You were nobody the city would miss.
When the Rift tore open and the Hollow Host came through it, the only cities left standing were the ones the Magi had ringed, with a Wake of Keystone-light sunk under each. Then the Magi set about making what the Host fears most. In the undercroft of the Needle they took foundlings out of the Warrens, the condemned off the gallows and Ashborn orphans from outside the walls, and remade them in the Ringing: nine nights of spellwork in a circle of light, the old life burned out, a ring of black iron sunk into the bone of one finger and bound to the Wake beneath the city. Of every hundred given to the Needle, a handful woke.
You're one of them. Quicker and harder than anyone born, cold to pain, and bound: when you die, the ring drags what's left of you back to the Wake, and the Wake makes you again at the Gallows Perch, where Mother Corva waits with a blanket and a bottle.
That's why you're the line the cities hold. A soldier dies once. You can bring down a dragon the Rift has taken, because you come back knowing a little more of how it fights each time. The townsfolk pay you and need you, and behind your back they call you gallows-born.
The main quest, from your first waking
- WakingYou open your eyes on the straw at the Gallows Perch with an iron ring on your finger. Mother Corva tells you what you are.
- The ArchiveSister Ilse shows you the ledger of your intake: a hundred given to the Needle, nine woke.
- The ProvingFall in battle, and come back. The ring holds.
- The BreachThe Host has torn a wound of violet light open beyond the walls. Slay eight of what crawls out and it closes.
- DragonfireBring down a dragon the Rift has taken. The tracker points you at the nearest.
- Warden of the RingsMother Corva writes the title after your name, and tells you the Magi aren't telling you everything.