Bestiary entries, superstitions, Folk truths, rituals, plague notes, faction documents.
“If a rook knocks three times on plague glass, a soul in the house has already been counted.”
Folk Truth: The Rookbound do not count the dead. They remember those no one buried properly. Three knocks is not a sentence — it is a reminder that one of yours is still owed a name.
“Leave milk at the old stones or the forest takes your child.”
Folk Truth: The offering was never tribute. It was treaty. The grove and the village swore each other's children safe so long as the milk did not stop. When the plague came, the offerings stopped first.
“When the first village burned its healer, the crows gathered. When the second burned its midwife, the old woods answered.”
When the third blamed the Folk, the plague learned to speak. After that night the bells did not ring for the dead anymore. They rang to warn the living that the things in the woods had stopped pretending to be shadows.
“Let no villager harbor, feed, or speak gently to the Old Folk, on pain of fire.”
Issued in the third year of the plague. Within a season, more than forty villages had been put to the torch under this edict — and the plague worsened in every one.
“The specimens taken from the Morrowmire show no human anatomy, yet bleed when cut and dream when bound.”
We propose continued study under controlled conditions. The Folk are not beasts. Whether this makes our work more permissible or less, the College will not decide.
“A mask worn for three nights becomes the wearer; the wearer becomes the mask.”
A Mooncalf rite. Used to walk uninvited into festivals, councils, and confessions. The danger is not in the wearing — it is in forgetting which face was yours to begin with.
“It is not a crown of gold. It is a crown of refusal.”
The Horned Kin speak of it as if it already exists. Whoever first raises it ends the long hiding — and begins something the Veiled Accord fears more than any inquisitor's pyre.
“Feathered, gaunt, civil. Counts the dead. Will not lie to a grave.”
Anatomy: humanoid skeleton overlaid with corvid plumage. Notable: the long bronze beak, often gilded, often gifted. Behaviour: gather where memory has been broken. Avoid: speaking your true name in their presence unless you wish it remembered forever.
“Wet, patient, kind to refugees, ruinous to armies.”
Anatomy: shifting. Composed of marsh-water, weed, and whatever the swamp last digested. Behaviour: shelters the lost, drowns the cruel. Avoid: pursuing them across standing water.
“Do not let the inquisitors decide what is medicine.”
We keep the recipes our grandmothers kept. We keep the stones warm. We have buried more children than any priest, and we will outlast them all.