Mayday Plays - Welcome to Rivenwake: A Firefly's Journal | Part 2

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

If you're a Firefly looking for inspiration, this is the video for you. Join Sergio on a tour through Rivenwake—the land of divergent currents. Rivenwake is an original Wildsea reach, where colossal ironroot currents crash like rivers, where your word is your worth, and where memories are traded like coin. In this video, Sergio breaks down the lore, geography, and strange economies that make Rivenwake unlike any other part of the Wildsea. Expect a deep dive into the worldbuilding behind key settlements like Red Crown, Emerald Window, Spindrift, Rem Reef, and Echo Basin. Learn about the key factions, theocracies, memory-harvesting coral, whisper-trading cults, and vertical gambling dens—all designed to inspire Mayday to record a memorable actual-play. Patrons are currently exploring this reach in an ongoing Discord campaign, and it will soon become the setting for the next fully produced actual play series featuring the cast of Mayday. 🪵 Want to explore Rivenwake yourself? Join our Patreon at any level for access to the Discord campaign.📜 Coming soon: A free PDF supplement with all the lore discussed in this video, perfect for running your own Rivenwake stories at the table.

Welcome to Rivenwaik, the land of divergent currents. I'm Sergio with Mayday, and I am thrilled to finally share with you the reach that's been growing in my mind and at my game table for months now. Rivenwaik is more than just another corner of the wild sea. It's a place full of adventure, danger, and a central mystery. It's where your word is your worth, where memory is currency, and where only the bravest wild sailors survive the swells of the timber flow. Today I'm going to take you on a journey through its most notorious settlements,

but this isn't just a tour, it's a call to adventure. Because soon, May Day will be launching an actual play series set entirely in the depths and heights of the Mesoraya jungle. So if you're ready to brave the currents, follow me as we dive into the heart of Rivenwaik, where every wild sailor knows a whisper and any journey might be your last. Rivenwaik isn't like other places on the wild sea. Here the canopy moves beneath your ship not with creeping growth, but with the violent surge of a tree current.

Imagine, mile wide rivers of iron roots, actually a subspecies I've dubbed iron tides, not flowing like water, but smashing and crashing against one another like tectonic plates made of bark and branch. These are the great tree currents, the lifeblood of Rivenwaake. Where it might take a whole day to traverse a particular part of the jungle on a sawprow, on a tree current you can double that distance in the same time. on a sawprow, on a tree current, you can double that distance in the same time. They say to master the currents is to master Rivenwaite itself. There are two known tree currents that define the region. There is the Northern Timber Flow and the Southern Green Stream.

The Timber Flow carves its way diagonally across Rivenwaite, stretching from the southwest to the far northeast. Its path can be erratic and unyielding, but the timber flow is a highway, a wall of defense, and a proving ground all at once. It's also a bit of a mystery. Its final destination remains unknown to wildlings. Every expedition to cartographize its end has vanished without a trace, feeding the local belief that the currents are a pathway to the afterlife, a river to heaven itself.

To the south lies the Green Stream, a verdant artery that pulses with lush emerald growth. The Green Stream is a borderland, a line in the sand between the relative safety of the Mesoraya and the chaos of Raggedwood, a lawless swamp dominated by willow and mangrove iron roots. Just like the timber flow, wildlings believe that the Green Stream too is a river to heaven. However, some theorize that both currents might connect far beyond Rivenwaake's borders, making it one enormous loop. Beneath the canopy, the roots of these iron giants

stretch deep into the dark into what wildlings call the lower hells. Like other reaches, Rivenwaake's lower hells are divided into the thrash, the tangle, the sink, and the drown, and so on. But to a wildling, the dangers don't just lie below. The sky itself is known as the Upper Hells, a chaotic expanse where predators and pirates reign supreme.

To those born in Riven Wake, anything beyond the canopy is a place to be feared. Between these two colossal currents lies the Mesoraya, a name in Hyven that means land between currents. The Mesoraya is a place of refuge for many. The currents act like towering walls, shielding the inhabitants from leviathans and larger predators. The sea is calmer here, and it's where we find the largest concentration of wildlings, living off the bounty of the jungle and the rare safety it provides. The first settlement in Rivenawake is in many ways its most influential. It's where the early survivors of the Verdancy first clung to life, carving out a foothold

on an unforgiving mountaintop. This is Redcraft. It takes its name from many inspirations. Its towering cliffs and crescent shape form a natural crown upon the wild sea, a symbol of both its dominance and strategic high ground. Adding to its ominous reputation, one of its thin peaks is a dormant volcano, casting an eerie crimson glow from deep within its caldera. It was here that hundreds of survivors first gathered, seeking refuge from the untamed

