THE TSARDOM
Everything Is a Game
Ruunsk is a cold tsardom at the top of the world, walled in by mountains on three sides and a frozen sea on the fourth. Its capital, Kostigrad, is dug into the crater of the volcano Pech, the only warm ground left under the Cold Hearth, the black sun that gives no heat.
Ruunsk holds that Lohts, the Ruination of sloth and despair, killed six of its seven gods by making them stop. The last, Jall, the god of games, holds him off with a Wager that must never end. So nothing in Ruunsk may stand still. Buildings lean. Church domes spin. Disputes are settled by rhyming duels refereed by jester-priests, and the dead are carved into dice so they can keep playing.
The poor freeze in their stone honeycombs on the Brim. The rich live in the Deep, nearest the magma, and in the glass spires of the Bells. Heat is life, and the state owns every flame.
THE CHRONICLE
The Books
Book One is out now. The first chapter is free to read.
BOOK ONE · EBOOK
Kosti
Kostigrad is dug into a crater under a black sun, and its people gamble with bone dice for the right to stay warm.
Fedya Ulybin is a professional loser. People hire him to throw games, and he is very good at it. But when his square, the poorest on the Brim, faces being sent into the caps for good, he has to decide whether to throw the Deal pit tournament against a champion who has never been beaten.
FROM THE CODEX
The dead are carved into dice, so that they can keep playing.
Every Istopnik keeps one furnace alive. Heat is life.
Every turn is timed. Nothing in Ruunsk may stand still.
The Istopniki, the state's mages, wear brass masks of sleeping infants.
