Cawdor

written by Lexi Antoku

illustrated by Sin, the Weaver in Blue

Atop the hill rests the crown of the Sky District, where those with wealth and power congregate and rule. Within that lies its jewel, the Heaven District, where all manner of arcanists seek untold secrets. They are not weavers; their art is a different beast. Make no mistake: these are the rulers of the city of Cawdor. Their words and desires are as laws.

Beneath halls of power, the Ocean District grows further along the shore with every season, thriving on the bounty of the fickle seas: fishing and trade with neighbors up and down the coast. Braver captains cross deeper waters to lands unknown beyond the Grey, cutting through the fog of broken memory.

On the inland side, the Mountain District’s forges and workshops roar through day and night. The river cutting through it powers watermills, a final gift from the rains before they rejoin Cawdor’s storm-wracked seas. They make tools, and they make toys, and all too often they make weapons.

Further still are the unofficial districts. The Forest District, a rainforest that grows heartier with each year since the end of the time of dragons, flourishes under the tender care of weavers and woodsfolk. The Plains District, a sprawl of family farms and orchards, brings the city foods, drinks, and threads.

Last is the Swamp District: the city’s unacknowledged shame, a slum in the shadow of the Sky and Heaven Districts, drenched in the runoff from their arcane experiments.

If you tell a story that includes Cawdor, consider the following:

• Who rules from the Sky District? How do they maintain their authority alongside their Heavenly partners?
• How do the discoveries of Heaven District arcanists make the lives of the people better and easier? Your lives?
• Why can’t the laborers buy the best of the goods they make?
• What are the worst symptoms of the Swamp District’s contamination? Why are people forced to live there?

Story Arc: Though the Heavens Fall

We gather for a tale of power and its price. We confront the hidden costs of our bread and circuses.

First Gathering

A plague, the physicians tell us, takes the city. It started, they admit only grudgingly, in the Swamp District—where Cawdor’s rulers ignored it until it reached the wealthier districts. Citizens demand official action. The finest minds of the Heaven District provide unsatisfactory answers, so the Sky District calls upon an older tradition, potent but outside of their political control: weavers.

Into the Grey

We seek the root of the disease, its origin, with official mandate. We learn the stories of those harmed by it. We break bread with those who are officially the worst affected: wage laborers in mines, Mountain District workshops, and Heaven District laboratories. We listen to those who in truth suffer most: the pollutant-bathed untouchables in the Swamp District. We question Heavenly arcanists in ways they might not appreciate.

Deck Burner

The truth is undeniable: this is not a plague. This is contamination. Many substances essential to the miracles of Heaven District alchemy are toxic with prolonged exposure—and the arcanists knew it. Whether Sky can be turned against Heaven with evidence of their malfeasance, or the people of the city moved by the sordid truth, the Heavenly arcanists will cling to power until it is taken from them.

Laid to Rest

Perhaps justice has been done. Perhaps not. Perhaps it was Regardless, the part we played is over; it’s time to move on. What costs did the city pay, and what costs shall yet be paid? How will people’s lives change? What would have been different if others had been poisoned—across the Grey-topped seas, for instance? What will become of the elites, who named the suffering of others a fair price for their eminence?