2025.10.22 - Once Upon a Time…

As the game moves closer to its first release, I thought it was time to tell you a little bit about the story setting.

Let me tell you more of the world of Aerth.

Our story opens in the village of Willowdale, which is a tiny village within the Barony of Ironwood. Ironwood is part of the Empire of Blue, itself located within the continent of Chevania.

The whole of Chevania used to be ruled by the Elves, who withdrew from the waves of humans who sought new land and opportunities within the vast forested lands of Chevania. The Elves mostly withdrew to their most sacred places, the Homeland Dales. They would leave them so rarely that Elves and stories about them became akin to myth amongst human populations.

Our story is set about fifteen years after the 47th outbreak of The Murmur, and our main character is a farmer in the largely forgotten village of Willowdale. Formally a logging camp created to harvest the vast forests of willow trees to feed the Barony of Ironwood’s hunger for the wood, the loggers quickly denuded the landscape, leaving only a single, cursed willow behind .

The Tree of Nails carries over 200 years of nails pounded into its wood, each for a villager who has gone missing while unwisely exploring the Lorgankind Forest or the Dongwood Weald in search of game or wood. The villagers speak of the wood in hushed tones, or not at all. Leaving the safety of the Wynde, the enchanted road where no grass grows, where no wood can remain is considered very bad luck indeed.

Those that stayed behind formed the village of Willowdale with a hereditary lord.

The town typically survives through subsistence farming, and a trickle of a trade when caravans brave the mountain passes of the Mornmullens. These caravans often bring strange goods and stranger stories about monsters and miracles, all of which fuel the imagination of the young, the disquiet of the old and, for our main character, a deep yearning to see the world outside Willowdale.

(Next week: The Murmur Plague..)