Lore
The Wayfarer Isles
The world of Alderra, its scattered isles, and why everyone here is a wayfarer.
I
A world of many shores
Alderra is a world of wide seas. Far across the water lie the continents of the mainland: Kingsport, the harbour city of King Aldric; Queenshold, where the druids keep their guild; stone-walled Stonehaven; Sandhaven and Sunspire at the edge of the Ember Sands; and Freewater Bay, where every flag is welcome in port. Between those coasts and the open ocean runs a long scatter of islands that sailors call the Wayfarer Isles.
II
Why "wayfarers"
No one is born on the Wayfarer Isles. Everyone arrives.
Ships carry those who have left something behind: a farmhand tired of the plough, a scholar's runaway apprentice, a soldier who never wants to march again, a merchant's daughter with more questions than coins. They are set ashore with a coat, a pair of boots and whatever courage they brought along. The islanders have a word for them, wayfarers, and they say it with a smile, because it is the first thing every one of them once was.
III
Fledgeholm
The first isle is small and green, ringed with cliffs and fishing coves. Its village, Fledgeholm, "the holm of fledglings", grew around a temple, an academy and a bridge.
New arrivals wake on the shore by the hut of Jonah, an old fisherman who has pulled more castaways out of the surf than fish; his cellar is where many learn that even a cockroach bites. Granny Wynne needs firewood from the dead trees south of her cottage, and Corwin the tailor will show you how to change your clothes, if you bring him a good supper. Across the bridge, Brother Anselm keeps the temple and mends the wounded, Master Hollis teaches at the academy, Percival minds the counter of the Crown Bank, and from a chamber high above the academy the Oracle speaks to those who have grown strong.
The village lives on trade. Gunnar forges blades, Alden sells ropes and shovels, Clover brews potions, and Mabel's tavern smells of fish stew from morning to night. Whatever a wayfarer brings back from the wild, someone in Fledgeholm will buy.
IV
What lies beyond the fences
The island is less gentle than it looks from the harbour. Rats nest in the sewers, and the villagers whisper about a larger one they call Gnawfang. Spiders and snakes hide in the woods, wolves and bears roam the hills, burrow worms tunnel under the fields, and wasps guard their nests. Beyond the village an orc camp keeps its fires lit, trolls den in the caves, and in the deepest tunnels, where the sea left old things long ago, minotaurs stand guard.
Every wayfarer learns the same lesson sooner or later: the sea brought you here, but the island decides who you become.
V
The Calling
Each wayfarer arrives with a path already chosen (Warrior, Archer, Mage or Druid) and learns it against the island's dangers. When they have grown strong enough, at the tenth level, the Oracle speaks their calling and they rise as Champion, Marksman, Archmage or Archdruid.
Far beyond the sea lies the Isle of Callings, where others choose their path, and past it the mainland, where the longer voyages begin. Those are stories for another day.
VI
The gods of the road
The islanders speak of the gods lightly, but often. Verdan, lord of the trees and of every growing thing, is the one the druids follow; they say he made each plant on the isles, though not the monsters. Aurel watches over lamps and long roads, and a sailor leaving port is sent off with "may Aurel watch over you". In Fledgeholm a farewell is always a blessing.
VII
The sea
Every story on the isles begins on a deck and ends, sooner or later, at a harbour. The fishermen read the tides, the lighthouse keeps its lamp through storms, and castaways still wash ashore now and then, like Maren, whose raft broke on the rocks and who never quite left. When a wayfarer finally boards a ship again, it is never the same person who arrived.
Every legend starts as a wayfarer.