enough to put a heavier frame of muscle on its inhabitants. The sky is moonless, though a super abundance of stars in the sky shine brighter than a full moon every night. With the cloud cover, however, the nights are dark indeed. The darkness glows with foxfire and fungi, as well as nocturnal creatures adapted to the pitch of Hearth's nights.

The impact of the comet, instead of knocking the planet askew, straightened it, so that no seasons exist as we know them, and at the poles the sun never truly sets.

The sun of Hearth, called Aske Døende, or Dying Ember, is a red, bloated sphere that takes up a tenth of the sky. It is an old sun that sometime in the far future will engulf the world of Hearth, and all will perish.

The Ring
The Ring is a 1,000-2,000 mile wide band of greenery that extends around the planet's equator. Here temperatures are merely cool other than cold compared to the rest of the world, generally remaining above freezing even at night (standard average temp 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit). Cold rainforests are the norm, slowly giving way to vast boreal forests at the borders. In these areas life is rampant, if always somewhat damp. Mushrooms and other fungus grow in a profusion difficult to comprehend, for in the ring, if it is not regularly cleaned, something will eventually grow upon it. Many of the world's diseases can be healed by one knowledgeable in their medicinal purposes. On the flipside, the most common ailments are also of fungal origin. Skin diseases and those of a respiratory nature from spores are the cause of 99% of natural illnesses.

The Ring is where the majority of Hearth's races exist. Under the rule of Emperor Laffin, roads have been stretched more than halfway around the Ring, connecting many long forgotten cities and villages to the mainstream of man's civilization.

Ring Locations of Note - Lurkstock Moors - Forest Heart
 * Emporer's Highway
 * Gelid Falls
 * Chaunelfiel
 * Red Dew Forest
 * Longhouse

- The Bazaar

- Doorstep
 * Vale of Harmony
 * Licc
 * The Tangle
 * The Pass

Ochine Ocean
Stretching from the southern icefields and on to the north pole the Ochine is a vast ocean that nearly splits the world of Hearth in two. It is quite narrow compared with its length, though still averages out at four thousand miles in width in most places. The Ochine is the only actual ocean upon Hearth. Thousands of rivers empty out into this ocean, whose shores are as irregular and jutted as a battered blade. Peninsulas and bays are so numerous that an immortal would be hard pressed to map them all. Vast forests of giant kelp thrive in the cold waters and can extend for thousands of miles.

Though thunderstorms and windstorms are quite common, if not the norm, upon the Ochine, hurricanes are extremely uncommon, for very rarely can the water warm itself to sufficient temperatures to begin formation of these typhoons. Hurricanes upon the Ochine are generally considered a sign of impending misfortune for the world as a whole.

Because of the nearly constant cloud cover, it is extremely difficult to navigate without constellations. Thus, sailors of the Ochine use the sun in the daytime, and navigate by the Flash Herring, vast schools of wondrous fish that float upon the magnetics of the world. Depending upon the longitude and latitude their colors change in a way which can be read by a seasoned salt.

The dominating lords of this ocean are the whales, porpoises, and belugas that thrive in the vast chilly waters in extended pods that number in the hundreds of thousands. Darfellans populate many of the island chains that spot the Ochine.


 * Swiftly Rising

Region of Everdusk


The Everdusk region is consists of the upper quarter of Hearth, where a perpetual twilight always reigns, and the skies are continuously lit with a never-ending sunset. It is a realm where few live for the terrible temperatures here, but is far more extensively explored and colonized than the south.


 * Azure Floe
 * Poqt

Forgotten South
The Forgotten South is the southern frostfell of the world. Here the land took the brunt of the disaster from Nor's comet. It is a land of cold far more piercing than anywhere else on the world, populated by the fiercest beasts, orc and shifter clans, and horrible storms that feed on wanderers. Massive quakes, that shook the entire world, split deep clefts. Cracks in reality itself opened and influenced the land around it.

Far, far into the south it is said the Winterhaunt themselves live in a cold that no man, no matter his fortitude, can survive.

It is named the Forgotten South, for all that remains of the knowledge of this hostile land are tales and rumors; horror stories passed down over the millenia. Of the few with curiosity powerful enough to drive them to answers, fewer yet return.

Edges of the Map
There are places above, below and about Hearth, that while still a part of it, are unlikely to be found on any map.
 * Mountain That Walks