A live scene, not gameplay footage
The world
A world that went on without its gods
When the gods left, the sky stopped turning. The sun still stands where it stood that day, and it stood at a different hour over each of the two lands.
The held hours
Two hours that never end, and the band where they meet
One sun, held at two hours. Each people keeps time by what never moves, or by the one thing that still does.
Read more
The Long Ember
A low, warm late-afternoon sun in the west-south-west: long shadows, dust in the air, amber skies. The Hornbound tell time by the shadows of their horn spires, which never move.
The Hornbound highlands
The Pale Noon
A high, cool sun behind a thin veil of sea cloud: short soft shadows, wet light, pearl skies. The Tidecrowned tell time by the tide, the one thing in their world that still moves.
The Tidecrowned coast
The Seam
Where the two hours meet, along the Brackwater river. Walk through it and the shadows swing round and shorten, the sky turns from amber to pearl and the air from dust to salt. It is the only place in the open world that looks like dusk.
The border
The one sky
A ring across the south, and two moons that never set
The bodies in the sky hold still, like the sun. Only the clouds and the weather move. Both lands see the same ring and the same moons, coloured by their own air.
Read more
The Girdle
A thin cream-gold ring arching across the southern sky, a dark gap line running along it. The world's own shadow darkens one stretch of the arc, and which stretch depends on where you stand.
Hesk, the pale moon
A bone-white moon low in the north-east, seven times the width of the sun, with dark markings shaped like horns.
Murr, the small moon
A rust-red dot in the south-west, hanging beside the Girdle's arc.
The west
The Hornbound highlands
A warm plateau of banded ochre rock, cut by slot gorges and stepping down eastwards in broad terraces. Antler-trees stand against an amber sky, and the Ember wind combs the ridged grass into waves.
- Where
- The west, falling to sea cliffs in the south-west
- Height
- 280 to 950 metres; the plateau rim at 600 to 750
- Climate
- Warm and dry; the held warmth never cools, no snow
- Wind
- The Ember wind, steady from the west
- Capital
- Cradlehorn, on the plateau's crown
The east
The Tidecrowned coast
A low, drowned coast of chalk flats, lagoons behind coral bars and black basalt stacks crusted in pearl. Kelp forests sway on the wet flats, and the sea is always in view.
- Where
- The east and south-east, the sea along both edges
- Height
- From the tide line to 160 metres
- Climate
- Mild and wet: sea mist and fine drizzle, no frost
- Wind
- The sea breeze, onshore from the east-south-east
- Capital
- Whorlhaven, on its lagoon
Where you begin
In developmentTwo starting lands, each with its own town and its own Rift
Read more
In Emberfold you will find the Antler Ring, a circle of colossal shed antlers on the north shoulder; three wind horns grown from the rock, silent since the Rift opened; the Copper Tarn, the highlands' one cool water; and the Marrow Deep, the valley's dungeon, behind a jaw-gate of bone teeth in the north rim.
From the East Lip, above the gorge falls, you can look across the Seam's dusk to the Tidecrowned's pearl sea.
Emberfold In development
A warm bowl on the plateau's east terrace, about two kilometres across. The town of Hearthrib keeps three ribbed halls round a hearth court under a 22-metre horn spire, and north-east of it the first Rift hangs over the Cinder Basin.
Hornbound, levels 1-7
Saltglass Reach In development
A bay in the south-east, its lagoon behind a coral bar. The town of Shellmoor climbs three coral terraces above the water, its tide streets running down to the lagoon, and the first Rift hangs over the kelp forest on the flats.
Tidecrowned, levels 1-7
Life in the lands
In developmentNothing that walks here ever walked on Earth
Both lands are full of moving life: herds on the terraces and flats, flocks rising at your approach, small things in the dust and the tide pools.
Loamstrider
A six-legged grazer under a heavy plated back like overlapping horn shields. The Hornbound herd them in slow lines across the terraces.
Highlands In development
Ashwing
A large moth-like flier with broad ochre wings and dark eye-spots. Flocks rise from the grass as you come near, and the great ashwings carry riders between flight perches.
Highlands In development
Ridgerunner
A lanky two-legged runner with a long tail and a crest of quills. They sprint along the terrace edges in pairs, then stop to look at you.
Highlands In development
Tuskmole
A small, stout burrower with a single shovel tusk that pops out of dust mounds in a spray of grit.
Highlands In development
Skeinflies
Drifting clouds of gnats that light up in the low sun over the springs and the tarns.
Highlands In development
Shellbearer
A broad six-legged grazer carrying a tall spiral shell on its back, herded on the chalk flats at low water. Its hoots ring hollow inside the shell.
Coast In development
Glidefin
A slender flier with long membrane fins. Flocks skim the flats and the lagoons and settle in the shallows.
Coast In development
Tidewhelp
A small amphibious creature with frilled fins and a long tail that plays in the tide pools and slips into the water as you come.
Coast In development
Drift-ray
A huge, slow, ray-like flier with small lights along its underside, drifting high over the sea. The tamed ones carry riders between flight spires.
Coast In development
Lacemites
Tiny pale creatures drifting in clouds over the kelp, glinting in the veiled light.
Coast In development
The Rift's dark
In the game nowAn angry Rift darkens the sky round it
As a Rift angers, the sky round it darkens and its tear widens. Violet is the Rift's colour in both lands, and nothing that grows in either land wears it: when you see violet, you know what you are looking at.
Read more
You hear it before you see it. In the highlands a Rift is a low brass groan under a dry crackle; on the coast, a deep wet rumble with a glassy ring. Both rise as it angers.
Close the Rift over Emberfold, and the held hour returns to the valley as the brass rings on Hearthrib's spire chime.
Grown, not built
What this world is not
There are no oaks here, no pines, no horses, no stone cottages and no timber. Nothing is cut square.
Read more
The Hornbound grow their halls from the bones of the land: paired rib arches rising from knotted roots of bone, hide stretched between them like sails, amber resin for windows, horn spires ringed in brass.
The Tidecrowned grow their towns from the sea: spiral-shell towers with a ramp winding round the outside and a nacre-lined eye at the top, coral terraces that hold the tide, sea-glass windows, streets the sea fills and empties.
In both lands, and in the Seam between them, stand ruins older than the gods' leaving: fallen ribs half buried in the highland dust, broken whorls sinking into the coastal chalk. Neither people builds in the Seam.