The World

Ember Runes's world is computed from one seed on both the server and your browser, so no map data is downloaded — it streams in region by region as you walk, so a large world costs nothing extra to load.

Emberville

The starting district, and the game's home village.

• Emberville village — a bank, the Emberville General Store, Brayle's Tools and Rook's Runes (runes, staves and glimstone), a smithy, the two-storey Split Oak inn, a church with a bell tower and its graveyard, a windmill with turning sails, Osric Fell's tannery, and cottages round a green with the village well on it. Nessa Rill grinds grain at the mill into flour, and bread is baked at a range; sheaves of grain lie at the edge of Hollowbeck's field.
• Hollowbeck Farm, north of the green — cows, rams to shear, and hens in a fenced run with their hen house; Wenna Hark at the spinning wheel, loom and potter's wheel in the barn, a kiln beside it, and a trough by the sheep pen for wetting clay.
• The Oakenshaw, a wood west of the village, with trees to cut — and the Mudfoot Stockade inside it, home to the Mudfoot goblins.
• Copperfoot Quarry — copper, tin, iron and clay rock, the lowest tiers of mining. The clay is at the quarry's south end, by the road in.
• Wendmouth and the jetty, south of the green — fishing spots.
• Ashbarrow — a barrow on the green with a crypt underneath (see Dungeons, below).
• The East Meadow and the Emberway gatehouse — the road east, guarded by a toll gate.

Every other place below is a walk, a ferry ride or a gate away from Emberville.

Life in the towns. People work at their trades: the smiths hammer at their anvils, the innkeepers and the tanner tend their ranges, Wenna spins, the kilnman minds his kilns and Hob fells trees on his island, each in bouts with rests between, and each puts the work down to talk. Every town that keeps hens gives them a hen house. You can hear the place too: hens cluck when you are near them, and in the woods the birds sing by day and the crickets at night, coming and going as they please; the rain quiets the birds, and you hear it all more faintly indoors.

Stonecote

A small hamlet on the Wend river, up the North Road from Emberville. The Drover's Rest inn, a well, a bridge, a chapel and a tackle shop for anglers — no bank. Stonecote Hollow, a short dungeon, lies underneath it.

Thornbury

The walled capital, further up the North Road past Stonecote. Four gates, each with its own road out; a market square with a well; two banks; a full row of shops (general store, weaponsmith, armourer, a staff and robe seller, a bowyer, a goldsmith, and market stalls); a smithy; the Blackthorn inn; a church; twenty houses; and a castle at the top of the King's Way. Thornbury Sewers run under the streets on two levels, with a silver ore seam and a chest.

Wickstead

The fishing village on the Sunder Sound, a walk west from Emberville along the West Road. The second bank, a net shop, Merrow's Staves (runes, staves and glimstone), the Grayling inn, a lock-up, a manor on the rise, a jetty, and Wick Beck running down from the Greycaps' foothills with grayling in it.

Brinehaven

The port on the headland where the Sound meets the open sea, south of Wickstead down the Coast Road. The third bank, Hale's Creels & Pots, the Drowned Bell inn, the harbourmaster's office, a shipwright's yard, warehouses, a quay, and crab beds off the south shore. Its ferry (twenty coins) crosses to Sablewood Isle.

The Cinderwaste and Kilnhold

East of Emberville through the Emberway's toll gate lies the Cinderwaste, scorched red earth with scorpions and highwaymen. At its far end is Kilnhold, a walled smithing town: the fourth bank, Hask's Edge (the only place selling the steel sword), Brenner's Staves (ember staves, runes and glimstone), a smithy hot enough to work coldiron and emberite, the Kiln Door inn, houses, and an emberite ore outcrop by the shore.

The Copperfoot Adit, old mine workings, opens off Emberville's own quarry — reached from Emberville, not from Kilnhold — with coal seams, bats, rats, and a chest at the end.

Sablewood Isle: Tarhollow and Mount Sear

Reached only by paying the ferryman at Brinehaven's far berth (twenty coins). Tarhollow has no bank, on purpose — the Black Pine inn, Tarr's Store, a chapel, thatched cottages, and a jetty for blackfish. East of the village is an ironbark wood; sablewood grows round the lower slopes of Mount Sear, whose south side holds the Searmouth: three levels down through the mountain to emberite ore, fire vents, and a chest.

Hollow Pass and Deepdelve

West out of Thornbury, the Kingsway leads to the Greycaps, a mountain wall with one way through: Hollow Pass, with a toll house. North from the pass is Deepdelve, the mining town: the fifth bank, a smithy hot enough for every metal, Delve Tools, the Pick and Lantern inn, and houses under the cliff. Deepdelve Mine opens in the cliff face: three levels down through coal, silver and coldiron to a gold vault, guarded by something that was once a miner.

Ashbarrow Deep

The crypt under Emberville's own barrow, reached by the stair on the green. A hall of the dead, niches of graves, and a tomb at the end with a chest and its warden.

The Harrow

North of Thornbury, over the Harrow Ditch and through the Harrow Gate: open heath, standing stones and ruins, with no bank anywhere. Blackthorn trees grow just past the ditch; further in are drowned Gallowmere and a heartoak grove. At the heath's heart stands the Broken Tower, and under it the Rift: two levels down to a starfall ore chamber and the richest chest in the game, guarded by the toughest creatures in the world.

Sandreach and the Dunes

South down the Sand Road from Kilnhold's east gate, where the red earth turns to sand: Sandreach, an oasis town of flat roofs round a pool. The sixth bank, the Caravan Post (which buys almost anything and sells food, runes the caravans bring (gale, bloom and oath) and gold jewellery), the Last Well inn, houses and a caravan yard. South of town, the Dunes hold gold rock for mining, raiders who think that gold is theirs, scorpions larger than the Cinderwaste's, stalkers, and old tombs whose stairs are sealed shut.

The Fen Road, the Sallowfen and Mourn

East out of Thornbury's east gate, the Fen Road crosses open heath to the Black Rill, the border of the Sallowfen. One bridge crosses the Rill, behind a gatehouse whose gate never swings open: the Rill warden hands people over the bar himself, and only with the castle's leave (see The Silence at Mourn). Rill lurkers crawl up out of the water onto the road's last stretch.

Past the bridge a raised causeway runs through the Sallowfen, a dark marsh of pools and dead trees, to Mourn on its mound: the seventh bank, Carrow's Store, a chapel whose bell tower stands empty, the reeve's house and a handful of cottages. The fen's dead walk either side of the causeway, and bog hags live deepest in, away from any road. Behind the bank, at the mound's north edge, the slab over the stair to the Fen Hollows has been shoved aside from underneath. Down there is old Mourn, the village the fen swallowed: its drowned lanes, square and well on the first level, and on the second its chapel, where the fen has broken in and Mourn's sunken bell lies at the water's edge.

Dungeons at a glance

For what's beyond these borders, see the Roadmap.