The fog-bound valley west of Venturia, sealed off from the rest of the island for a thousand years. What was once the great di Errante estate — manor, vineyards, gardens, private harbor — has been lost behind a wall of supernatural fog that ignores wind and weather and never lifts. The land within is dead: nothing grows, no animals live there, the soil is ash and the water is still. People who cross the boundary do not come back.
The Fog
The fog stops with geometric precision at the old property boundaries. From the Overlook it looks like a low ceiling of grey-white pressed against an invisible wall, unmoving even when the harbor winds blow hardest. Where it meets the sea, it ignores the tide. Where it meets the cliffs, it leaves a clean edge. Stand outside it and you can see how unnatural it is; step into it and visibility drops to nothing within a few paces.
The fog does not behave like weather. It is not damp. It is not cold. It is simply there, and it makes everything inside it harder to see, harder to hold onto, and harder to remember.
The Boundary
The Overlook is the city's high vantage on the fog line — the cliff terrace from which the Fog Wardens watch the edge of Vallombrosa. From there you can see the unmoving wall of grey, the dead ground beyond it where the land falls away into nothing legible, and the path the di Errante used to ride when their estate was still theirs.
The Fog Wardens patrol the boundary from the Fog Wardens' Garrison below the Overlook. Their job, ostensibly, is to keep people from wandering in. In practice, they do that less often than they search the fog line for the people who have already gone in.
Those Who Cross
People who pass the point of no return inside the fog do not return — at least, not as themselves. Now and then, however, a child walks out of the fog onto the boundary path with no memory of where they came from or who they are. The city has a name for them: fog children, and an institution that takes them in: Liminal House. Some of them have lived ordinary lives in Venturia ever since. None of them remembers being inside the fog.
The Legend
The di Errante family was the most powerful noble house on Seravalle a thousand years ago, and Vallombrosa was their seat. Then a catastrophe happened — and which catastrophe depends on who is telling it. The city has been retelling and disagreeing about that night for ten centuries. The contradictory tales are catalogued in The Legends of Vallombrosa; the Amaranth Theater stages a new version every Autumn Masquerade.
What everyone agrees on: the family ended that night, the estate was abandoned, the fog rose, and no one has lived in Vallombrosa since.
Connections
- The Legends of Vallombrosa — The catalogue of contradictory stories the city tells about what happened.
- Lorenzo di Errante — A di Errante name remembered from the legend.
- Marcello di Errante — A di Errante name remembered from the legend.
- Isabella Fortunata — The woman at the heart of the Tragedy.
- The Fog Wardens and the Shadowed Wardens — Patrol the boundary.
- The Fog Wardens' Garrison — Their post below the Overlook.
- Liminal House — Takes in the rare fog children who walk out.
- The Overlook — Lists this location among its notable places.
- The Signore of Venturia — Names this location in its connections.
- The Unexplained Prosperity — Names this location in its connections.