What the story is about
Hallowmyr is a story about promises that outlast the people who made them. Under the heather, the pines, the fens and the ice lie kings, queens, wardens, abbots and hunters who swore to keep something: a door, a fire, a hunt, a vigil. Many of them kept it past their deaths, and now those oaths are fraying.
You are not a chosen one. You are a Wayfarer, someone who woke in a village inn with a road ahead of you. The tone is understated, wry and kind, and folk sayings carry the history. The dead are rarely villains; most were simply very good at their duty and could not stop.
The six Old Powers
Before the towns, the land itself had wills. Six Old Powers still answer those who keep faith, in three opposed pairs. Their shrines are weathered stones where offerings are left, and every town keeps a Temple of the Six. As Brother Lorcan says in Dunhallow: “All six of the Old Powers have a niche in the temple. None of them has ever complained of the draught.”
| Power | Keeps | Opposed by | Shrine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maelra, the Hearth-Mother | Home, mending and kin | Corvane | Hearthstone, in Greenhollow’s Circle of Offerings |
| Corvane, the Gallows-Crow | Battle and endings | Maelra | Gallowsperch, among the Heatherway stones |
| Siolan, the Seed-Sower | Growth and harvest | Teimhra | Seedstone, in Greenhollow’s Circle of Offerings |
| Teimhra, the Mist-Veiled | Secrets, night and passage | Siolan | Veilarch, in a Heatherway grove |
| Brennoch, the Stormhorn | Sky, thunder and wrath | Lirwen | Horn-Stone, on the Quiet Stretch |
| Lirwen of the Deep Tide | Sea, memory and patience | Brennoch | Shellbasin, by the Lower Meadow tarn |
The Powers grant no combat strength. Faith is ceremony, belonging and memory: one patron, Devotion that lasts, Favor that renews, and rites at the stones.
The Hollow
The word is everywhere: the Hollow Thane, the Hollow Hunt, the Hollow Hill, the Hollow Choir, the Hollow Throne. The Hollow is the space under the land where the oath-bound dead keep their watch: barrows, cairns, delvings, drowned cloisters and a court under the ice. To “go hollow” is to outlive your purpose and keep doing it anyway.
The calendar restarted when the Hollow began to stir, and dates are written like this: “3rd of Mistmoon, Year 1 of the Hollow”. Your whole career happens in that first year.
The lands, in the order you walk them
| Land | Levels | Flavour |
|---|---|---|
| Greenhollow | 1–4 | A village of warm wood and golden thatch round a cobbled square and well. The Moot keeps its laws, and Bard Niall of the Bardic College keeps its songs. |
| Heatherway | 1–19 | The heath road east. Standing stones, hares, wisps and barrow hounds, and the walking Oakbound: “Some say the Oakbound were planted. Nobody says by whom.” |
| Rowan Hill | 9–19 | Hill farms to the west, where Lugh’s grandmother cleared the first field. Ridge reivers camp on the heights, and the Mistbound walk the folds of the hills. |
| The Wending Marches | 20–100 | The trunk road north, which begins at the Marchgate, “a gate with no wall, a fire, a forge and three people who are paid too little”. Ten bands of country climb to the Heartstone Edge. |
| Dunhallow | City | A city on the lough with walls, a round tower, a bell older than the walls and a market cross. Famous for the Lough Fair, and for Ciarán the Piper: “Dunhallow has eleven bards, and I am the only good one.” |
| Saltreach and Kelp Strand | 22–34 | A fishing coast of crab flats and gull cliffs. The sea here is said to be owed, and the strand has long memories of lost ships. |
| The Greyfell Pinewood | 30–42 | Pine country that the Fellwardens kept for forty years, until their Keep fell silent. |
| The Drowned Fens and Stiltwick | 40–52 | Black water and reeds, with a town on stilts. Fifty years ago the fen took an abbey, and its bell is said to ring still. |
| Hartwood and Ardcarrow | 50–60 | Oak country where the hill-folk keep their own king under the hill. In Ardcarrow milk is still left on the ring-stones at Darkmoon Eve: “Nobody remembers who promised it, only that it is owed.” |
| The Grey Isles and Inishcorr | 60–72 | Islands reached only by ferry. The merrow of the shallows and the islanders once swore three hundred years of fish-for-iron. |
| The Ironhold Glens and Cragwatch | 70–82 | Delvers’ mines, hill giants and the ring-fort of Dun Fergus, whose king-post is notched for every cattle-raid. |
| The Frostmere and Winterhearth | 80–92 | A white country of frozen water and cold cairns, where the winters have been getting longer. |
| The Ashen Fells and Emberwatch | 90–100 | Land over an old fire, with cinder roads and vents. Emberwatch was built to keep the road, and its people made a furnace “because we were afraid of the dark”. |
People and institutions
- Every settlement big enough governs itself: Greenhollow’s Moot, Dunhallow’s Corporation, the Ring of Ardcarrow, the Island Moot of Inishcorr, the Strand Moot and the Stilt Moot. Each keeps a festival. Watches never strike or jail anyone; they ask you to come quietly.
- Factions: the folk of Greenhollow, the Road Wardens (“We are not an army”), the Hill Folk of Rowan Hill and the Ridge Reivers.
- The Bardic College of Greenhollow honours those who add verse, song, tale, guide, lore and map notes. Guilds are written into the registers kept in Greenhollow and Dunhallow.
- Fallen orders haunt the old places: the Fellwardens, the abbey brothers, the first wardens of Winterhearth and Emberwatch, and the Delvers, all keepers who went hollow.
The calendar
Twelve moons: Frostmoon, Snowmelt, Seedtide, Greening, Brightmoon, Midsummer, Haymoon, Harvest, Barleymoon, Mistmoon, Emberfall and Darkmoon.
The classes, as the world sees them
- Wayfarer: “Everyone begins on the road.” At level 20 you may dedicate to a class for life, or keep the open road.
- Warrior (trainer Bran Hearthward): hearth and oak, the line that does not break.
- Rogue (Rhun Dusksteer): dusk, thistle and mist.
- Mage (Dervla Cinderlaid): ember, cinder and slag; fire tended, not thrown.
- Priest (Nessa Wellmarrow): wells, tides and bells. “Any Power, or none, may guide your hands.”
- Monk (Tamsin Brierhollow): breath, moss, bark and bramble.
Things you will notice
- Oaths carved in stone, and the keepers who kept them past their deaths.
- Lights: lanterns, beacons and vigil fires, the light that saves and the light that lies.
- Bells and horns that the dead still answer.
- Old named beasts: Greymaw, Old Tusker, Old Snapjaw, Old Ironhide.
- Things owed: the sea, the oaks, the milk on the ring-stones.
- Ledgers and rolls, and who gets remembered.
- The road as the shape of a life.
Songs you may hear played: The Heather Road, Greenhollow Air, Lament for the Barrow Queen, The Harvest Jig and Rowan Hill March.
Most of what lies beyond these pages is for you to find out on the road.