Thac
Safe through Heroes of Ravenford Book 3
Main text: Book 1. Books 2–3: collapsed sections below.
Overview
Thac is the large isle west of the mainland of Arinthar where Ruins on Stone Hill takes place. Book 1 does not tour the whole island. It stays in one working corner of eastern Thac: the small seaport of Ravenford, the roads and woods around it, and the older, stranger places within a few days’ travel that keep pulling a fishing town into danger. That narrow focus is deliberate here. This page introduces Thac as a Book 1 reader meets it, not as a gazetteer of everywhere the archive names.
Ravenford is the anchor. It is described in Book 1 as the only seaport between Dunwynn and Penwick, set where the Raven River meets Merchant Bay, with its keep, temple hill, inn, docks, and bridges. From Ravenford the companions’ world widens in rings: Stone Hill and the Dead Forest to the south-west, the Bendenwoods and the hills called the Vogels where orc bandits lair in caves, Bardon’s Gap where a hill giant raids farmsteads, and the lusher Dwimmer Forest and Kelvan Hills on the western road. Dunwynn’s duchy and Penwick’s fleets press on Ravenford politically even when they stay off the page, and Andrella‘s place in Dunwynn’s succession is part of Ravenford’s local weather.
Beyond that corner, Book 1 gives a reader bearings rather than a survey. Elladan comes from Kai-Arborus, the elven tree city in the great forest Ruanaiaith, and was travelling toward Lukescros and its fair when orcs destroyed his caravan. Glolindir‘s hidden home, Cairthrellon, lies in the same great-forest world to the west in story terms. Names such as Lukescros therefore arrive the way travellers would hear them: as destinations, homes, and reputations attached to people, before they are places on a public map. No settled island-wide scale is stated in Book 1, and none is stated here.
Thac’s past is present mainly as pressure. Ruins older than their occupiers, golem work linked in the companions’ minds to Larketh and the Thrall Wars, and temples and wizards who still shape daily life tell a new reader that eastern Thac is lived-in and layered, not empty adventure ground. Start with Ravenford for the town itself, Stone Hill for the ruin that gives Book 1 its title, and the companion pages for the people who make this corner of Thac home.
Wizard’s Council of Thac
Book 1 mentions the Wizard’s Council only in passing, but the passing mention says a great deal. It is the council that rules over the entire magical community of Thac. When Lloyd’s friends learn that his mother is Lara Hault, High Wizard of Penwick, they are startled to hear she is the only wizard ever to turn down a seat on it — she did not want to be away from Penwick, her research, and her school.
For a Book 1 reader that is the whole of it: a powerful body, a seat worth wanting, and at least one wizard who said no.
After Book 1 — spoilers for Book 2, Serpent Cult
Knights of the Rose
The Knights of the Rose are a holy order of knights dedicated to the protection of Thac and to Cormar, the God of the Winds. They have been a force for good for centuries and fought in the battle against the Thrall Lords some hundred and fifty years before the series. Their ancestral home is the Wind Tower, a three-hundred-foot tower with a small town of the same name around it; Glolindir remembers passing it on the caravan road to the east coast.
Early in Serpent Cult, Titan (Delara), Captain Gelpas’s daughter, announces that she will apply to join the order, and she leaves Ravenford with Brundon. Two knights of the order, Dame Alana and Sir Craven are guests at Andrella’s coming-of-age gala and fight when the Serpent Cult attacks.
Wizard’s Council (Book 2)
The three sisters tell the companions that their father, the legendary wizard Rodric, was once a member of the council. Some months earlier, council members asked him to help find several of their order who had disappeared. He agreed, and nothing has been heard from him for about three months. The companions promise to help the sisters search.
Wider Thac (Book 2)
Serpent Cult takes the companions by sea along Merchant’s Bay to Cape Marlin on its northern coast, with its lighthouse isle and reefs of sunken ships. Dunwynn’s court comes to Ravenford for Andrella’s gala, bringing its politics with it.
After Book 2 — spoilers for Book 3, Dark Monolith
Knights of the Rose (Book 3)
Dame Alana Benefilla, whose warhorse wears a white hood marked with a single scarlet rose, joins the strike force the baron sends against the Serpent Cult and becomes one of the travelling company. Sir Craven rides to raise cavalry from the Wind Tower, meets the companions on the trail into the Darkwoods, and keeps a Knights of the Rose camp at the monolith.
Wizard’s Council (Book 3)
Talking with Ves, Glolindir starts to wonder whether the council disappearances, Rodric’s silence, and Maltar’s vanishing are tied to the Serpent Cult’s interest in the works of Larketh. Book 3 raises the question without answering it.
Wider Thac (Book 3)
Dark Monolith heads south from Ravenford down the Old Knight’s Road (also called the South Road), back through the Dead Forest past Stone Hill, to Vermoorden on Lake Strikken — a town Lloyd says Dunwynn refugees founded. From there a river runs west into the Darkwoods, a forest so tall and thick that the sun barely reaches the ground, where Larketh’s monolith stands in a clearing.