The world

Havenwood is a hill town between a harbour and a chapel on the headland. Each place is painted before it is built, and the build is checked against the painting. Where they differ, the painting is right.

Painting of the courtyard: a round teal tree, a tall pale tower, a rose shop with a blue awning, a well, a yellow arch with a clock, and hills behind. — **The town as a painting.** The courtyard concept that set the palette: ochre, coral, plaster, violet shadows.

Anchored

Walkable in the packaged build. As real as anything here gets.

The courtyard

In the build. The first place, where every look test happens.

A square of pale paving with a well, a clock tower, a rose-plaster shop under a blue awning and a tree in a stone planter. The whole town starts here; the painting of it was the first asset, and the Unreal courtyard is built to match it.

Kai from behind, cape blowing, with the Shopkeeper and Child in the courtyard. — Late afternoon in the courtyard. The painted sky replaces the atmosphere beyond two kilometres.

Kai and the Shopkeeper at the shop corner under the blue awning. — The shop corner, where the look was decided.

Wide view of the shop front and the arched gate. — Shop front and the gate to the street.

A quiet street with a tree in a planter, an arched door with steps, and a lantern on a post.

The street

In the build since 21 October. Built from the modular town kit.

The first place made from the kit: a set of seventeen wall, door, step and planter pieces that snap to a one-metre grid, so new places can be laid out as a small text file instead of modelled one at a time. The street proved the kit. The lane, the harbour, the church square and the hill village were built the same way.

Looking through the arched gate from the plaza into the street. — Through the gate from the plaza.

A lane opening into the street with a tree and shuttered windows. — Lane into the street.

Looking back along the street toward the gate. — Looking back toward the gate.

The lane from the courtyard end: pale and ochre house fronts, a blue awning, the sea at the bottom.

Seaside lane

In the build since 22 October. The way down from the courtyard to the water.

A broad descending passage with pale and ochre house fronts, an arched door, doorsteps, and the bay at the end. It drops about three metres and joins the courtyard to the harbour on one continuous map, no loading. Innkeeper Rowan stands at the arched door, Frida on a doorstep with her plums, Grandmother Edith on a step.

Kai walking down the lane toward the sea. — Kai going down. The sea is always at the end of it.

Looking back up the lane steps toward the courtyard clock tower. — Looking back up the steps to the courtyard.

The harbour

In the build since 22 October, with quay, water and boat pieces added to the kit.

The quay at the bottom of the lane: a sea wall, bollards, a lantern, a bench, a water plane and one small boat. Old Reed stands by the boat; Sal carries crates between the quay and the foot of the lane. A ramped coast path climbs from here to the church square.

A small dark boat moored against the quay by a brass bollard. — The boat. It does not go anywhere yet.

Kai on the quay beside the harbour house, the bay behind. — Kai on the quay.

The quay corner with Old Reed by the wall and the coast path climbing to the church terrace. — From the quay the coast path climbs to the church square. Old Reed keeps the corner.

Church square

In the build since 22 October. Rebuilt from the kit with the sea walls added on 24 October.

An open lookout over the bay with a small chapel, a round clipped tree, benches and a curved parapet. It is built from the painting, on a terrace above the sea, and reached on foot up the coast path from the harbour. Tom walks here, repeating what he has heard.

Arriving on the church terrace from the coast path, the chapel ahead and Tom on the paving. — Arriving from the coast path. Tom walks the terrace.

The chapel front with its bell, arched door and a pot of leaves. — The chapel door. Closed, for now.

The lavender headland across the bay, seen over the curved parapet of the lookout. — The lookout. Something stands on the headland. Tom has heard about lights.

Kai on the terrace, cape blowing, the headland and the sea beyond. — Kai on the terrace.

Anna standing by a stone fountain basin against the end parapet, the sea beyond.

Hill village

In the build since 22 October. The highest place in the town so far.

