The world
Sacrament is set in a dark age of stone churches, plague carts and printing presses, ruled by humans. Other peoples are feared and despised. The Church teaches that they sided with the demons in the Age of Ash, or were made by them. Most people have never met one, and most are glad of it.
“The bell rings for bread, the bell rings for burial. On a good day, they are not the same bell.” — Mara Venn, keeper of the Hollowmere bakehouse
Three ages
The Age of Ash. Demons ruled and men were slaves. The sky was the colour of a cold hearth.
The Binding. The First Saints sealed the demons beneath the earth, at terrible cost. Few of them lived to see it hold. Their names are feast days now.
The Hallowed Age. This one. The Church keeps the Binding, and everyone who lives above it.
“Saint Orlan gave his eyes to see the door beneath the world. Saint Ysabet gave her voice to shut it. We give a candle each year and call ourselves generous.” — Bishop Aldric Vey, Feast of the Seven Seals
The Church
It keeps the calendar, the schools and most of the hospitals. It has a pontiff and cardinals, monastic orders, relics set in silver, pilgrim roads and indulgences for sale.
The Inquisition hunts witches and unsanctioned magic. Its officers are lawyers and confessors first. A summons from them is rarely the end of the story, and never a good beginning.
The Order of the Vault keeps captured monsters in the Undervaults beneath Aubrecht, the capital, to study them. Little of what the brothers learn is published.
“I swear by the Seven Seals to keep the road consecrated, the dead named, and the gate barred. If the Church should command me to open it, may the Saints forgive my disobedience.” — Dame Elowen Marr, oath of the Lantern Wardens
Magic and the Horror
Magic is forbidden. The Church says that using it tempts the Horror, which takes many forms: a hunger, a stranger in a familiar face, a quiet that follows a person home. Rites the Church sanctions are another matter. The difference is ordination.
“A mother heard her son call from the well. He had been buried three winters. She answered once. In the morning every door in the village stood open.” — Old Nessa Crowl, a tale told at Grimsby Fold
The land
Nobles hold the heartlands, inside the consecrated boundaries: wayshrines at the crossroads, boundary stones along the fields. There are roads, tithes and market days. Grimsby Fold, Hollowmere and Saint Aubrel's Cross are places like these.
Beyond lie the Unhallowed lands: wild, unexplored, full of ruins from before the Binding. Few go. Fewer come back with the same number of friends.
“Hollowmere pays in silver, Aubrecht pays in pardons, and the Unhallowed pay in things you cannot carry home.” — Captain Rusk Calder, mercenary of the Black Pennant
Monsters
They are hunted, or taken alive and kept below the city. Common folk name them for what they have been seen to do: the Pit Ghoul, the Drowned Acolyte, the Stair Wraith.
“Salt at the threshold for the Drowned. Iron above the bed for the Wraith. For a Pit Ghoul, leave your neighbour's gate unlatched and pray it chooses theirs.” — Tavin ‘Three-Locks’ Quill, notorious thief of Aubrecht
What the heroes are
“A hero is merely someone who has discovered that no one else is coming.” — Sister Corvenna Ash, former inquisitorial confessor
A first adventure
“Bring me the bell from Saint Rhel's chapel before the third night. Do not ring it. Do not let it hear your name. The dead are beginning to remember.” — Magister Odran Vale, necromancer, in a letter found nailed to a plague cart