currents. Over time, those who claimed the Red Crown would fight bitterly for control of its precious resources. Much blood was spilled on its rocky soil in a nearly century-long conflict known as the Seventy Years War. A brutal struggle that saw clan against clan, each vying for dominance over the mountain. The war ended with the rise of a faction known as the Kingsmen, a theocratic order that proclaimed themselves the chosen rulers of Red Crown, ordained by Divine Right. To them, the gods are not distant myths, they are living entities, a divine court watching from the skies above. It is a core belief that this court once visited Red Crown during its earliest years, marking it as secret ground. The Kingsmen preach that one day the gods

will return to complete their work, raising the faithful to join their celestial court. The Kingsmen establish strict order and absolute control over the mountain and its resources, but even ironclad rule needs a place to breathe. For Redcrown, that escape can be found in the Shallows, the shadowed port that sits in the Crescent Bay. The Shallows are Redcrown's bustling underbelly, a chaotic sprawl of makeshift docks and crowded markets that hug the shoreline beneath the shadow of Mount Valdun.

It is the beating heart of trade and vice. Smugglers, traitors and exiles call this place home, carving out lives in the labyrinthian walkways of mountainside, iron route and wrecked halls. Now, the iron grip of the Kingsmen extends far beyond the towering cliffs of Mount Vale Doom. It's held together by faith, fear, and a brutal economy of sacrifice, known as Haxail's Code. Named after a legendary archonaut, the Code establishes a system where any act performed in service to Red Crown, especially those that result in injury or death, is compensated by the Kingsmen.

Food, water, ships, shelter, all are provided to families of the fallen. This reinforcement of the need to sacrifice for the greater good has created a twisted economy where life and literal limb are currency. If Red Crown is a clenched fist, then Fangorn is an open hand. Sprawling and fiercely independent, unlike the iron grip of the Kingsmen, Fangorn is a patchwork of settlements. What they call an adhocracy of loosely connected trade, necessity, and a shared history of rebellion.

Here the laws are interpretations and the rulers more like temporary caretakers. It is the last refuge of the descendants of the spurned Fang, a faction that fought against the Kingsmen during the 70 years war and paid the price for their defiance. You see, before the loose confederation of settlements that now define Fangorn, there was drowning Ma, the first true stronghold of the spurned Fang. The origins of this pre-verdant fortress are lost to the verdancy, but during the war, the rebels of the spurnnfang carved out their survival

here. For years they thrived in defiance of Redcrown, using the pre-Vernon technologies they found to fight back, until a single event changed history. During the height of the conflict, an Arcanaut, I mentioned Haxail, he bound a living storm known as Weeping Veil to the ruin. This living tempest brought unending rainfall that had the curious effect of draining the ambition of any who were caught in its downpour, washing away their will to fight. With drowning maw uninhabitable, the fang were forced to scatter across the region and the war was lost. Now, the beating heart of Fangorn's economy can be found at Emerald Window.

A vertical sprawl built around a massive natural basalt arch. Suspended structures dangle from its towering stone limbs while platforms cling to its flanks, teeming with markets and vice. Anything outlawed in Red Crown is openly celebrated here. Gambling, narcotics, and duels fought for sport. Emerald Window's leadership is transient and ever-changing, decided by high-stake wagers and games of chance. Emerald Window is perhaps best known for its three grand spectacles. There is the Skitter Chain, a caravan network composed of gravelbacks, nine foot lizards bred for speed, who hurtle through

the thrash with barely a hint of control. Surviving a ride on the Skitter Chain is a rite of passage in Fangor. Then there's the Gauntlet, a daily vertical race where gravelback riders navigate a shifting lattice of ropes and platforms to rise to the top. Finally there is the Switchlight, a festival that occurs at each sunset. Thanks to pre-verdant engineering and modern arcanotics, streetlights flicker to life each twilight lighting the arc in multicolored voltaic light. On the other side of the region there's Spindrift, a territory claimed by the nomadic Gnarlhearts, a loose collection of hunting families and roving tribes.

Their trade relies on three principles, blood, sweat, and salt. Blood represents the game they hunt and the honor of the kill. Sweat is their labor and their dedication to honoring debts, and salt their trade currency. Mined from Uto's fingers, natural thermal vents the Gnarlhearts claim as their own. The Gnarlhearts answer to no one, not even the other settlements of Fangborn. Living by their own rites and rituals far from the judgment of Red Crown. The true power of Spindrift however, is found not just in its independence, but in its fleet. The Gnarlhearts maintain a formidable armada. Should they ever turn their focus outward, many believe they could rival even the Kingsmen in raw force.

