Siltwar

Between two shores lies a country owned by the tide. This is the Reach: peat, reed and black water, held together by dikes, dams, and stubbornness. The Dike-Clans have fought for it for generations. In the deep soak, the High Stone houses hold a lineage of power that rots its bearers before thirty. And in between live the loose folk, who belong to nobody and are owed nothing.

Under the Reach lies the blackslake: a cold, quick, living mud that seeps up through the deep peat. It raises the drowned, twists the beasts of the meres and swallows villages whole. Every power in the world wants it. Nobody knows where it comes from.

Across the channel sits Ostrødor. Twenty-five years ago its armies were stopped at the Rekking Line, and the truce has held ever since. Nobody expects it to hold forever. Beyond the seas, older and more savage empires are testing the shores. And at the margins of the world, ancient things press in from the wilds and stir beneath the soil, honoured and feared in equal measure, but offering neither in return.

That is the Siltwar.

Every story here stands on its own, but none stands alone. A minor character in one becomes the lead in another, and a battle in one is a rumour in the next. Follow the See also links to trace the threads. Every book is marked Standalone or Part of a series, so you can start anywhere.

Siltwar began with my stories, but it isn’t meant to stay mine. I want the world filled by the people who find it, with your tales, art, maps and monsters. The best will be published by the Undercroft Press and credited to their makers. It starts with books. In time I’d like to see it told in art, audio, animation and one day on screen.

Great stories await telling. Titanic stories await invention.

Pull up a stool in the guildhall. Someone’s always telling a story.

Kelvin

Explore the map of the Reach