Lore

The World of Scardungeon

Scardungeon is an ancient, magical world hidden beyond the Pirates' Playground, ruled by bargains older than memory.

Key figures

Those bound to the bargain

Captain Marc Williams

A ghost pirate bound by a three-hundred-year-old bargain, his black storm-worn coat and pale hair unmistakable in any century. Ancestor, guardian and guide to the boy who must finish what he started.

Cantrice

Emerald, sapphire and gold feathers catch the lantern light, but there's nothing ordinary about this parrot. Older than she looks, sharper than she sounds, and bound to the Williams family in ways Samuel is only beginning to understand.

Lord Tribworth

The being who struck the very first bargain on a quiet English beach, and holds the fate of both Scardungeon and Earth in his hands. Not cruel. Not kind. Simply certain.

Commodore Germane

A figure who has learned to cross between Earth and Scardungeon, carrying a stolen time stone that opens the way. Three hundred years on, he has not made the crossing to make peace — he has come to avenge Captain Marc Williams. He commands a small fleet of ships, and sails one himself — when it flies black, it means only one thing: he is aboard.

Mr Higgins

A stern, watchful presence who runs the campsite on the Dorset coast, never straying far from the sea — though his bearing is oddly formal for a campsite warden, and something about the set of his shoulders looks more suited to a ship's deck than a reception desk. There is more to Mr Higgins than meets the eye, and not everyone who crosses his path walks away unchanged.

Farsconther, the Lord of Parrots

Spoken of throughout Scardungeon, rarely seen by anyone — and, some now whisper, missing altogether.

The Fleet of Commodore Germane

Four ships, one command

The four ship flags of Commodore Germane's fleet — black, blue, green and red, each marked with a cracked hourglass and broken compass.
Commodore Germane commands four ships in total: his own flagship, and three smaller vessels beneath him. All four fly the same fractured emblem — a cracked hourglass gripped by a broken compass ring, one point snapped clean off — coloured by rank. The black flag is his alone: raised only when he is personally aboard, so that anyone who sees it knows, without question, that he is there.

The Treasure Map

Chart of Scardungeon

A hand-drawn map of Scardungeon, passed down through the Williams family for three hundred years.

Hand-drawn treasure map of the Pirates' Playground, showing the Deep Blue Sea, Snow Sand Castle, Deathly Mountain and the buried treasure

Charts & bearings

Maps of Scardungeon

Two charts for the curious traveller — one of the lanes and coastline where the story begins, and one of the wider world beyond.

Sine & the Dorset Coast

Sine, Dorset and the hidden cove of the Pirates' Playground.

The Wider World of Scardungeon

Temples, cities and warm waters far from the End Inn.

Beyond the known chart

Eight Corners of a Wider World

Every shore on the map has a story. Here are eight whispers from the places Samuel has yet to reach.

Isvangard — They say the Northern Lights above Ravnfjord are the ships that never came home, still searching for their harbour.

Vaelmoor — The old road maps all show a fork near Greywick that leads nowhere — yet merchants still swear by it, and no two travellers ever agree on what they saw at the end.

Emberveld — Duskgate's market only opens after sundown, and trades in stranger things than spice. Rumour has it Captain Marc once bartered there for three days that were never really his.

Coppervale — Once a year, the river past Ashford Landing runs backwards for a single night — the same night old harbour logs say a ship with no flag was last seen leaving port.

Frostpine Dominion — The forests beyond Long Pine Hold are so vast that three expeditions have vanished trying to map their far edge. All three compasses were later found — each one pointing straight at Scardungeon.

Silkspire — High above Loomgate hangs a bell that hasn't rung in three hundred years. The old story goes: the day it rings again is the day the doors of Scardungeon open for good.

Suncoral Reach — The carvings at Temple of Wardock are said to shift position every hundred and fifty years — sailors who've charted it twice swear it's never quite the same shape.

Cloudroot — A stairway is carved into the cliffs above Mossgate that climbs above the clouds and simply stops. No one has found where the last step leads, or who carved it.

Illustrations

Scenes from the Adventure

Six moments from the story, brought to life.

A clash at the doors of Scardungeon.
Saved by the light — the Pirates' Playground.
A stranger in the crowd.
Old books, older secrets — the Library of Sineford.
A visitor in the night.
An old friend at the End Inn.

Genealogy

The Williams Bloodline

A hand-drawn family tree tracing the Williams bloodline from Captain Marc Williams to Samuel Williams.
Three hundred years of the Williams family, charted in full — for readers who want to trace the bloodline all the way to Samuel.

Every branch of this tree holds a story. A few are worth pausing on.

  • Some say Elisabeth Mary Scott knew more of Scardungeon than she ever told her sons.
  • No death is recorded for Gweneth Williams — only a handful of unexplained visits across three hundred years, always when the family needed her most.
  • In 1882 — almost exactly one hundred and fifty years after the bargain was struck — Albert Williams vanished for eleven days. He never explained where he'd been, and never camped outdoors again.

Key places

Chart the map

  • 01

    The Village of Sine

    The quiet village that once gave Sineford its name still exists, half-hidden, deep within Scardungeon itself. Some journeys end exactly where they began.

  • 02

    The Pirates' Playground

    Hidden beyond an ancient archway on the Dorset coast, where new rules apply and a guardian is made, tested, or unmade.

  • 03

    The End Inn

    A wooden sign creaks above a doorway with a very strange name. Nobody Samuel meets can quite explain why.

  • 04

    Klindesdale

    The afterworld reserved for sailors who kept their word. Not every pirate earns a place there — but every pirate hopes for one.

  • 05

    The Flatlands of Klindersfell

    Endless grasslands stretching beyond the known edges of Scardungeon's map, glimpsed from a distance but not yet explored.

For readers

More to explore

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The Scardungeon Compendium

An A-to-Z of the people, places and lore of Scardungeon.

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