Dear Adventurer
Spring is around the corner and we’re getting closer to the big drop!
Tidefall’s Southern Provinces are taking shape into something you can feel under your boots. This month, we step beyond Sarnath’s walls and into the Sarn Valley: a long stretch of land drawing travellers toward harsher ground and stranger rumours.
As with the Screaming Wastes, you’ll find another extract from ‘A Traveller’s Guide to Tidefall’ below. Don’t expect the road out of the Black City to be full of daisies, hope and promise. It isn’t.
In the Sarn Valley, bandits and the Sarnath Army clash in brutal fashion over the Iron Ring forts. Some lie under siege, some have become the homes of new owners and some are under the swell of madness.
Near the borders of the Screaming Wastes, the wind carries voices in crystalline dusts. And at the edge of the woods, cultists watch the safest-looking paths in and out of the region.
Whilst you read, look out for some of the new threats that form the valley’s reputation. We’re also spotlighting some new music for those who haven’t yet heard!
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Shape of the Southern Provinces
As you’ll see from map and the World of Tidefall, the Southern Provinces include a few regions. But what bridges Ebstone, Sarnath, and the Fellmarch? That’s where we’re heading today.
The Sarn Valley is shaped by its land. Fertile and wide, it serves as the breadbasket of the Southern Provinces, yet its defences lie in decay.
The River Globurn cleaves the valley in two. Along its banks, Sarnath asserts its authority through a chain of forts known as the Iron Ring. Some still stand garrisoned, others are being reclaimed. The Sarnath Army now lays siege to Globurn Fort, previously seized by a bandit warlord who has plagued the region.
You may have already met one of those forts – in the Ebonwood Forest…
To the northeast rise the Stoutspires, low mountains and broken foothills. Within them stands Deros Fort, and the hidden homes of the Bittun, an ancient people tolerated by the rulers of Sarnath for one reason: Sperenweave. The other races rely on it to cross the plains or the wastes, and so endure the Bittun’s isolated existence for the trade it brings.
To the far east you cross the Globurn and wander into the Shivefrost Plain, which borders both Fellmarch and the Screaming wastes, a glittering expanse where shard-like grit rides the wind and clings to the grass like frost. Nothing lasts there, slowly ground down by the crystalline shards and time, stone, steel, bone… all the same.
But enough orientation. Let’s get into it.
roaming the Shivefrost Plain..
A Traveller’s Guide to Tidefall:
The Sarn Valley
Extract from Volume III (Sarnath) – Chapter III (The Sarn Valley)
…As you cross the Triumphal Bridge and leave behind Rivenshear Fort on the south bank of the Sarn, you will feel the capital’s stone confidence fall away behind you. The valley takes over quietly. A Kadrath troubadour once famously lamented: “O, the Sarn Valley. If only you would engulf me in that grandeur I hear of. Lest instead I look upon your soggy grass and feel my heart sink with you.”
So it is as you enter the hinterland around Sarnath and gaze out at the Stoutswale Moor. The woodland they call Gloomwode bushes up in the distance, and you will see the rounded peaks of the Stoutspires. They may even be capped by the faintest snow, if the cloud cover isn’t too thick. You may even see the Crimson Star up there. But I doubt it. It will probably be pouring with sleet…
(Why not take a listen to some new music for the Southern Provinces release?
It might offer a brief respite from your journey….)
…though on its surface the Sarn Valley may seem even dull, do not be fooled. This is a remarkably diverse place with a winding history. Human settlement is only the latest chapter in its book. For example, people have struggled to make permanent settlement in Stoutswale Moor, but for the impressive village built around Lake Eftwade. For generations, heroics and fishing have gone hand-in-hand as folk protect their flocks from Fell-lisks encroaching from the boundaries of Fellmarch.
…the roads through the Sarn Valley are mostly adequate. The Lords of the Black Keep, notably Deros Quince, has made sure of that. He also ensured his domination of this land through a series of impressive stone forts. These forts are the traveller’s lighthouses. When crossing the Sarn Valley, you can expect to find people there. Sometimes those people might want to kill you, others might want to tax you, or sell you something. But you are sure to find someone as you approach a fort…
An apex predator stalking the Sarn Valley.
…Do not camp beneath the Stoutspires’ shadow. In the upper reaches, the groves are kept by the Bittun like a Crownlands lord keeps land, and punished for trespass in much the same way. Travellers who vanish are not always taken for food. Some are taken as proof to others that the valley still remembers its old rules. Watch the birds. When they go silent, you are being measured, whether by a hunter, or by something worse.
Wethel, to the northeast (for detail, see chapter IV of this Volume). Men rely on kitehounds to drag grand sledges and carriages across the flattest ground found this side of the Dothspire Mountains. This plain is also home to the Southern Provinces’ only native horse species, the woolback. Shaggy, slow, and heavyset, they are used to running the hard, gritty land and scaling the low foothills around the Sarn Valley…
…Shivefrost is a strange phenomenon: a fine, glowing dust flushes northward from the Screaming Wastes on the wind. Locals have to contend with the constant effect this has on everything it touches, they have invented some ingenious methods of keeping it out and making things last but nothing comes close to the protection of a Sperenweave cloak.
Watch the skies!
So come join us on Discord and signup to the playtest!
Thank you for being a part of our community, we can’t wait to see you plunge into Tidefall with us.
