Church of the Holy Dawn

“Dawn Will Come”

Every night in Eastholde ends. The Church of the Holy Dawn exists to remind people of that.

From its chapels and cloisters, the Church teaches that light is a gift and the dark is a test. Its true head is a king no one in Eastholde has heard from in generations. The Church carries on in his name regardless, and here the Duke holds it in the Crown’s stead. Beneath him stands the High Weaver, keeper of the order’s rites and of Dawnweaving.

Dawnweaving is the Church’s own art: drawing on the light that rises with the sun and weaving it into healing, protection and rebuke. Its Weavers are few, and every one of them answers to the Church.

Most of Eastholde is grateful for it. Some are afraid of it. The Church doesn’t mind either, so long as the faithful keep their eyes on the horizon.

eAstholde

Far from any shore its settlers once called home, the Duchy of Eastholde stands at the edge of the known world.

Its stone keeps rose from untamed land generations ago, raised by people who expected the Crown’s ships to keep coming. They stopped coming. Eastholde built its walls higher and carried on alone.

Today the Duchy is a patchwork of noble houses, each sworn to House Eastford and each keeping its own counsel. Beyond the walls the old forests press close, the black marshes swallow roads, and ruins rise whose builders no one can name. Older peoples guard borders of their own, and not all of them are friendly.

Eastholde has learned to live with all of it. It endures. Whether it can hold is another question.