A world on the edge

It is the 331^st year of the Age of Gold on the continent of Bailehart.

The island nation of Summer Reach has recently been annexed by the Hustrad empire. In the empire capital of Allea, an unexpected attack by shadowy strangers claims the lives of more than a dozen civilians, and the blame is placed on anti-empire rebels from Summer Reach.

The ruby monarch, ruler of the Hustrad empire, levees the accusation that their neighbors to the east, the Sovereignty of Yufros, is secretly supporting the rebels.

Tensions between the Crown Cross, to the south, and the Riverlands, just across the great divide to the east, grow daily.

The most powerful nations on the continent seem poised at the precipice of a massive war – a war that could upset the balance of all things across the vast continent, far beyond the reach of the involved parties.

Perhaps even here, far to the north, in the land known to many as the Great White Emptiness – a land bathed in snow and ruled by the imposing Ooden Dominion. A land filled to its very edges with a relentless cold and vicious danger.

Our story begins not in a region fraught with fears of war, but instead here in the frozen north. It begins at the Edge of the World.

Come join us by the fire

Edge of the World, the first season of Bailehart is the story of four individuals making their way through the Great White Emptiness at the north edge of the continent. It starts with a chance meeting of the group in the cliffside town of Gunnarsholt, perched along the northern edge of Bailehart’s verdant Hearthlands. Each member of the group is here for very different reasons:

Drang of the Short Days

A fae of the proud, stern, and warlike Winter Court. Drang is completely normal by those standards.

Drang is an anthropomorphic reindeer standing seven feet tall (eight with her antlers). She comes across as stoic, unfeeling, and aloof. This is because she is. But beneath her calm expression and lack of interest in mortal affairs, Drang is a gentle soul easily moved by the plight of others; she cannot resist someone who needs her help, even when she does not understand or care why.

Some years ago, Drang, at the time a fledgling Druid, took to the wilderness and wandered out of the lands of her people. She was trying to escape heartbreak, though she would never tell anyone this (do not let her know we told you). Before long she found herself in mortal lands, walking among mortals and learning about their struggles and their lives. She found a small resistance group, fighting against an overpowering foe, and stayed a while to teach them to see the wilderness as an ally. They still call her Mother.

But the Winter Court has called her back to her homeland to greet the Winter Emperor, a call no fae dares ignore. And so Drang left her mortal children to make the journey.

Maisel Fiske

The only daughter of an only son of an only son. The heiress apparent to a homestead in the juniper farming hamlet of Bathune, established by her grandparents and renown in the Verdann Kingdom for its gin export. Maisel is a human woman starting down the end of her twenties and grasping for meaning outside of the lush springs and summers of the Hearth.

Meaning arrives in the form of local activism, bringing the people of Bathune together to form a cooperative and demand fair taxation policies from the kingdom within which they live. Maisel travels to the city of Verdann to fight for this representation, but is outsmarted and betrayed by someone who too is climbing the political rungs of the kingdom.

We meet Maisel just days after this betrayal, with a chip on her shoulder, along with all the belongings she could stuff into her trunk.

She’s going north because, in her mind, she can’t go home.

Noir Steele

Enforcer? Check. Sweetheart? Check. Sold by his family because he was useless in a mine? Check.

Wrapped in onyx black armor and always exuding a slight purple glow of strange arcane magic, Noir is certainly a striking figure to behold. He stands at 7 feet tall and damn near as wide, and he makes every bit of that size count. Which as an enforcer for the equally feared and respected Rust Ring Syndicate is a necessary tool of the trade.

Noir’s life may have started rocky (pun intended) but he has finally found his way in the world… to a certain degree. Beneath his hard obsidian exterior lies a soft caring center that’s doing it’s best to stay positive throughout life. He understands the importance of the opportunity that Red Scar has given him, and he refuses to let anything jeopardize the Rust Ring. After being imprisoned and stripped of his armor, Noir was trapped in the north as his inner self, Lenolo, a small one who is doing his best just to survive.

Will Lenolo be reunited with his carapace? Is the party of motley assholes he found himself with going to be his doom? Only the gods know.

Osseus

Osseus is an international man of mystery and Bailehart’s greatest detective. Or at least that’s what he might tell you.

In reality nobody knows much of anything about Osseus. He’s never given a last name, has no known family members, and seems to have simply emerged from the woods some time ago. Constantly garbed from head to toe, he can most frequently be found among the ranks of one of many traveling carnivals where he earns his keep as a bare-knuckle boxer (or gloved boxer, in Osseus’ case).

Ordinarily wily and free-spirited, Osseus is firmly under the thumb of the Rust Ring Syndicate: the Hustrad Empire’s most feared criminal organization. The exact reason why is unknown to all but Osseus and his handlers, but it seems that the Syndicate has some form of information blackmail over him that he will do anything to prevent from getting out.

And so Osseus has once more been summoned by the Rust Ring for a simple task, one that finds him traveling much further north than he’s ever been before.

How to Listen

Recordings of Bailehart’s first series, Edge of the World, are available anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can find links to the most popular ways to listen on our Listen page. Edge of the World is released on Mondays and Thursdays.