The Fractured Keep (Xalónthyr)
“To walk from war into light is not a journey. It is a negotiation.” — Inscription on the border pillar between Askarath’s Blight and Vennalune’s Dawnreach
The Concordant Tread is a divine plane formed entirely by the presence and interplay of Iridia’s deities. It is not a single, unified realm—but a stitched continent of god-territories, each one an exact spatial manifestation of a deity’s domain. These domains are not metaphors or symbols—they are real, material, and deeply territorial.
Here, gods do not merely reside. They expand, contract, and border.
Structure
The plane is made up of Domain-Spaces, each fully material and utterly distinct in logic, physics, and danger. These regions form organically around a god once it becomes sufficiently anchored in Iridia through its Scale association.
- A god of light and clarity (e.g., Vennalune) may govern the Dawnreach, a blinding, sun-drenched expanse where shadows are illegal and knowledge grows from the soil.
- A deity of war and conquest rules Askarath’s Blight, a scorched badland of eternal sieges, where terrain shifts based on acts of dominance.
- A domain of magic and mutation, like the Spindle Mire, constantly rewrites its own laws, bubbling with raw arcane energy and unstable matter-storms.
Every domain has borders—but borders are sacred. To pass through another deity’s realm is a sign of treaty, coercion, or divine pressure. Which means…
Travel = Theology in Motion
To move across Xalónthyr is to enter the influence of another god. For mortal agents, this means:
- Their spells may behave differently (a fire spell cast in Dawnreach burns golden truth instead of flame).
- Their minds may be altered temporarily by ambient domain logic.
- Simply existing in the wrong domain for too long might change their alignment, physiology, or even name.
For deities, it is worse: They are constrained by the rules of the host domain. A war god traveling through a peace deity’s domain may find its weapons dulling, its instincts silenced. That’s why they send avatars, proxies, and heralds—and rarely walk across borders uninvited.
The Role of Scales
Each domain on the Tread is anchored to a Scale in the mortal world. When a deity is tethered to a Scale (e.g., Batès Lamina or the Armour of Or), their domain becomes stable and sustained within the Tread. If they die, fade, or are overthrown, the domain-space begins to rot or mutate, becoming unstable and difficult to cross.
Therefore, transitions of divinity must follow domain adjacency:
- If a war god dies and the scale is to be taken over, only a deity whose domains border War’s lands in the Tread can inherit it.
- Otherwise, they must cross through other deities’ territory—an act of divine diplomacy, invasion, or miracle.
This system has led to divine alliances and betrayals over border rearrangements, and some deities (like The Unborn) have floating or unstable domains, accessible only by rare configurations.
Known Domain-Spaces
- Dawnreach — Realm of radiant certainty and endless midday. Borders Knowledge, Order, and Renewal.
- Askarath’s Blight — The rust-colored warlands, where memory takes the shape of battlefields.
- The Spindle Mire — Magic incarnate. Everything mutates, even gravity. No borders remain stable.
- Vel Hollow — Domain of secrets, half-lit and fog-choked. Borders cannot be walked—only whispered through.
- Sootgrove — Cult of Dy’s chaotic trialland. Roads shift by dice rolls; justice is spectral and erratic.
- The Phrastic Isle — Domain of language, lies, and performance. Everything is narrative. Travelers must speak their intentions in perfect verse or risk vanishing mid-sentence.
Theoretical Implications
Scholars at Scholar’s Rift have argued that the Tread is not eternal—only the presence of the Scales and divine resonance maintains its existence. Should Iridia’s Scales all be broken, the Tread may collapse, throwing the gods into disarray and unmooring their territories into a free-floating war of unstable realms.
Others speculate the Ragged Goons seek to discover Tread-passages to reach domains not yet mapped, attempting to introduce foreign deities into the Tread through forbidden domains—like the Waxed Hollow or the lost Stone of Indulgence.
Rumors from the Borders: