Sundermarch begins with the people who keep a country going: the crews who tend its furnaces, the communities who move their homes ahead of rising water, and the travellers who follow roads that maps can no longer explain. Nine hundred years after the roads broke, their descendants are still living with the consequences, and arguing over the records.
At a small crossing called Sparrowgate, Bryn Vess keeps a toll book. She records who passes, what they pay, what the weather did, and what the road did at dawn. Then a traveller arrives along a road that has led nowhere for centuries, carrying a rubbing from a milestone that should not be there.
Bryn writes it down. The questions follow.
A world told through its witnesses.
The new website introduces the places, traditions and competing accounts that shape Sundermarch. Through illustrations and fragments of evidence, visitors can begin to understand what holds the March together, and why its history remains unsettled.
Witness statements connect its stories. A ledger, a crew-list or a mark cut into stone can preserve something another account leaves out. When two records disagree, both remain part of the story.
That approach runs through An Open Crown: Accounts from the Sundermarch, Volume One, by L. J. Beasley. The book brings together two accounts separated by nine centuries. One follows an inquiry out of Sparrowgate and across the country. The other returns to a furnace crew trying to survive the first winter after the break. Each changes how the other is understood.
Visitors can read the illustrated opening excerpt on the website, beginning with the collector's note and prologue, or download the PDF to read at their own pace.
Out of Sparrowgate.
A toll book, a traveller, and a milestone that should not be there. The inquiry follows the road across the country.
The first winter.
Nine centuries earlier, a furnace crew tries to survive the winter after the break. Each account changes how the other is understood.
From the accounts to the game.
Sundermarch is also being developed as a tactical card game, extending the same universe into play. The website offers an early glimpse through six illustrated cards, introducing some of the travellers and other possibilities players will encounter.
For now, the invitation is to explore: follow the road, examine the evidence, and meet the people whose accounts give Sundermarch its history. Optional atmospheric sound accompanies the journey.
Explore the world of An Open Crown through its people, illustrations and opening accounts. Read the collector's note and prologue on the website, or download the PDF.