Aethelion
Personal fantasy IP. A worldbuilding project I will be slowly expanding and developing over time.
The Mistfall - Set into the side the roaring Vornfell, the Mistfall Archive stands as the greatest treasury of knowledge upon the continent and the keeper of its written memory. It is recorded that the Archive was raised not as a monument, but as a necessity. In the wake of fractured realms and disputed histories, scholars and magistrates bound their records in one neutral site. The falls serve as both barrier and symbol. Fire cannot easily take hold here. Secrets are swallowed by the constant roar before they can carry. The keepers of the Archive, appointed bound by oath, guard not only the shelves but the right to consult them.
Chimney Stacks - No record marks the exact day the hill clans vanished. What is known is simpler and far more unsettling. One by one, the chimney stacks stopped smoking. Living closer to the surface than their mountain kin, their absence was immediately noticed by neighboring settlements and traders. Search parties found no signs of battle. The lower gates were barred from within, forges stood cold but intact, tools lay where hands had set them down. Some chimneys were deliberately collapsed from below, others left open to the sky, their shafts descending into darkness without sound or heat. No bodies were ever recovered. Today, the chimney stacks stand as mute scars across the hills, mirroring the once grand forges below. Grass crept over stone collars. Soot stained vents grew cold and dry. Hills that once breathed with steady plumes fell silent. And a civilization fades into legend.
