The Shields of the Dawn
Paladin
At the front of the party
Heirs of the Dawn Guard of Auren. They swear to protect someone, and the oath is literal: part of the protected one's pain passes to them.
An MMORPG of ascension
Ascension Wars
You wake on the sand with no name and no memory. Something called you here. It called hundreds of others too, and no one can say why.
The boat does not return,and no one crossesbefore their time.Remigio the Boatman
The Aspirants
No one is the chosen one.
Souls from distant realms, brought by the call of the Ember. They wake on the sand with the clothes they stand in and an ember already resonating with one or more of the Six. They say the fire burns the memory away on the crossing. Only they come back from death. Only they climb the seals.
For three centuries they came by the handful. This year, the beach woke up full.
Among the wrecks on the beach are boats of a make no one in Aethelgard recognises.
The origin
Before the world, there was fire.
Six gods shared it out, and each gave the world one face of it.
Then they fought over us.
The question was whether mortals should receive the ember, the fire that makes a thing grow until it becomes more than it was. Vaelor wanted to give it, and gave it. Tarun and Morvan stood by him. Maya, Gaera and Ysmera said no.
The war nearly broke the world.
The scars are still there: mountain ranges split in half, a sea that never calms, plains of glass.
Then they went down, and shut themselves in.
In the heart of the world, under ten seals, the Six came undone in their own fire. They became the Ember, which rises from the depths and burns in all that lives. They did not die. They sleep. And they dream.
- Vaelor, the ForgerFire · warmth
- Ysmera, the Quiet OneIce · rest
- Tarun, the ThunderLightning · movement
- Gaera, the Stone MotherEarth · the ground
- Maya, the DawnLight · sight
- Morvan, the DuskShadow · the end
The Stair
Ten steps. Ten seals. Only one is lit.
Over the Well where the gods sank, the Arbiters raised a stair that vanishes into the clouds. Every mortal carries a spark that grows with every victory. When it weighs too much for a body, there is only one place to take it.
They say that at the top of the tenth step there is a door. And that it leads down.
Climb to the Measure
Your ember is your level. It grows with every victory, until it weighs what the seal asks. In the alpha, the first seal asks for level 50.
Pay the tribute
In the Sanctuary of the Threshold, before the Herald, you hand over your ember. The mortal shell comes undone, and you are reborn at level 1.
Be reborn marked
The fire you gave becomes your Mantle. The Mark opens what was closed before: the seal's Gifts, the Umbria Forest and the Wars.
The tribute takes the fire, not the hands.
In the taverns of Castra they say not every tribute goes to the Sharing. The Faithful deny it.
The Arbiters
Six judges. No faces.
Before they slept, the Six left someone to keep the fire: six veiled figures who take no side, with one task only. To share out the fire so that no one gathers enough to start the gods' war again. They seldom appear. When they speak, the whole continent hears.
“Do not pray to us. We only measure.”
The Measure
Carries a measuring rod
“No ember exceeds its measure.”
Each seal accepts an ember of its own size. In the Wars, it levels everyone and brings hands closer without making them equal: training, steel and skill still count.
The Weight
Carries a small scale
“Every fight has weight.”
The Annals record every fight. The greatest names of each Chapter are carved on the Namestone.
The Truce
Carries a green branch
“Outside the Fields, no one harms anyone.”
No PvP outside the Wars. While hunting, one Aspirant walks through another, and all of Osteria is a protection zone.
The Return
Carries a lantern
“What was called returns.”
Dying is not the end: you wake in the Temple of the Six. But coming back takes a tithe.
The Witness
Carries a closed book
“None rises unseen.”
No one ascends in hiding. The tribute is paid before the Herald, and the Witness marks whoever passes.
The Seal
Carries a key
“Everything in its time.”
One seal at a time. Each new ascension is a season, and each open seal pours new fire into the world.
The Classes
Who does your soul resonate with?
