Map Scrolls

“A map is never merely a tool. It is a prayer whispered onto parchment. A song rendered in ink, meant to be read by both the eye and the soul.”

The scrolls that line the map vaults beneath the Temple of the Threefold Flame are older than the crown itself. Older than Kingswatch. Older, perhaps, than even our reckoning of time. Some are written in the curling script of the Elenari, others in the block-stamped tongue of the Deep Dwarrow. A few—precious and dangerous—bear no language at all, only symbols that burn faintly when touched.

To the untrained eye, they may seem like mere representations of rivers and hills, towers and trade routes. But we who keep the flame know better.

Each scroll bears memory. Not just of the land’s contours, but of what was. Of cities swallowed by forests. Of roads now drowned. Of places that no longer exist on this plane, but leave impressions—like heat lingering long after the fire.

Some maps sing. Some weep. One—bound in scorched elk-hide—screams softly when unrolled. We do not read that one aloud.

The scroll of Anhaldor—our most revered—was said to have been drawn in the first year of unification by cartographers blessed by Aiyal herself. Its borders shimmer faintly, and new villages appear upon it unbidden when they are founded in truth and blood. I have seen it correct itself. I have seen it warn us.

I remind my apprentices often: you do not hold a map. You invite it. You unfold the memory of the realm itself. To draw one is a holy act. To preserve one, sacred. And to misdraw one—a heresy of the highest order.

For kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall.

But the scrolls remember.

And through them—so do we.