- **Region:** The Cinderwake Dominion
- **History:** Once a fertile kingdom unified by the Sun Throne, the realm fractured after the last monarch used a forbidden crown to end a civil war. The crown demanded a soul-tithe to maintain peace, and when the tithe was refused, the crown was buried beneath a sacred fortress. Centuries later, the seal is failing.
- **Current State:** volcanic ash falls in distant provinces, crops fail, the dead do not stay buried, and noble houses secretly arm for succession.
- **Religion:** the old solar faith has weakened; roadside shrines and militant penitents fill the vacuum.
- **Magic:** respected but feared; blood rites, burial charms, and oath-binding are common.
- **Key Truth:** the crown is a prison and a key, binding an exiled sovereign-spirit called the Pale Regent.
- **Major Problems:** famine, border raids, plague villages, demon-pact nobility, and a hidden war over relic sites