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The Keepsake

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Stephen Reid edited this page Oct 7, 2026 · 1 revision

Type: Ruined watchtower, and fortress of the None Loom
Region: The Forgotten Village, deep in The Memoir Mines, beneath The Remnant Realms
Built by: The Remnant people, the first Delvers, long ago; taken by Null
Holds: The None Loom, one of The Denial Looms, and the stolen element Once's Warp Stones
Creatures: MemoryMoths: Flitters, Dusters and Pinners
Guardian: Murmur, a swarm of MemoryMoths
Status: Dark and silent

"Every Delver in the Mines knew the Keepsake. Bell rings, down you go. Light burns, follow it home. Then one day the light went out, and nobody rang the bell, and nobody came home, and nobody remembered there'd been anyone to come home at all."
-- Pell PealKeeper - Last Keeper of the Keepsake

Overview

The Keepsake is a ruined watchtower at the heart of the Forgotten Village, deep in The Memoir Mines beneath the fallen city of The Remnant Realms. It has two voices: a great lantern at its top, and a bell beside it. For generations, the lantern was the village's sun. It lit the great cavern the village is built in, and its beam reached down every tunnel of the Deep Seams, so that however far a Delver dug, they could always find their way home. The bell called the shifts, the start and the end of every working day.

The Delvers called it the Keepsake because it kept them. Every Delver who went down came home by its light. When the village was forgotten, the lantern went out and the bell fell silent, and the Keepsake was forgotten with it.

That is why Null chose it. A village forgotten twice over, by the people who lived there and by everyone who might have remembered them, is the one place in Threadbare where nobody would ever think to look. In its watch room, the None Loom fixes every fibre into a forgetting. The Keepsake is None made into a place: a light that kept everyone, and now keeps nothing.

The Forgotten Village

The Forgotten Village was the home of the Remnant people, the first Delvers. It lies in the Deep Seams of the Mines, in the rock beneath the Remnant Realms, behind gates that stayed sealed for as long as its name was lost. Its houses are cut into the rock of a great cavern, their doors still hung with Delvers' lamps, their tables still set. Nobody lives there now. Only the MemoryMoths move through its streets, and the LanternLichen on its walls has gone dark.

The StoryWeaver opens the village by restoring its name, retelling the stories of its people and matching names to deeds and places across the Mines (see The Memoir Mines). When the gates open, they find the None Loom at the top of the Keepsake, and begin the climb.

The Tower

The Keepsake rises from the middle of the village square to the roof of the cavern, built of old mine stone and braced with timber, like the pit-props of the tunnels below. Mine-cart rails run in at its foot, and the winding gear that once lowered the Delvers' cages still hangs rusted to its side. Its stairs have fallen away in places, its floors are cracked open, and the old Glims on every landing have long gone out.

At the top is the watch room, open to the cavern on every side. The great lantern stands at its centre, dark and crusted with the dust of the Mines. The bell hangs above it. Around the gallery hang smaller Glims, where the keepers once trimmed and lit the lights. The None Loom stands among them, thick with nesting moths.

The StoryWeaver climbs it floor by floor, relighting the Glims on each landing to sneak past, or fight, the moths nesting on the broken stairs. Every floor relit sends a little more light out into the village. The layout of each floor is still in development.

Light and Bell

Glims. Glims are the small lanterns of the Delvers, hung along the Lantern Rows and the landings of the Keepsake, one for every life the Delvers found. MemoryMoths are drawn to light. When the StoryWeaver lights a Glim, every moth nearby gathers to circle it, dazzled, and a dazzled moth is a weakened one. A sneaking StoryWeaver can use a Glim as a distraction and slip past in the dark. A battling StoryWeaver can wait for the moths to gather, and strike while they are weak. Glims do not burn for long. Each one brightens, flickers, gutters and goes out, and when it does, the moths scatter and begin to hunt again, so the StoryWeaver must choose which Glims to light, in what order, and when to relight them.

The bell. The Keepsake's bell rings out a vibration that no moth can bear. One ring scatters a swarm and leaves its moths weakened for a time. The bell must settle before it can ring again, and scattered moths are hard to strike, so the bell is best used to break up an attack, escape, or clear a space.

