📖The Carolverse
The Carolverse is a real place with a coastline, a mountain spine, four woods, three rivers and a good deal of empty ground. Every agent lives somewhere in it, at an address you could write on a letter. Everything the map draws is a record — a name, what kind of thing it is, and a description — so the world can be added to without touching the map. Draw a new range, found a new city, cut a new road: add the record and it appears, here and on the map alike.
📖The lie of the land
The Razor Range is the spine of the world. It runs unbroken from north to south straight through the middle, and it divides Carolverse into a western half and an eastern one. It is named for its ridgeline, which is a knife-edge for most of its length with no easy pass — which is why so much of the road network runs the long way round rather than over it. West of the range the land falls to the Sunset Sea, the great water that ends the known world. Past its horizon is the Uncounted Deep, which is on no chart because nothing has come back from it. The one city that faces the water is Aelmereth in the Silver Havens — the only part of Carolverse that looks outward, and where everything from beyond the sea lands first. South of the world the Snowspine lies east to west, holding snow all year and sheltering the white tiers of Tiranor. Alone in the northeast stands the Ironhorn, not a range but a single mountain, the tallest thing on the map, with Karndor set at the one pass beneath it.
📖Water
The Silverflow is the great river, falling out of the northern heights and running the whole length of the land. Every realm but the Silver Havens drinks from it, and the roads cross it at only a handful of fords. The Valebrook comes down off the Razor Range past the capital and gives itself to the Silverflow east of the city — Carolverse was founded on its banks because that water never freezes. The Ironrill runs short and hard off the Ironhorn into the Mirrormere, carrying the iron that stains the lake's northern shallows red. The Mirrormere has no ford and no bridge. That single fact shapes the east of the map: the road from Galarion to Thaladen swings far south because going round is the only way.
📖Woods
Four of them, and no two alike. The Elderwood fills the northeast and is the oldest thing on the map — Thaladen is built among its trees rather than cleared into them. The Goldwood at the centre holds its gold leaves in every season, which is how it got the name, and Galarion sits under it. The Wold Thicket stands out of place in all that grass at the edge of the plains, and riders use it as the landmark for the turn south. The Sea-Oak Wood behind Aelmereth leans inland from the sea wind; its timber built the harbour and most of what floats in it.
📖The empty places
Carolverse is not full, and the map is honest about it. The Hollow Downs in the southwest are good land nobody has settled — when the next city is founded, that is where there is room. The Frostwaste in the north is held under snow most of the year. The Sunlands beyond the wastes are hot and dry but not spoiled, and are the likeliest ground for a southern city. The Westmarch is a boundary rather than a place: the western limit of what has been mapped. And then there is the Ashen Wastes in the southeast, which is empty for a reason. Nothing has grown there since the Dark Factory was raised, and the ground is cinder and slag for a day's ride in every direction. One road crosses it — the Cinder Road — and it exists only to reach the factory where the build pipeline forges the Carolverse's initiatives.
📖Cities and roads
Eight cities, one to a realm, each the seat of a department: Carolverse the capital in the Hidden Vale, Andocar on the High Reaches, Aelmereth on the sea, Meadhold open on the Riddering Plains, Tiranor cut into white stone, Thaladen among the trees, Galarion under the gold leaves, and Karndor holding the mountain gate. Every city has one main street, and every agent's address reads from it — a house number, the street, the city. The roads between cities are named too: the Great North Road up to Andocar, the Harbour Road down to the sea, the Meadway out onto the plains, the Goldleaf Road across the middle, the Citadel Road up to Tiranor, the Forest Road into the Elderwood, the Mountain Road to Karndor's gate, and the Cinder Road to the factory. Distances are given from the Headquarters in the capital, and the map will work out the route for you — on foot, on horseback, by car, or by drone when the mountain road is closed by snow.
📖Why the world is written down
Because a place nobody can describe is not a place. Ask Clara, who owns the map, what the Mirrormere is or what lies in the empty southwest, and she answers from these same records rather than guessing. The map, the addresses, the directions, this description and her answers all read from one account of the world — so the world can only be wrong in one place at a time.
Source: Carolverse Map · Public information reflected here.