In the highland of Haldrun, gods are not born. The Beltmaker struck nine of them out of bronze plates, and whatever a god's relief shows becomes the law of its valley.
Orsa Taval works the forge in a village too small for a name on the belt. One morning she pulls a tenth plate out of the ash. It is blank. A god with no face has no law, so everyone with a law to keep comes looking for her.
Orsa Taval, 29. Forearms spotted with old burns, a braid bound in iron, a hammer that rarely leaves her shoulder.
The one rule
Struck from Behind
In Reliefborn you raise gods and armour from the back. You strike the reverse of the plate, and the relief climbs out on the front, where you can't see it while you work. A blow that misses its mark leaves a dent that never comes out. In a fight, that dent stays in your enemy's armour, right where you put it.
“If I turn it over to check, I’ll only hammer what I expect.”
Ibe Larn, 16, keeps the embers alive and the pitch soft. On the first night he asks why she never looks. That was her answer.
Cross-section: the hammer comes from below, the relief bulges up on the side you can't see.
Act II
Nine Belts
Nine valleys, nine laws. Orsa crosses them one at a time, and each valley rewrites one rule of the world. A trick that saves you in one valley gets you killed in the next.
Kesh Dorun keeps the belts. He has seen a valley without a law: the year the Sixth plate cracked, the river ran both ways at once and a village drowned on dry ground. He believes any law is better than none, and he has the staff and the patience to prove it.
Kesh Dorun, 58. Two metres of shoulders, copper beads in his beard, a mantle sewn from retired belt plates.
Valley of Hesk, the Third God
Cinder Terraces
Fire does not burn here. Smiths reach into the flame bare-armed, and houses stand inside bonfires for years. Setting things alight won't stop anyone, but heat still softens bronze, so you forge in the open, mid-fight, with Kesh's wardens closing in.
Valley of Ulvet, the Fifth God
Stillwater Gorge
Water does not flow. The waterfall hangs where it stopped, and you climb its face like a ladder of ripples. Fish hang in the river. Anything that sinks stays where it sank, and that includes you, if you go in wearing armour.
Valley of Tamsa, the Eighth God
Long Noon Road
Shadows fall toward the sun. Hide in one and you are standing in the light's path. The wardens here track people by the shadow they throw ahead of themselves, so you learn to walk this road backwards.
Three of the nine valleys. The other six stay face down for now.
Hammer from Behind
The tenth sheet, face down on the pitch. Three punch marks sit on the outline Orsa scratched into the back. Strike them and watch the front.
Click or tap the marks. On a keyboard, QWE strike the three marks. Focus the sheet to move the punch with the arrow keys, then press Space to strike where it rests.
QWE
The back, where you strike. A face scratched in reverse, the one Orsa planned.
Held
The front, as it rises. You only see it here.
Raised
0 of 3
Dents
0
Face down. Three marks to strike.
Act III
The Back of the Sheet
At the last belt Kesh offers her a way out: copy any of the nine faces onto the tenth sheet and the hunt ends today. Orsa lays the sheet face down instead and works through the night without once turning it over.
Every hit and every miss you made on the way here goes into that sheet. The dents count. So does the order of the valleys, and who you let walk away.
The tenth god comes up with a face she never planned.
Join the Playtest
The closed playtest covers Orsa's village forge, the first two valleys and the first fight with Kesh's wardens. PC and PlayStation 5.
