Seidr Awakening
The world

The Seidr

Two stars hang in one sky. Around them turns a broken ring of nine shard-worlds, and under the stone of every one of them something is humming.

Eld and Ís

Eld is a red giant, swelling toward its end. Ís is a cold white dwarf, its twin. Around them turns the Seidr, nine shards of what was once one world.

Before anyone alive, a people called the Choir wove everything they knew into those shards as a single song, the Skein. It survives as crystal Echoes buried in ruins, as singing monoliths, and as pools where the song settled into water: Urd’s Wells, which the game calls Aether.

Then the Choir went silent. No bodies, no ships. Only the Skein, humming under the stone, and a dying star that it alone can reignite, or command.

Three threads, none whole

The Choir sang three threads, named for the three Norns who tend what was, what is becoming and what is owed.

Urd

What was

Records, law, weights and measures.

Heard by the Hesh Dominion.

Verdandi

What is becoming

Roads, motion, stories in transit.

Heard by the Oru Wanderers.

Skuld

What is owed

Debt, the deep, endings.

Heard by the Thalm Deep.

The Awakening is the moment the first Echo sings back after ten thousand years. Every Echo Site brightens, every Well rises, and each people hears its thread as the voice of a god.

The Völva

The narrator is a völva, an Old Norse seeress. She speaks at the edge of every mission as if she were the Skein itself: a quiet voice that tells you what the stone remembers, and sometimes what you would rather it forgot.

Who she really is, you will learn at the end.

The tone is ancient, weighted and a little sad. Space archaeology told with a seeress’s rhythm: short sentences, concrete things like stone, thread, water and bronze.

Mission 1 opening

A first test recording of the narrator voice. Voice direction is still being decided.

0:00 / 0:08
“Stone remembers what hands forget. Lay your first stone, Artificer, and listen to what answers.”

Transcript from the mission script. Every spoken line in the game is subtitled.

Voices

The first real voice recordings: the narrator, the announcer and two kinds of Hesh unit. Press play; the words are shown under each clip, because every spoken line in the game is subtitled.

The Völva

Narrator. Mission openings, from the campaign script.

  • Mission 1, LandfallStone remembers what hands forget. Lay your first stone, Artificer, and listen to what answers.
    0:08
  • Mission 2, The Weighed RoadA road is a promise between two places. Someone is asking you to break yours.
    0:06
  • Mission 3, The Sealed ArchiveEvery ledger has two columns. You have only ever read one.
    0:05
  • Mission 4, The Obelisk WallStone holds until it is asked to hold for someone else.
    0:05

Archivist Ankhet-Sal

The announcer. Alerts you hear during a match.

  • Base under attackBase under attack.
    0:02
  • Echo Site attunedEcho Site attuned.
    0:01
  • VictoryVictory.
    0:01

Glyph Masons

Workers. Barks when you select or command them.

  • Mason, readyWeighed and ready.
    0:01
  • Mason, workingThe stone is patient.
    0:02

Shieldwall Acolytes

Line infantry.

  • Acolyte, hold positionShield up.
    0:01
  • Acolyte, under pressureWe hold.
    0:01

Synthetic voices, one take per line, still being directed. About 0.5 MB of audio in total. Oru and Thalm voices come after their units.

Four Ages

An Age is a change in the whole world, not just a tech level. Reaching one costs Lore, Ore and Aether, and a Rite of Ascension that every player can see.

  1. I · Landfall

    You arrive with a Foundry, a few Masons and a vague sense of being watched. Basic buildings and troops, and your first Inscription.

    Population cap 100

  2. II · Kindling

    The song answers. Raiders, breakers and Seers appear, and you choose a Path you cannot take back for the rest of the match.

    Population cap 125

  3. III · Ascendancy

    Siege engines and gliders. Your first myth power: call down a falling obelisk, or hide your army in a veil of sand.

    Population cap 150

  4. IV · Mythic

    For long games and the campaign finale. A walking monolith, a second myth power, and the Wonder of the Balance for anyone who can hold it.

    Population cap 175

A normal twelve-minute skirmish reaches Ascendancy. Mythic is for patient players.

Faces in the dust

Each people has a hero and two voices around them. Not everyone survives the campaign.

Hesh Dominion

High Artificer Nesh-Amun
Act I lead. Gold mask, bronze piston exo-frame, and the belief that the world is a sum.
Archivist Ankhet-Sal
His sceptical Seer and the voice of conscience.
Warden-Captain Ur-Besh
Commander of the Acolytes. Loyal and blunt.

Oru Wanderers

Matriarch Oru-Vael
Carries a tiny walking cottage on her back. Every lantern on her is a name she remembers.
Pip-Ixel
A young Patchwork Tinker, brave and talkative.
Hesk the Long
Strider Courier and scout.

Thalm Deep

The Drowned Cantor
Once the priest Ilvar-Mourn, now half-fused to a leviathan skull.
Brine-Mother Skaal
High priestess. Certain.
Ilmara
An apostate singer who doubts the debt.

Words you will hear

Skein
The Choir’s single song, woven into the shards.
Echo, Echo Site
A crystal that remembers part of the song, and the ruin that holds it. Attune one by standing on it with a Mason.
Urd’s Well
A pool where the song settled into water. In play: Aether, the second resource.
Lore
What you learn from Archives and Echo Sites. You spend it to enter a new Age.
Rite of Ascension
The channelled ritual at your Foundry that moves you to the next Age. Everyone can see it begin.
Inscription
A permanent Hesh bonus, chosen once per Age.
Awakening
The moment the first Echo sings back, ten thousand years after the Choir fell silent.