— a place —
Older than us. We found it half-buried.
The world of Vellum is not a fantasy kingdom waiting for a hero. It is a quiet, geographic place: six regions, a capital where their roads meet, and an island that is yours alone. Oak woods. Ruins you climb rather than admire. A cavern of crystal, and a mountain that burns.
There is no great evil rising. There are hunters who know their part of the forest better than anyone else, altars that hand a blessing to whoever troubles to find them, and merchants in the capital who remember the people who walked past them last spring.
The history of the world is not explained to you. It is found — in altar inscriptions, in the stories an innkeeper tells if the night goes long enough, in the pattern of ruined foundations in a field a day's walk from a road nobody uses anymore.
— places —
Where the roads meet: one door to the forest, one to the ruins, one to the arena. It is also the only ground in the world where nobody may raise a hand against you. The market is here, and the benches, and the guard towers, and everyone who has just arrived and does not yet know where to go.
West of the capital, through the first door most people ever take. Oaks, and the axes that answer them. Keep walking and the ground opens toward the crystal cavern — which is how most travellers find the cavern at all: by staying among the trees long enough.
East of the capital. Broken foundations, pillars still standing, and platforms, stairs and ramps you climb rather than admire — this is the one place where the world genuinely goes up. There is iron in the stone. The far side opens onto the mountain.
One door north of the capital, and a dead end on purpose: the only way out is the way you came. A ring of pale stone, two tiers of seats, an imperial box on the north wall, sand underfoot that has been turned every morning since anyone can remember. Two strangers stake coins on a duel, and the rest of us watch.
South-west, past the forest. Flat, lit by the stone itself, quiet in a way the surface never is. There is fishing down here, in water that has never seen weather.
South-east, past the ruins. The lava is not scenery — stand in it and it takes health off you every second until you move. People fish it anyway. The cavern lies on the other side, which is what makes the far edge of the world a circle rather than a line.
Everyone gets one, and nobody sets foot on it unless you say so. Plots for crops, pens for hens, sheep, milk cows and the dark-haired pigs, chests for what you cannot carry, and furniture you made at your own bench. It is not picturesque — it is a tool. A scribe who learns to keep it feeds themselves through a winter without trading.
Being written. The world is added to, region by region, in the devlog.
The world is drawn in public.