Past the chapel, a stair climbs to a small square of gable houses on a causeway in the sea, with a fountain basin against the end parapet. Anna watches the flowers by the basin. The Old Man moved up here from the courtyard and has a doorstep.

A long stair climbing between pale walls toward the village. — The stair up from the church terrace.

The Old Man with his cane at a dark doorway, a pot beside it. — The Old Man has a doorstep now.

Kai walking toward the basin and Anna, the sea beyond the parapet. — Kai in the village.

The hill village from the sea: walls on a rocky shore, gable houses and a round tree above. — From the sea, 24 October. The walls stand on rock now, not straight out of the water.

Weaving

On the same map as the courtyard; the kit is growing to fit them.

Painting of a small chapel interior with a dim doorway.

The chapel

Being built now, with the first door that opens.

A small dim interior behind the chapel door on the church square, the first door in the game that opens. Kai uses it like a resident: walk up, face it, press E. A short fade to black, and he is inside.

Concept painting of a stepped courtyard hung with dyed cloth.

Dyers' Steps

Being built now, off the seaside lane. A court of borrowed colour.

A textile court on the old Market Row, where cloth hangs to dry in the colours the town wears.

Unwritten, but painted

Every place starts as a painting. These exist as paintings and wait for the kit. They are not less real for it, only less walkable.

Painting of a shop interior with shelves of pots and a lit doorway.

Inside the shop

Painted. Built in the earlier engine, to be rebuilt.

Through the lit door under the awning. Shelves of pots and a counter, the first interior.

Concept painting of a tavern interior with a coral hearth and a round cog above it.

The Rusted Cog

Concept painting. A tavern with a retired mill wheel over the hearth.

A cooper's store that kept its hearth and its habit of receiving anyone who needed to sit down. Greta keeps one table free until the evening boats are accounted for.

Concept painting of a walled garden with a still pool.

Lumina's still garden

Concept painting. A private retreat.

A walled garden belonging to the Lumina estate, the quiet place the story will need later.

Beyond Havenwood

The wider world as designed in 2025, before the painted look. Four continents, four cities, three outposts and six factions. None of it is painted yet, and a place is not real here until it is painted.

Continents

Aethelgard: Temperate forests and plains, feudal kingdoms, a church that reads the machine’s interventions as providence. The Spine of the Ancients runs through it. Aethelburg, the Lumina capital, sits at its centre. Havenwood is here.
Ferrus Magna: Scarred by precursor wars and industrial collapse. Scavenger clans, rust, unstable power. Neo-Veridia is a cyberpunk city built inside a dead factory; Rustwater Fishery catches metal-shelled crabs from coolant-stained water.
Sylvandell: Jungle that has eaten the ruins. Magic here is biological, a way of talking to a terraforming network nobody remembers building. Krystallos is grown around a crystal lattice; Whisperwind Hermitage hangs in the glowing canopy.
The Shifting Wastes: Where The System’s grip is weak and reality is unreliable. Zephyr is a city that moves, a fleet of repurposed precursor vehicles that never stops.

Factions

The Lumina Orthodoxy: House Lumina, the Keepers of the Lineage and the Silent Guard. Order above all, because order is what The System wants.
The Reality Weavers: Lord Kaelen Lumina and those who want to merge with the machine rather than serve it.
The Thorne Technocracy: Duchess Aris Thorne’s engineers on Ferrus Magna, who want the technology without the religion.
The Cult of the Whispering Glitch: Followers of Valerius, for whom the glitch is revelation.
The Sylvan Concord: The guardians of Krystallos, in what they believe is harmony with living magic.
The Unchained: Heretics, Glitched Scions and survivors of correction. Not a house, a network. The ones Kai is most likely to end up among.

Stonehearth Post, in the foothills of the Spine, is a devout village warmed by a hearth that never cools because a precursor plant runs under it, and its Keeper of the Flame is an agent of The System in a robe. That is the pattern for every place: a plain surface, a machine underneath, and someone keeping it quiet.