Hasholm, The Pride of All Men: A Map, and Supplement, for the Understanding and Study of our Greatest Bastion of Civilization

  Written by authority of the Hasholm Printers League

  The City on the Hill. The Eastern Beacon. The Spirit of the New World. The River Pearl.

  A child known by many names, cursed and blessed with the same breath. A being born of pure flame, enduring in sin, yet sanctified by labor and blood.

  This is Hasholm. Our home away from home. Our hearth at the world’s edge. Raised upon a river’s back, bound by walls and bastions, it stands at the very brink of what any man might call decent, in the heart of a land that seeks both to kill and to enlighten.

  Such a bastion must rest upon firm ground—and what a foundation it earned. A fortress carved not only in stone, but in spirit. Hasholm is a fist clenched eastward, ready to weather whatever wave this spiteful land or its hateful neighbors might hurl against us.

  Yet more than a weapon, it is a jewel. A city of splendour, of wealth and industry, a node for trade, wares, goods, and ideas. Barges bring their burdens to its docks, caravans cross its bridges, and merchants unfurl their ledgers beneath its arches. No thought leaves Divina Terra but through the minds and mouths of Hasholm.

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  It is here that God, our Saviour, followed us from the Old World, and plastered His spirit upon our homes and men. The Cathedral of Joseph rises north of the square, its bells binding time itself. The Studium to the south keeps faith and reason hand in hand, striving to reconcile a world no mind can comprehend with a Lord who understands all. The fortress bastion to the north broods over the isle like a stern father, while to the east the Festningsanstalt holds the outcast and the broken, a reminder of what awaits when law or faith are betrayed.

  The city is a ledger of triumph and of trial. Its squares are paved with the blood of martyrs, its docks blackened by the smoke of storms, its halls filled with the murmur of scholars and traders who refuse silence. In Hasholm, faith is forged into discipline; grief into memory; memory into endurance.

  From the hills to the river, from the walls to the hamlets, Hasholm binds Grenzland together. It is the place where merchants of the Free League petition for rights, where scholars inscribe the laws of storms, where soldiers march to their posts along the eastern watch, and where saints—living, bleeding saints—are known to walk.

  Oh, Hasholm. City of iron and ink. Of splendour and grime. Of banners in the wind and bells in the storm. We thank you. We name you our shield, our market, our scripture, our jewel. May you shine forever upon us, and may the map that follows serve as witness to your endurance.