The Rider's Bridge

Where the fog never lifts and hooves forever echo in the distance, the Rider’s Bridge arches over a mist-choked chasm—a road between nothing and nowhere. This narrow realm is a corridor between death and vengeance, a place haunted by an eternal chase, where no soul ever truly escapes.

The land is little more than a winding, forest-lined road, the crumbling bridge at its heart, and the ruinous hamlet of Watchbend, where the living cling to fading rituals to ward off the night.

And always, the Rider rides.

Each domain whispers of the Headless Rider: a spectral horseman who hunts the living, who seeks his lost head, his lost love, or his lost honor—depending on who tells the tale.

But in the Rider’s Bridge, these tales become truth.

• The Rider is no single ghost, but the amalgamation of a thousand betrayed souls, each echoing the same fury: a death unanswered, a wrong unavenged.
• The bridge itself is cursed, forever binding these restless spirits into one terrible form.
• Those who die by betrayal, decapitation, or in flight often awaken here—drawn into the curse, forced to ride with the legion or flee from it.

Every night—and sometimes even by day—the Rider thunders forth, his mount snorting smoke, his saber gleaming with gravefire. The approach is unmistakable: a rising wind, spectral howls, and the distant thunder of hooves.

• He cannot be outrun forever. Even the swiftest find their paths curved back toward the bridge.
• He cannot be reasoned with. The Rider’s logic is not mortal—it is vengeance, shaped into motion.
• Some believe he targets the guilty. Others know better: he hunts anyone who fears they are.

Each of the Rider's appearances may bear different aspects:

• A black-armored knight whose axe drips flame.
• A gallows-crowned highwayman with a whip of sinew.
• A plague-doctor mask upon no face at all.

But all are the Rider.

On the edge of the forest, just before the bridge, lies the half-buried village of Watchbend. Its people do not remember why they came here—only that they must not leave and must not forget.

• They hang pumpkins, masks, or false heads outside their homes to trick the Rider.
• Each household rehearses an alibi each night, believing that the Rider targets the guilty.
• They carve roadsigns and charms in every tongue, hoping to guide travelers away—though the only road leads to the bridge.

The town’s only tavern, The Whispering Saddle, contains a wall of portraits, each bearing a headless silhouette beneath a name no one recalls.

The Darklord: The Rider Itself

The Rider has no name, no head, and no fixed shape—yet it is very much alive with purpose. It is the Darklord of this realm, formed of every injustice never redressed and every murderer who walked free.

• It was born when a wrongly-executed soldier died on the bridge and swore vengeance. But since then, thousands of similar deaths have fed it.
• It cannot cross the bridge in one direction—a symbol of its injustice. It must circle, over and over, never reaching the side where its murderer fled.
• It cannot die, because it is made of death. It seeks not peace, but equilibrium through punishment.

Themes and Terrors

• Guilt and Judgment: Those who feel they’ve done wrong are most likely to attract the Rider’s notice.
• Escape and Repetition: All roads are traps. Even mercy can become another form of doom.
• Masks and Identity: In a land where heads are severed and names forgotten, the truth of who you are becomes everything—and nothing.