Hildyard
A boomtown on the lip of a bottomless dungeon. Take a god's mark, earn your plate, and chalk a floor record the taverns will argue about.
- Dungeon crawling
- Adventurer guilds
- Isekai
- Monster cooking
dungeon-delving adventure fantasy 1 memberBuilt by Worldtable
Three hundred years ago the ground opened into a dungeon with no bottom, and the city of Hildyard grew up around the hole to get rich off it. Take a patron's mark, earn a guild plate, form a party in the tavern by the gate, and go down further than anyone in the taverns can brag about.
Where it all began
the First Spill
Three hundred years ago a farmer's field split open and monsters poured out of the hole for a whole season. The gods came down to stop it, found they could not fight on earth without breaking it, and marked mortals to fight for them instead. The marked held a ring of earthworks around the hole; that ring became the wall called the Ring, and the city of Hildyard grew around it. The hole is the Mouth, and it has never been found to have a bottom.
The lands
Hildyard
the City on the Mouth
a walled boomtown ringed around a bottomless dungeon: the guild, the patrons' houses, the taverns and the Record Wall
Hildyard is built in rings around the Mouth, a hole in the earth that breathes. At dusk it exhales a long low note the whole city hears, and every delver in every tavern stops talking for a moment to listen whether it sounds right.
Furtland
the Grain Roads
rolling farm country and caravan roads that feed Hildyard and carry its cores to the sea
Furtland's fields grow the grain that feeds Hildyard, and its roads carry Hildyard's cores to the sea. Every farm keeps a Spill-bell on a post by the gate, and every child knows the ringing pattern that means run for the church.
Maren
the Salt Coast
salt marsh and harbour towns where Hildyard's cores are loaded onto foreign ships
Maren's harbour lighthouse burns magic stones instead of oil, and its light is a cold steady blue that sailors can see a day out. Half the world's cores leave the continent under that light.
Ayaz
the Frontier
beastkin grasslands and goblin hills where settlers stake farms and small new dungeons keep opening
In Ayaz the grass dies in a ring before a new dungeon opens, and a week later there is a hole in the middle of the ring. The beastkin clans call these lesser holes, and settlers rush to every new one like it was a gold strike.
Gundin
the Hold under the Peaks
the dwarf hold in the northern mountains, with its own sealed stair into the dungeon's middle floors
Gundin is a hold carved into the mountain, and its deepest hall ends at a sealed stone door, the Gundin Stair, that opens onto the dungeon's Thirtieth Floor. The dwarves have kept it shut for ninety years and argue about it every winter.
Who you can be
Human
The most numerous people in Hildyard and the farm country around it, and the ones who came mostly for the money. Humans fill every rung of the city, from porters and cooks to Copper-plate rookies and the Mithril legends whose names are carved over the guild door. Most wakers from other worlds are human too, and locals can pick them out by their odd words, their good teeth and the way they flinch at monsters for the first month. They live about seventy years and are in a hurry because of it. Best at: anything they commit to, and growing fast once a patron marks them.
Beastkin
People with the ears, tails and noses of animals: wolf-kin, cat-kin, hare-kin, fox-kin, bear-kin and a dozen smaller lines. They come in from the Ayaz grasslands in clans and sell their blades to whichever party pays a fair share. Their hearing and smell pick up a monster two rooms away, and their tempers run hot and cool fast. They are not shapeshifters; a wolf-kin is a person with a wolf's ears, not a wolf, and says so sharply when asked. A clan oath matters more to most beastkin than any plate. They live about ninety years. Best at: scouting, close fighting, tracking, and knowing when a floor has gone quiet for a bad reason.
Dwarf
Short, broad and heavy-boned, from the hold of Gundin under the northern peaks. Dwarves tunnelled into the dungeon from the side long before Hildyard had a wall, and they still talk about the Mouth like a neighbour with bad habits. In the city they are smiths, ward-fighters, tunnel guides and very loud drinkers, and they braid a ring into their beards for every floor-lord they have helped kill. They keep a grudge for a century and a debt for longer. They live about two hundred and fifty years. Best at: holding a line, smithing, reading stone, and surviving what should have killed them.
Halfling
Small, quick people about waist-high to a human, mostly from the farm towns of Furtland. Halflings are the lockpicks, trap-finders and sling-scouts of half the parties in Hildyard, and a good one is booked weeks ahead. They are patient, practical and hard to frighten, eat five times a day when they can, and carry more food into the dungeon than anyone else. Larger folk underestimate them, which halflings find useful. They live about a hundred years. Best at: traps, locks, slings, quiet feet and luck.
Dark Elfrare
Grey-skinned, white-haired elves from Ydanil, the city in the deep floors below the Fiftieth. They see in pitch dark, find the sun harsh and wear smoked-glass lenses on the surface, and climb up to Hildyard to trade, to hire on as deep guides, or because Ydanil threw them out. Dark elves found and walked up most of the wakers now living on Wakers' Row, and both peoples remember it. They are proud, dry-humoured and slow to explain themselves. They live about four hundred years. Best at: arts of every kind, fighting in darkness, the deep floors, and always knowing which way is up.
Magic
Beyond the gates
- the Deep Floors. the dungeon below the Fiftieth Floor: a lightless world of salt lakes and bone forests where the dark elves keep their city of Ydanil, and where wakers open their eyes