Episode Description
Welcome to Sangfielle. This episode marks not only the beginning of a new season for us, but a whole new world. For the last six years, our main series campaigns have mostly taken part in one of two worlds, even though they sometimes have huge time jumps and setting resets in them. So, if you're just jumping on, this is a pretty good place to do it. You'll be along for the ride with everyone else, with no old continuity to worry about. New characters, new places, new world.
So, what is this world? What is Sangfielle? Well, the big picture is what I say in this episode's intro: Once, this was the agricultural heartland of a vast empire which had slowly conquered this continent. Then, about 200 years ago, things started changing, and what was already a somewhat magical world became cursed and increasingly detached from "reality." Now it's a sort of re-frontier, with touches of dark fantasy, a bit of gothic and cosmic horror, some weird west and southern gothic flair, and a little bit of general mystery on top for good measure.
That's all you really need to know. Yes, there is a history to this continent, one of imperial devils, slave revolts, unchained magical scholars, black-clad magistrates... it goes on and on. And all of that is fine and good, and you can read a bit about it below and hear us talk about it towards the start of the episode.
But none of it really matters. Think of the big lore dump as a bonus, but there won't be a pop quiz or a test. What matters is what's in front of us.
And what's in front of us is a strange little mining town in the northern hills. And today, using The Ground Itself by Everest Pipkin, we're going to learn about that town. And in just a few weeks, we'll use this little town as a home base (or a "Haven" in the nomenclature of Heart: The City Beneath by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor) for all sorts of adventure.
Before we get there, though, we start here, with a patch of land, some caves, and time.
This week on Sangfielle: The Curse of Eastern Folly Pt. 1
Opening narration
People will tell you that the Heartland got sick about two hundred years ago. When the dust came, reality left and the panic set in. But trust me. It was ailing long before that.
Don't get me wrong. You could understand why someone would die for it in the old days. Greens and golds, bread and honey. But around the time those well-dressed devils of Aldomina swept in five, six hundred years ago, that's when things started to turn. They wanted to fence it in: rows of corn and cane, columns of people, nations reduced to gardens. Is it any wonder the ground itself started to ache? No one noticed until about two hundred years ago, of course. See, the truth of the Heartland, the truth of the world, is: it cannot be fenced in. So, the storms came. And they brought a deep sickness to the plains and valleys. Soil turned barren, animals twisted in form and character, unkind spirits swept through the fields, farmhouses, and boroughs. Reality began to draw its own course: unpredictable, though never dishonest. And as if in response, a rigid mechanical malediction arrived, delivered by the cursed railway called The Shape. To be near places touched by such a fearsome structure was to hear a drum be played too on beat, to see a circle drawn so smoothly as to make you stumble from its perfect curve. Those who could, those who held the whips and the pocketbooks, fled. Those left behind tried to find stability, tried to make a home on this re-frontier of ash, metal, and ichor. Aldomina called this territory San Fiel, but there ain't nothing saintly about this place. Now we use the name that our ancestors, those forced to work this land, or forced from it, called it under their breath: Sangfielle, the Blood Fields.
And if you ask me, it's holier now than it ever was under Aldomina. For all the terror, for all the supposed unreality, there is something about this land. It is a quilt as much as it is a landscape, each destination unique, shaped by its history and touched by the Heartland's truth. Cities built into canyon walls, plantation houses turned into well-appointed crypts, temples revisited by their once-absent spirits, blessed by the cackling of ever-faithful adherents. And there, in a little alcove, in the northern half of a mountain range that cuts this place in two, there's an old mining town whose story is about to be written.
Contents
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Cast
- Austin Walker
- Ali Acampora
- Andrew Lee Swan
- Art Martinez-Tebbel
- Jack de Quidt
- Janine Hawkins
- Keith J Carberry
- Sylvia Clare