Common Hearth
Meridian Compact · Bastion carrier and refuge ark
The city that came back for you
Relief captain
A shelter carrier built around an evacuation vessel’s surviving spine. Its armored shoulders protect hospitals, workshops, and inhabited terraces, while one broken brace remains visible above the rescue bays.
A pre-Silence habitation transport, later rebuilt by the districts of Dawnwall.
Sheltered evacuation bays and extensive repair, medical, and civilian support spaces make the vessel a refuge that can reach a damaged region.
There is still room.
Who has the deck
Alia Dane, relief captain. A former evacuation coordinator who knows the ship by its shelter decks rather than its weapons. She answers to the vessel’s civic service charter and works with Iona without serving as a second faction leader.
The dark brace
A visibly mismatched reinforcement beside the port rescue shoulder. Tiny memorial lamps sit along its protected inner face. The brace marks both a return that saved lives and the people that return did not reach.
What it cannot do
Its inhabited volume and aging structural brace demand slow, planned maneuvers and substantial support. It cannot protect every settlement merely by appearing overhead.
A tradition aboard
Before departure, the crew reads the remaining rescue requests rather than the completed ones. An empty berth is described as capacity still available, never wasted space.
Who argues with the captain
Bram Elt — A retired medic who has preserved handwritten names rejected by the official manifest. He wants witnesses heard, not the rescue erased or a convenient descendant made to bear another person’s guilt.
Four eras, one hull
Settlement Tender Twelve carries modular homes and their future residents.
The return voyage saves a convoy and fractures the near-side shoulder. A disputed bay closure is omitted from the public rescue roll.
Dawnwall’s districts commission Common Hearth under a shelter charter independent of faction membership.
A structural refit exposes the original closure log and brings the missing passengers' families aboard.
Aboard
The Open Deck
A former cargo hall converted into a sheltered civic square, with repair benches and an arrival desk that asks what a traveler needs before asking where they belong.
The Brace Walk
A protected passage beside the old reinforcement, where warm lamps mark both recovered and still-unaccounted-for passengers.
The Common Galley
Communal tables carry the marks of successive refuge crews. The longest table remains deliberately unfinished so another section can be added.