Six classes, each with its own tradition in the world. A class is your soul resonating with one or more of the Six, and it reaches the beach that way: you choose it when you wake, and it does not change.
The Sons of the Horn
Berserker
Up close, healing with every blow
From the northern clans, who never bowed to Auren and learned to bring down the Ascended by drinking their ember through their wounds.
The Clergy of the Six
Priest
Healing and light
Heirs of the temples of Maya. They now tend the temples of all six gods and receive those who come back from death.
The College of the Three Storms
Archmage
Magic at range
Heirs of the College of Auren, where the arcanists studied the seals. The only ones who speak with three gods.
The Wanderers of the Storm
Ranger
Damage at range
Guardians of the roads, heirs of the Wanderers who guarded Auren's roads of runestone.
The Insignia
Assassin
Damage up close, by surprise
It was Auren's secret service. The insignia on the wrist is the contract.
Every class exists in all three factions. Choosing a class is not choosing a side.
Aethelgard
The noble garden
That is what Aethelgard means, in the old tongue. No one knows why the ancients called the continent a garden.
Stop 1 of 10
Isle of the Awakened
Where the Ember leaves the souls it calls. No one leaves it without learning to hunt, to make and to wait their turn. And no boat but Remigio's reaches it.
Stop 2 of 10
Osteria
The city of the Truce, born around a crossroads inn. One rainy night, six veiled figures sat at the corner table and did not drink the wine they were served. Within these walls, no one harms anyone.
Stop 3 of 10
Fields of Varden
Pasture, road and a stone beacon dark since the Night of Ash. The wolves come down from the woods thinner every year. And a wolf does not leave the woods for nothing.
Stop 4 of 10
Gorge of the Exiled
Eleven bridges carried the Mine's iron down to Varden. Six fell into the torrent. The rest belong to the Band of the Half-Moon now, and whoever buys its scrap goes hooded and pays well so that no one climbs.
Stop 5 of 10
Abandoned Mine
Dug over a vein of the Ember. The miners dug too deep, and seven years ago the goblins of the Deep came up. Now they dig towards the Ruins, and someone pays them to.
Stop 6 of 10
The Deep
Under the Mine, no one dug: it is a cave, black rock that water and the Ember opened. Down there, whoever has light rules. And someone sent down a fire that burns and gives no light.
Stop 7 of 10
Ruins of Auren
What is left of Auren's capital. The dead of the Night of Ash are on their feet, and the gargoyles still obey the last order they were given: no one passes.
Stop 8 of 10
Broken Citadel
Auren's palace, high above the Ruins, broken on the Night of Ash. The Dawn Guard died there that night and is still on its feet, keeping its last order. No one told it the empire had ended.
Stop 9 of 10
Sanctuary of the Threshold
At the end of the Aspirants' Way, at the foot of the Stair, on the edge of the Well. The first step begins right behind it. And it burns.
Stop 10 of 10
Umbria Forest
First Seal
Past the Grey Gate, the woods where the sun comes in without warming. On the Night of Ash a shadow ran down the Stair and lay down there. No god claims it, and no Arbiter says where it came from.
Who guards the way
They were here before you.
Between the beach and the Stair, four of them wait. None of them is there by chance.
Foreman's Gallery
Foreman Candlestub
Alonefrom level 27
Short, pot-bellied, with a candle stub burning on his dented helmet. In the Deep, whoever holds the light gives the orders, and he took a human miner's lantern to give them.
Ever since, he has been digging towards the Ruins of Auren. The work is paid for, in essence, by hooded folk. And a goblin respects only a one-on-one challenge.
Hall of the Stone Guardian
Stone Guardian
3 Aspirantsfrom level 50
A stone colossus with a heart of golden rune, raised by the Arbiters in the first year of the Table from the stone of Auren's gate.
On its chest, carved, the sixth article of the Table: NONE WITHOUT PROOF. It is the Arbiters' answer to the empress who climbed the Stair alone, with nobody to see her, and set the capital burning in a single night.
