The Beckoning

Type:

Region

There is a remoteness to The Beckoning not fully explainable by distance. To reach it, one must of course traverse seas and ice and endure many crossings of the silent moon before the untwinkling night. Yet even then, one does not recognize that one has arrived here until one is surrounded, horizon to horizon, by etched glaciers, by jigsaw megaliths of ice, by landscapes caught in cataclysm by a gelid stasis. But these features are themselves hazy. No two seem to report the same sights in The Beckoning, no maps agree. What then are we left with if the physicality of the land does not define the place?

Time spent in the remoteness imparts a sensation that feels like knowledge, but also like a separation. Those who seek The Beckoning do so for diverse reasons, but the few that return from it all seem to describe a single reason that they could not remain. More often “my secret heart was broken,” than “I feared to perish of exposure.” More often “my dreams were too beautiful”, than “I couldn’t find food.” More often “I didn’t want to fall out of love with the world,” than “the cold wastes are lonely.” Scholars say that no conclusions can be reached based upon such a small set of tales.

Locations

Zones

• The Tintinnabular Path
• Cracked Plinth
• Shadowmelt
• The Bone Ridges
• The Glacier of Spheres