Among the lesser-known virtues of civilisation—clean socks, punctual trains, and the moderate use of adjectives—lies a quality increasingly rare in modern life: the ability to do nothing properly. Not lazily, nor guiltily, but with dignity and purpose. Rest, like patriotism or pastry, is only beneficial when taken seriously.Continue Reading
There are faster ways to reach the southern provinces, but none finer than the Golden Rail, that grand artery of steam and polish that carries the Kingdom’s citizens from Inverness to the green hills of Southmarch in just under nine unhurried hours. It departs from Platform Two of the Royal Terminus, a hall of brass columns and clockwork dignity where the scent of coal mingles with perfume and anticipation.Continue Reading
The road to Mount Saint Caradoc begins like any other: cobbles, cottages, and the quiet chatter of travellers who still believe they know where they are going. But an hour beyond the last tavern, the landscape changes. The hedgerows fade, the air cools, and the path begins to wind upward through heather and thin mist. By the time one reaches the foothills, the only sound left is one’s own breathing—and the distant toll of a bell that no one can quite locate.Continue Reading
There is a moment, somewhere past the fifth tunnel, when the scent of the countryside vanishes. The smoke of the train thickens, the sky turns the colour of tin, and the windows begin to rattle not from speed but from vibration. That is the moment one knows they have entered Glaston Quay—the Iron City, the beating anvil of the Kingdom of Eyehasseen.Continue Reading
There are few places left in the Kingdom where the sea still feels like a secret. The Lantern Isles, scattered like pearls off the southern coast, are among them. No rail line reaches their shores, no great ferry makes the crossing. To go there one must take the small mail boat from Westreach, and even that ventures out only when the weather and the tides are in rare agreement.Continue Reading
“The secret,” she whispered as she folded beef and onion into the pastry, “is lard. Butter makes it pretty, but lard makes it honest.” The finished pie emerged golden and steaming, the filling rich and savory. At the table, farmers devoured it in silence, the highest compliment in Brambleford.Continue Reading
There are places in the Kingdom that resist explanation, landmarks that endure not because they are grand, but because they inspire a kind of collective reverence. The Stone of Everwatch is one such place. Continue Reading
Haddock-on-Sea has never pretended to be glamorous. Perched on the Kingdom’s eastern coast, it has neither the grand piers of Inverness’s seaside resorts nor the sweeping beaches of Thistledown Bay. What it does have is charm of a rough-hewn variety.Continue Reading
The River Wye is not the fastest, nor the widest, nor the most celebrated of the Kingdom’s waterways. Yet it possesses a character unmatched by any other, winding through green valleys and shadowed glens like a ribbon that ties together centuries of quiet stories. Continue Reading