Harrowmere · the Sinkward

Three friends, one rotten shack, and a forge the guild didn't license

A runaway apprentice, a carter with six days before his debt is auctioned, and a clerk the guild threw out pooled every coin they had for a stilt-shack on the lake — and lit a forge in it.

Maud, Gorran and Pella on the Lake Market road at night, their smoking stilt-shack forge behind them — The first night: the shack the three friends bought, already smoking over the black lake.

Maud Carrick, runaway smith's apprentice, human — Maud Carrickrunaway smith's apprentice, human

Gorran Tusk, river-carter in debt, half-orc — Gorran Tuskriver-carter in debt, half-orc

Pella Quill, dismissed Moot clerk, gnome — Pella Quilldismissed Moot clerk, gnome

In Harrowmere nothing made may be sold inside the walls without a guild token. Outside them, in the Sinkward — the stilt-shacks on the lakeshore — any trade may be worked without one. The catch is the second half of the rule: the Lakewatch won't protect you there.

Three friends decided that was a fair trade. Maud Carrick ran from her master's forge with a burn scar and a debt to Osric Hale, the moneylender who sells the bonds of anyone who can't pay. Gorran Tusk, a half-orc river-carter, had six days before his own debt went to auction on the Hiring Steps. Pella Quill had kept the Moot Hall's accounts until the Moot decided it didn't need her. They pooled every coin they had, bought a rotten shack on stilts above the black lake, and on the first night lit a forge in it.

Each of them wanted something different out of it, and that is the whole point of how the game works: every friend writes their own order each turn, in their own words, and the world resolves them all together — in the same place, on the same clock, each seeing the others do what they really did.

Smoke, and a lantern on the shore path

The bellows died and the shack filled with smoke — a bad thing to have where the town watch counts fires. Maud's first order:

Maud’s order: I snatch the bellows from my friend, pump them hard myself, and shout to the others to kick out the rotten boards so the smoke clears before the watch sees it.

It worked, barely. Gorran and Pella kicked out two boards, cold air poured in, and the smoke thinned over the water. Then a Lakewatch lantern came along the shore path and stopped under the stilts. Maud kept pumping and said nothing. The man sniffed, and moved on toward the Drowned Lantern. She came out of the night with a blistered palm and a forge that was still lit.

Gorran crouched among kicked-out boards in the shack as Maud works, the town walls across the ice — Kicking out the rotten boards so the smoke clears before the watch sees it.

Three roads out of one shack

A forge with no iron and no buyers doesn't pay anyone's debts, so by morning the friends split up to do what each of them was good at.

Gorran went where the silver was. A drover at the Northwest Gate was hiring hands to walk a herd north before the snows. Gorran pushed past the queue, set his cracked whip on the tailboard and asked straight out whether the man took a half-orc who could lift iron. Dunstan Vell looked at the broken tusk and didn't ask about it: a silver a week, paid at the far end, not before. Gorran talked one copper out of him up front as a sign of faith, then spent the night hooking stray steers back to the rope.

Gorran with his whip among the drover's cattle at the gate before dawn — Gorran on the drag rope at the Northwest Gate, waiting for the herd to move.

Maud went after buyers. A first blade from an unlicensed smith needs someone willing to buy it, and Brenna Marsh at the Drowned Lantern was the kind of woman who knew who that might be. She bought her way to a meeting with a copper: Brenna sees nobody before noon. Come to the back door then.

The clerk who read the books

Pella's play was the quietest and the best. She had noticed something in the forge's own coal tally — the figures didn't balance. She slipped a copper to the boy at Brannoc's bellows on Anvil Row and asked a clerk's question:

Pella’s order: I slip a copper into the cracked-hammer boy's palm, lean close, and ask him which Moot clerk keeps the forge coal books and whether he's seen them left unlocked.

A name came back — Hobb Ansel, back office of the Granary, who leaves the press open at noon — and so did a warder on the door. Pella sat against the Granary wall all night counting his steps: fourteen to the corner and back. At six he went inside for his porridge, and the door was unguarded for the space of a breath.

Pella crouched in the Granary back office copying figures from the open coal press — Inside the Granary: the gap in the books, in the clerk's own hand.

You lift the press lid and copy the margin figures into your ledger under the lamp stub, every gap in Hobb Ansel's own hand. You tuck the original tally back exactly as you found it, lid squared, and slip out before the warder returns.From Pella's turn

Where it stands

Nobody won anything yet. That's the honest version, and the game doesn't hand out any other kind. But after five turns the Sinkward forge is lit and still a secret from the watch; Gorran has a road north and a copper in his boot; Maud has a noon meeting with the one woman in town who knows who buys unlicensed iron; and Pella is holding proof, in a guild clerk's own hand, that someone at the Moot has been cooking the coal books.

None of them could have done it alone. The forge is Maud's dream, but it's still standing because three people bought it, three people kicked out the boards, and one of them knows exactly how to make the guild that would shut it down think twice.

Bring your friends.

In The Churn you write what your character tries, in your own words, and the world answers — honestly. Begin beside a friend and you start as allies, in the same place, on the same turn. No class, no script: whatever you build, you build.

Begin your own life — free