Hearthsail

The beacon above Hearth Harbor went out years ago, and the harbour emptied one boat at a time. Your grandmother Meri kept the fire longer than anybody. This morning her rowboat, her axe and her fishing rod are waiting by the door beside a letter. Take them, bring back what the sea gives up and light the harbour again.

An ocean with no edge

Point the bow at a mark on the water and go. It may become a palm cove, a cold shore under snow or a patch of grass barely large enough for a campfire.

The water keeps going in every direction. The little bay you found last week is still exactly where you left it. This sea gives things back, which is more than most seas manage.

Five flames, one harbour

Five cold fire bowls stand on the tower. One asks for fish from the home sea. Another wants a harvest, a hot meal or something brought up from below an island. The last asks you to sail much further.

Each flame brings somebody to Hearth Harbor. Reyn opens the smokehouse, Mab puts the harbour garden back in the ground and Odderf finds a stove. Nobody declares the place restored. One evening you simply notice that the pier is busy again.

A working day

Fell trees in the morning, cut ore from the rock, put seed into watered soil and cook whatever came home in the boat. Planks become a workbench, a bare deck becomes somewhere to sleep and a claimed island slowly becomes a place you know in the dark.

Forty-four real fish species keep their own bait, depth, season and biting hour. The catfish takes a worm after dark. The pike hunts the shallows at first light. Learn one and you can predict it.

The chain of lights

The fifth flame is not the end of the voyage. Far beyond the familiar water, rare sea lights wait on new shores. Carry one home and it hangs from the harbour chain with the place you found it. Then there is room for another.

• Sail a world that remembers: every shore stays where you found it, together with the things you built there.
  
• Choose a larger ship: grow from a rowboat towards a galleon, with room for work, cargo and a crew.
  
• Share one lasting world: friends join the host or server with a character that belongs to that world.
  
• Work as a crew: steer, handle sails, manage cargo and decide at the captain's desk who may do what aboard.
  
• Claim a shore: raise a flag, build, plant and return to the same place after a longer voyage.
  
• Know the neighbours: learn their hours, gifts and stories, then watch Hearth Harbor change as people return.
  
• Keep what you build: Early Access worlds carry forward to version 1.0 without planned or forced wipes.