Hearthmere

“Where the land warms slow, but never forgets.”

Region: House Lock’aihain Province, Central Highlands

Distance from Castle Loch: ~12 miles southeast (half-day’s walk)

Notable For: Farming families, tightly knit community, warm soil, soft winters

Overview:

Hearthmere is a small highland farming village nestled in the shadow of Castle Loch’s central authority. Though modest and often overlooked by maps drawn in noble courts, the town is well-known among rural travelers and market folk for its fertile fields, hearty grain, and the quiet warmth of its people.

It is a place where everyone knows your name, where help is offered before it’s asked for, and where stories by the fire are currency more valuable than coin.

Despite being near one of the most powerful noble keeps in the region, Hearthmere retains an identity all its own—humble but enduring, like the soft coals of a long-burning hearth.

History:

The land Hearthmere sits upon was once barren and bitter, choked by ash and poor soil. Local legend tells of failed harvests and stone-hard winters until a wandering healer—a woman with silver-streaked hair and a voice like a lullaby—knelt in the dust and prayed to a goddess the nobles had never named.

That goddess was Solacear, and the healer was later known only as the First Ember.

The miracle that followed changed the town’s fate. The land warmed. Roots took. The cold receded. And while the crops returned, the miracle bore a price: the lingering illness now known as Cinderlung, a disease born of divine fire, that quietly afflicts those who work the land too long. This event is known in folklore as The Kindling.

Still, the people stayed. They built homes. Raised barns. Sang songs. They called the place Hearthmere—for it was the first warmth in a dead land.

Culture & People:

Hearthmere’s people are quietly proud, painfully kind, and fiercely self-reliant. Outsiders often note how easily they fall into rhythm—harvest, supper, song, sleep. Yet beneath the surface lies a generational grief and a loyalty to each other that borders on sacred.

Most families wear homespun or russet, and though few read or write fluently, their oral traditions are strong. Bedtime tales about “the Ember that Waited” or “the woman who sang the soil back to life” are still passed to children beside the fire.

Though technically under the rule of House Lock’aihain, few nobles visit. Those who do find polite hosts and guarded eyes.

Economy & Landscape:

Hearthmere farms grow barley, winter wheat, parsnips, and Fireroot, a bright red medicinal crop with mild alchemical properties. They keep modest herds of goats and Ash-Backed Sheep, which graze in the soft hills beyond the village edge.

The fields are famously warm—even in late autumn, the soil holds heat longer than it should. Some say the goddess still breathes beneath the roots.

Most of the town's trade is done through monthly markets at Castle Loch, though a few traveling merchants stop by for Hearthmere’s fireroot tonic and thistle cheese, which has a reputation for “healing the heart and burning the tongue.”

Notable Features:

The Stone Spines:
A jagged line of pale stone outcroppings that rises from the southern highlands like the spine of a great beast. Ancient goliath settlers believed it to be the remains of a titan ancestor and chose the site to begin their new lives. Today, locals leave tokens of remembrance at its base, treating it as a quiet place of reflection and ancestral respect.

Dustmere Hollow:
A shallow limestone ravine outside town that glows faintly at dusk with the light of bioluminescent spores. Locals refer to them as “ghost lanterns” and treat the Hollow as a place of secrets, wishes, and dreams. Travelers sometimes leave charcoal-written messages on the stones, believing they may be carried to those far away.

The Ember Oak:
A partially-burned oak tree standing at the edge of the oldest fields, said to have sprouted during the Kindling. Though blackened from a lightning strike, it continues to bloom each spring. Villagers tie strips of ash-backed wool to its branches in memory of loved ones, and believe it grants strength to endure through loss and hardship.