# Veyrwood — concise continuity guide

1. The Worldheart and its five foundations predate Verdane. Natural rare creatures, mountain weather, rain and snow are not products of the curse.
2. The royal covenant makes the keeper responsible for balance, not ownership of the forest. Aveline is its present keeper and an active observer of rivers, plants and settlements.
3. Vaelor tried to force the covenant without mastery, becoming the Hollow King and wounding its protection. The ten named guardians are transformed failed rescuers; this history is discovered gradually through their memories.
4. Other expeditions entered for surveys, relief, scholarship, engineering, family and royal service. Many died of ordinary illness, collapse or weather without becoming monsters. Their accounts must never be identified as guardian origins merely because they carry similar professions.
5. Optional accounts use a relative chronology within each thread. Earlier hopeful observations and disagreements remain alongside later losses; discovery order is not writing order. Uncertain rumours are attributed and flagged, not presented as proven guardian identities.
6. Current crisis: the Hollow King seizes Aveline, the forest's elemental disturbances worsen, and Edric sends the existing adventurer. No new protagonist, royal ancestry or sixth element is introduced.
7. Artifact ownership immediately restores matching environmental disturbances and enables controlled marked mechanisms. Combat element selection is separate. Personal shrine mastery remains required for the five seals and enables elemental guardian counters.
8. Ember Heart / Fire; Tideborn Tear / Water; Storm Fang / Lightning; Rootstone / Earth; Skyfeather / Air. Keep these names and matching symbols across UI, notes, scenery and seals.
9. Guardian identities and generated upgrade-slot, opening-hit and shield clues remain fixed within a run. Optional historical accounts cannot contain independently randomised replacements for those guaranteed conditions.
10. Ten recorded guardian defeats open the citadel. The Hollow King's physical defeat is not permanent release. All artifacts, all masteries, all guardian conditions and the complete ritual are required to heal the covenant and free Aveline. Marriage remains a mutual choice after release.
11. An ordinary expedition outcome can preserve a road and knowledge while the seals remain unresolved. It must not claim Aveline is freed. Returning or retrying lets the player pursue the full ending; it is not an in-world reversal of a deliberate curse transformation.
12. Regional climate persists through restoration: whitefern snow remains cold; wetland rain and safe channels remain; ruins and scorched landmarks preserve visible history. Restoration changes access and hazards without erasing regional identity.