Tax Hill
Cold upland pastureThe Crown's bell tax began here, and the shepherds have started hiding their dead.Where: Northwestern uplandsNext to
Hush
World · A round world
Hush
Keep the bell close, and the dead may stay where you left them.
Overview
In Hush, every village keeps a grave bell, and every ruler wants more iron to cast them. The bells hold the dead in their graves, but their sound also draws the attention of spirits already loose in the fields. Common magic helps people mend roofs, heal wounds, and bargain with ghosts, yet no charm can replace a cracked bell. Old burial rights, wartime levies, and the growing number of unquiet graves give ordinary folk reasons to take up arms.
The world
ShapeA round world
What it is likeHush is an ordinary sphere with one broad inhabited continent, smaller islands, and a deep ocean that separates distant coasts.
How people travelPeople travel by foot, cart, and riverboat; coastal ships connect the settlements, while winter roads and flooded crossings often close without warning.
Themes
Dark fantasy, Village resistance, Haunted history, Hard-won trust
Laws of the world
The rules
MagicMagic is common and practical: charms, healing, divination, and small elemental workings are taught by guilds or families; iron bells can anchor or repel spirits.
TechnologyMedieval craft and transport prevail, with skilled bellfounders, mills, waterwheels, and a few unreliable black-powder devices.
Death and soulsA soul usually leaves the body at death, but an unburied corpse may rise if no iron bell has sounded over it; the dead remember fragments, not their whole lives.
Special rules
A bell rung over a grave binds the dead there until its iron is removed or cracked.
A spirit can cross running water only when someone living speaks its name.
The skies
SkiesA low, often clouded sky carries the sound of bells farther than it should; the Red Star burns faintly above the northern horizon.
Moons and stars
The Pale Moon, The Red Star
SeasonsThe year has four seasons, though winters linger where the dead gather; each day is counted from dawn bell to dawn bell.
Ages
3 agesThe bells are failing, old burial customs are contested, and rulers fight over the iron, labor, and land needed to keep the dead still.
Powers
4 powers · 2 conflictsPowers
- The Crown RidersRoyal administrationReach: The central roads and the towns that supply the royal army.Claim bell iron and impose a uniform burial tax across the realm.
- The Free GravesVillage leagueReach: Rural communities and their mutual-aid networks.Keep local grave bells under village control and protect customary burial grounds.
- The Lantern SynodReligious orderReach: Shrines, burial houses, and the educated clergy.Set rules for speaking with spirits and seal graves deemed dangerous.
- The Founders' GuildCraft guildReach: The mines, foundries, and river trade.Secure abandoned ironworks and sell bell metal to whoever can pay.
Conflicts
- The Bell LevySidesThe Crown claims every bell for its armies, while villages refuse to surrender the only thing that keeps their dead from walking.
The Crown's tax riders, Village bell keepers, The Free Graves
- The Open GravesSidesThe Synod wants every unmarked grave sealed, but the Free Graves insist some dead have truths worth hearing.
The Lantern Synod, The Free Graves, The dead who answer
Atlas
12 regionsSecrets
Secret 1 · GM only
Secret 2 · GM only
Secret 3 · GM only
Plot hooks
4 hooks- 1The Midnight TollHauntingA village bell rings by itself each midnight, though its keeper swears the clapper was removed; the graveyard answers with fresh footprints.
- 2The Missing IronInvestigationA tax convoy carrying village bells vanishes on the road, and both the Crown and the villages accuse the other of hiding the iron.
- 3A Message from the GraveDiplomacyA dead courier arrives with a sealed treaty and asks the party to deliver it before his body is found.
- 4Under the Red StarExpeditionThe Red Star brightens over a stretch of abandoned farmland, and the dead there begin speaking in the voices of the living.
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