Light gathers the moths. The bell scatters them. Used together, they are how the StoryWeaver takes back the Keepsake.

The Moths of the Keepsake

The None Loom weaves many kinds of MemoryMoth, and all of them are drawn to light and disturbed by vibration. Three kinds are known (see MemoryMoths):

Kind What it does How the StoryWeaver deals with it
Flitters The regular MemoryMoths. They strike and slash at the StoryWeaver Drawn to any lit Glim, where they circle, dazzled and weakened
Dusters Sprinkle memory-dust as they fight. Their dust smothers flames, so Glims gutter faster. A StoryWeaver caught in a dust cloud forgets where they are, and finds themselves back at a random KnitWitch point Keep them away from lit Glims, or relight quickly; the bell scatters their dust
Pinners Land on the StoryWeaver and pin them down for a set time. Pinned too many times, the StoryWeaver unravels A Glim lit close by draws them off, and they let go to chase the light

Allies

  • Pell PealKeeper, the last keeper of the Keepsake, who once trimmed its lantern and rang its bell. She has forgotten almost everything, even her own name, but she still remembers the order in which the lights were lit, and hums the old shift peal.
  • Echo, the LoomWarden of Once, who guides the StoryWeaver through the arc.
  • The Musician, who turns up where least expected, with a cryptic hint.

The Guardian

The guardian of the Keepsake is Murmur: a swarm of thousands of small MemoryMoths moving together as one. Murmur gathers herself into shapes, and each shape attacks in a different way:

  • The Whirlwind, which picks the StoryWeaver up and throws them.
  • The Hammer, which comes down to squash the StoryWeaver.
  • The Giant Moth, which slashes at the StoryWeaver.

In Moth to a Flame, the StoryWeaver fights Murmur in the watch room with everything the Keepsake has:

  • The great lantern. It will not stay lit. Each time the StoryWeaver relights it, Murmur is drawn in and dazzled, and the StoryWeaver can strike her while she is weak. When it gutters, she gathers herself again and attacks.
  • The bell. Ringing the bell breaks Murmur's shape apart mid-attack and weakens her for a time.
  • The Glims. Lighting the Glims around the gallery draws parts of the swarm away to circle them. Each Glim lit makes Murmur smaller and weaker, and changes her shape. The Glims burn out too, and their moths drift back, so the StoryWeaver must keep them lit while dealing with Murmur.

When the great lantern and every Glim burn at once, and the bell rings out the old shift peal that Pell hums, Murmur can no longer hold together, and scatters into ordinary MemoryMoths that drift away into the tunnels.

With the Keepsake lit again, the StoryWeaver destroys the None Loom, which unravels back to loose fibre, and takes Once's Warp Stones home to the Eternal Loom. The Keepsake's beam swings out over the village and down through the Mines, the LanternLichen glows gold again along the walls of the Forgotten Village, and Pell PealKeeper remembers her name.

In the Threadbare Plot

The Keepsake ends the arc for the None Loom in Act Two of the Threadbare Plot, guided by the LoomWarden Echo. In What's in a Name?, the StoryWeaver follows the Ruined Road into the Remnant Realms and descends into the Memoir Mines, learning to use the Glims as they go, and restores the name of the Forgotten Village. When its gates open, they climb the Keepsake, and in Moth to a Flame they drive off Murmur and destroy the None Loom.

For Contributors

  • Light is hope. Every challenge in the Keepsake should turn on light and dark: what can be seen, what is drawn to it, and how long it lasts.
  • Two tools. Light gathers the moths, and the bell scatters them. The best puzzles and battles ask the StoryWeaver to use both.
  • A working tower, forgotten. The Keepsake was built for the Mines. Keep it in the language of the Delvers: pit-props, cages, rails, lamps and shift bells.
  • Every moth has a counter. New moth kinds need a colour, a behaviour, and a way that light or the bell drives them off.
  • Remembering is the victory. The Keepsake is won by relighting the light that brought the Delvers home, not by force. Moths are driven off, never harmed. See Content Guidelines.

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