The Dark Crown
“The old blood remembers.”
The house that held the sky before the new throne, and never knelt to it. Old oaths, old steel, tarnished gold. Proud, ruthless, very good at waiting.
The story so far
The sky has a crown. So does the deep.
Evelora is ruled by a brother and a sister. They lead as equals and love each other, but their peoples do not trust each other. One holds the sky above Highcairn, a cold mountain country of peaks, forests and black lakes, where riders and dragons are the closest thing the kingdom has to rock stars. The other rules below the waves, over a sea people most riders still call a story for children.
The crown speaks with two voices. New laws come down from one sibling at a time, and nobody knows which will speak next. Below the throne, three banners bleed each other for the sky, and every village keeps its secrets and its grudges.
Now the mountain lakes are changing. Cold lights have begun to glow on their beds, deep down where nothing ever glowed before. Fishers wade into the deep at night, smiling and singing, and are never seen again. Under the mountains every lake runs into every other, and something is moving through them. It isn't merfolk. Even the merfolk fear it.
No two dragons burn the same.
AgeYoung dragons burn redder, shorter and smokier. Old ones throw it longer, cleaner and gold-white.
HeatThe hottest show a faint blue heart. You can tell who's coming from how their fire looks.
TemperA volatile dragon's fire is ragged and spits embers, and its light gutters. A steady one's is controlled.
MagicFlame riders run hotter, Shadow darker and smokier, Stone throws more embers, Mind carries a violet cast.
Set a forest alight and the whole valley sees it.
Fire spreads tree to tree on the wind, and every rider sees the same blaze. Sparks swirl up off the flames and the air shimmers over them. Smoke climbs into a column that bends off downwind, pale by day and black at night, and you can see it from across the range. What burns stays charred until it grows back.
Three banners. One sky.
Fly. Burn. Bleed. Fall for someone you shouldn't.
Fly it for real
Dive for speed, beat your wings to climb, roll out of the line of fire and loop back on whoever chased you. Push it too hard and you lose your grip and fall, and your dragon stoops to catch you.
Fights that leave marks
Breath that sets whole hillsides burning in the wind. Claws, maces, crossbows and daggers. Dragons and riders carry torn wings and open wounds until they heal.
Eight ways to fight
Wreckdriver, Hexslinger, Bloodsinger, Ghostwire, Ashwarden, Riftknife, Revenant, Wyrmcaller. Classic roles with an edge: a healer who sings, a knight who already died once.
Hearts
Innkeepers, smiths, smugglers and a broker from the deep, each with a story if you want it. Answer warm, bold or cold. Nobody here is exclusive, and everyone notices.
The drake flight
Every few hours a pack of wild drakes, led by an old alpha who knows magic, crosses the mountains. Leave them be, or pick a fight with all five.
A world that keeps time
One clock and one sky for everybody: dusk, storms, blizzards, wildfire and snow that settles. A storm over the village is a storm for every rider there.
Steel in the square
Call a rider out on foot and settle it with blades in a ring, or in the sky, dragon against dragon. Same edge for everyone: the ladder ranks skill, not spending.
Forge, hearth and line
Pick skyiron off the crags, fish the mountain lakes after dark, brew your own draughts and temper your gear at the forge. Trade the rest hand to hand.
One world
Everyone flies in the same sky.
There are no private copies of the world. One server runs Highcairn for everybody: the same weather, the same fires, the same night. You see other riders bank into their turns, land in a burst of dust, throw a blade and miss. A fight you stumble into is a real fight.
Host a world from your own PC for friends tonight, or join someone else's.
20times a second, every rider hears where everyone else is
40riders in one sky in the latest test, every one seeing every other in the right place
150 ma blow thrown within this is seen by everyone around, hit or miss
Nothing is free
Magic takes its price.
Six schools of magic: storm, flame, stone, shadow, tide and mind. Every spell is paid for. The land withers where it lands, frost and grey creeping out from it, and the rider is left spent. The darker the magic, the darker the price. Some creatures carry magic too, when the conditions are right: moths over the mires at dusk, herons on the peaks in a storm. And crows, wherever riders have died lately.