Trial of Strength
Cinnabar
Alonefrom level 50
The eldest of the dragons, Vaelor's firstborn, scaled red as cinnabar.
The Seal bound it to the first Threshold when the Six shut themselves in, more than five thousand years ago. It was already sleeping there when the first mortal climbed. It knows the size of every ember that ever passed it, and forgets none.
Crypt of Auren
Guardian of Auren
5 AspirantsFirst Seal Expedition
A knight in dark armour and closed helm, always on guard, with the blue cold of the grave around him. He guards the imperial tomb beneath the Ruins.
To the world, that is all he is: the dead man who guards the Crypt. The Order prays for his rest. The Syndicate despises him. The Covenant wants to ask him questions.
The Ascension Wars
In the Wars, no one dies.
In the Pact Fields, the Measure evens everyone's ember. What decides is what it does not even: training, which it only brings closer, steel and whoever fights beside you.
Winners take essence, titles and their name carved in stone. Never power. That is what the Arbiters exist for.
In the alpha
Duel
1 versus 1 · the Circle, in Osteria's Arena
Three weighings. In the middle of the Circle, the Scale's Needle driven into the ground.
In the alpha
Triad
3 versus 3 · the Court of Pillars
Three against three, like the Six in the war that nearly broke the world. It is the Triad that writes the names on the Stone.
In the alpha
Expedition
5 marked ones · the Crypt of Auren
The Faithful open the Crypt for twenty minutes, only for five marked ones. Then they seal it again.
After the alpha
Hunt
the world against a beast · wherever a colossal creature wakes
The Faithful declare an Open Field for a few hours. The prey belongs to whoever brings it down.
After the alpha
Siege
Companies · the Broken Citadel
Hold Auren's Empty Throne. The empress's throne.
After the alpha
Judgement of Banners
the three factions · the Contested Lands, all week long
The heaviest faction at the end of the week raises its Banner over Osteria.
The factions
Three answers. None of them innocent.
What is the fire the Wars share out for? Three answers came out of Auren's ashes. Each is right about something, and each has already done something unforgivable in its name.
Dawn Vanguard
“Never again just one.”
- What it wants
- To use the fire to protect the world and stop a tyrant from winning the Wars again. It tends the Temple of the Six, where the Aspirants wake.
- Where it errs
- In "for your own good": it prefers weak mortals to dangerous ones, and trusts the Arbiters without asking.
- Its finest
- Paladins and Priests
- Calls the Aspirants
- Wards
Crimson Syndicate
“No one owns anyone.”
- What it wants
- Freedom through strength: to gather enough fire, by winning the Wars, to one day break the Arbiters' rules. It frees serfs and has held the edge of the Umbria for three centuries.
- Where it errs
- In the price of strength: to the Syndicate, the weak are ash, and ash is swept away.
- Its finest
- Berserkers and Assassins
- Calls the Aspirants
- Test subjects
Astral Covenant
“All that sleeps can wake.”
- What it wants
- To understand what the gods dream, and learn to wake them. Or to take their place. It keeps open libraries and observatories.
- Where it errs
- In pride: it would risk the world to know, and its founder is the son of the woman who caused the Night of Ash.
- Its finest
- Archmages and Rangers
- Calls the Aspirants
- Sparks
When you wake from the first tribute, all three will come to you. The factions arrive after the alpha.
The Great Tide
The second seal will open.
The beach wakes up full, and the Boatman makes ten crossings a day. At the last Judgement, with the whole city in the square, the second step trembled. The six Arbiters appeared together over the Scale, for the first time since the Table, and spoke with a single voice:
“Prepare yourselves.”
No one knows why now. Each faction has an explanation, and it is always its own.
The alpha is by invitation.
Ask for yours on our Discord, in the alpha-access channel, and wake on the beach among the first.