For now, their disinterest in Rivenwaite politics keeps this fleet leeched. Then, perched atop the titanic skull of a Leviathan crocodile, Rem Reef is a settlement like no other. Its jagged ridges and hollow cavities form the foundation for a community of traders and dream harvesters. The settlement is infamous for its brain coral, a rare fungus found nowhere else that feeds on the memories and dreams of those who linger near it. These siphoned memories are crystallized into brain pearls, shimmering orbs that are bought, sold, and

consumed like rare delicacies. Sailors come here to forget, sometimes by choice, sometimes not. The more potent the memory, the steeper the price. Memories of lost loves, brutal battles, and even entire years can be traded away in the hopes of settling debts or simply escaping the past. Rem Reef is where every transaction risks more than just your scratch. It risks pieces of who you are. And finally, there's Echo Basin, the Whispering Mouth of Fangorn.

It is comprised of a pre-verdant ruin made of three towering pillars, forming a vertex over a vast inverted dome. It's center below the canopy so that it vanishes from sight from incoming ships. Only by entering the bowl can you learn all the secrets it truly holds. The economy of Echo Basin is one of information. Those seeking to trade do not bring goods, they bring knowledge, rumors, forbidden research

and whispers of hidden arcanotic technologies. The workforce you can find here is made of spies, assassins, and arcanauts for hire. Echo Basin is considered the seat of the Arcanautic Revolution, a modern movement that transformed arcanautics from mystical art to practical utility. Those who believed they had the makings of an Arcanaut gather in Echo Basin and learn from one another, even offering their services to those who are willing to pay. In contrast to Redcrown and Fangorn is the peaceful Tallshank settlement of Splitsbeer found in the northeast. In the midst of the 70 years war, a group of pilgrims, wary of the bloodshed, ventured northeast up the Mezariah. Their

journey brought them to the base of a towering, angelic Vermelho tallshank, its slender trunk piercing the heavens like a lance. They named it Sunspear, a moniker reflecting both its grandeur and their aspirations for it. However, the upper branches were not unclaimed. A clan of Mothren had made Sunspear their home years earlier. Whereas the Kingsmen might have chosen violence, and the spurned Fang might have chosen exploitation, the Pilgrims sought a different path. Naming themselves Shanklings after their arboreal refuge, the Pilgrims established a symbiotic relationship with their newfound neighbors. Trade routes were opened, and the Shanklings flourished.

During the Verdant Age, about 300 years ago, before our story begins, a terrible calamity split the tree in two, and a third of it fell into the thrash. Though the legends differ as to what caused this catastrophe, the resilient shanklings found a way to recover. The fallen portion of the Tallshank was secured to its base, transforming it into a natural dry dock and a resting place for passing travelers. This ingenuity marked the rebirth of the settlement, now renamed Splitsbeer in homage to its transformation. These three factions form the main settlements in Rivenwake, but there are a lot more influencing the world.

There's the hidden Ketra city of Nox, the migrating trading port of Thoravix that rides the Leviathan tarantula, Calok. I haven't even gotten into the sky marauders and pirates who claim Raggedwood as their territories. As you can probably tell, I could go on talking about Riven Wake for a while. It's been so much fun coming up with all the connective strings to form a history of the region. And honestly, everything I've shared here are just the foundation. So much more has been added by the players of my Wild Sea Discord campaign.

My plan is to keep running the Discord game for a few more months before introducing the Mayday crew into Rivenwaake. They'll add their own stories to the world and hopefully find their places within it. Because my ultimate goal is to see what happens when an unexpected force from outside Rivenwaake threatens everything the players love. That's the story of our actual play. And I'm not just stopping once I've recorded with May Day. Before the release of the first episode, I want to distill all of this lore into a free PDF handout, a supplement on Riven Wake that Fireflies can use to inspire their own games or run at their own

tables. So stay tuned for more as we get closer to the release of the show. If you liked this dive into Riven Wake, don't forget to like the video, subscribe to our channel and leave a comment with your favorite part of the setting. What part of Riven Wake do you want to hear more about? Let me know below. If you want to join a community of friendly wild sailors, consider joining our Patreon. At any subscription level, you'll get access to our Discord and my ongoing Wild Sea Campaign where you can explore Rivenwaite yourself.

In my next entry, I'll be sitting down with Felix Isaacs himself to get his insights on running a successful Wild Sea Campaign and his advice for mine. I am really excited for that one so make sure to tune in and in the meantime I'll catch you on the Lignin Tide.