The Path of Embers
The history of the Metamorph population in America, from the first recorded petition in 1618 to the present day.
MDRI Archive · Series PE-1 Compiled from the Tally Rolls, the Hale Ledgers and recovered testimony. Positions and dates are the Archive's current findings and may be revised. Entries marked disputed, contested or unverified are not confirmed. Issued for public information.
Historians named it the Path of Embers for the persecutors' own belief: that the only way to free a Metamorph was to burn them. It began as prejudice and grew, rung by rung, into propaganda, discrimination, registration and organised persecution. In 1830, when the doctrine finally won a government, it became a migration. Driven from the Virginia uplands by law and by fire, columns of Metamorphs walked west across the country toward any place that might shelter them, while the zealots who believed they were doing holy work rode behind them. Move the timeline to follow the columns, the havens that opened, and the hunters who found them.
The chapters
I. Prejudice
1618 to 1672
Plague and harvest blame, and the first recorded persecution: a petition to a Virginia court in 1618, declined but kept on file.
II. Propaganda
1672 to 1685
Matthias Karrow's The Unburdening, the Ashbook Press, the Vessen Bridge fire and the invented Hollow Pact.
III. Discrimination
1685 to 1699
Guild oath tests, children barred from schools, Hearth Wardens inspecting households and the first property seizures.
IV. Segregation and Registration
1699 to 1707
The Edict of Tallies, Tally Rolls recording descent back three generations, grey-hand marks on doors and the Lantern Walls.
V. Organised Persecution
1707 to 1761
The Cinder Guard, the Ash Courts and the Gathering Halls. The first havens open and resistance forms. The movement splinters after Karrow dies in 1741.
VI. The Quiet Century
1761 to 1829
Metamorph towns rebuild while the Settled Light Party recasts purity as heritage and public order.
VII. Forced Displacement
1829 to 1838
The Removal Act, the Second Tallies, the disputed Compact of Harl's Ford, and the Path of Embers itself: columns marching west from the Virginia uplands, thousands more breaking away to seek haven, and the Cinder Guard and the Red Vigil riding behind them.
VIII. Mass Violence
1838 to 1846
Hollowfold and Sennet Vale destroyed, the Night of Open Doors, the Pyre Chapel, the Orrin Moor Pits and the Red Vigil's hunt across the Mississippi.
IX. Collapse and Diaspora
1846 to the present
The registers burn again, the tribunal at Valden follows, and survivors settle the havens they found, north, south and far in the west.
Chronology
- 1618
The Ashby Landing petitionDocumented
Ashby Landing
The first recorded persecution: a petition asking that households of unsettled blood be barred from the common grazing. The court declined, but kept it.
- 1655
The Tallow Cross barn fireDocumented
Tallow Cross
A burned barn pinned on Metamorphs without evidence.
- 1672
The Unburdening publishedDocumented
Matthias Karrow's founding text, circulated by the Ashbook Press.
- 1679
The Vessen Bridge fireDocumented
An accidental blaze that killed 41, blamed on an invented Metamorph conspiracy, the Hollow Pact.
- 1699
The Edict of TalliesDocumented
Brennock
Every parish must keep a Tally Roll of households of unsettled descent, back three generations.
- 1703
The Lantern WallsDocumented
Marrowgate
Metamorph quarters walled in at Marrowgate, Tallow Cross and Brennock.
- 1707
The Cinder Guard formedDocumented
The Cinder Muster
A brotherhood of zealots, ex-soldiers and wardens who held that burning was mercy.
- 1709
The Edict of the Settled LightDocumented
Brennock
Unsettled status becomes a crime, tried before the Ash Courts.
- 1711
The Letter of the Open HandDocumented
Lindenholm
Bishop Ilsabet Moor's public condemnation, signed by 62 clergy.
- 1718
The Hollowfold foundry raidedDocumented
Hollowfold
The bell-foundry was burned and the guildhall seized. The valley survived, damaged.
- 1724
Sennet Vale attackedDocumented
Sennet Vale
About 60 killed. The Vale survived, shrunken.
- 1731
The Bellringers' rescue at the Cold GranaryDocumented
Harl's Ford
The first armed resistance.
- 1741
Karrow dies at 100Documented
Brennock
The movement splits between its political wing, its zealots and a martyr cult.
- 1744
The first burning of the registersDocumented
Brennock
Chancery officials burn most Tally Rolls, fearing prosecution.
- 1749
Rumours about Karrow's ancestryDisputed
Brennock
A page of the Brennock parish register is seen, and is gone by 1752.
- 1752
The Red Vigil assassinates a magistrateDocumented
The magistrate had begun collecting testimonies. Public opinion turns against the movement.
- 1761
The Cinder Guard disbandedDocumented
The Cinder Muster
The doctrine is not banned. It goes underground.
- 1763
The Covenant repudiates the DoctrineDocumented
The first repudiation, criticised as too late.
- 1798
The Karrow statue raisedContested
Brennock
Framed as local history.
- 1829
The Settled Light Party wins VirginiaDocumented
Brennock
After the Lean Years, on a public-order platform.
- 1830
The Removal ActDocumented
Brennock
Carried through Congress by the Settled Light bloc: Metamorphs to be relocated to Dunmarsh, with compensation promised and never paid.
- 1832
The Cinder Guard rebornDocumented
The Cinder Muster
Re-formed as a militia auxiliary, its zealots deputised to enforce removal. Saltmere's free-port charter is revoked the same year.
- 1835
The Compact of Harl's FordContested
Harl's Ford
A "voluntary agreement" signed by a few guild representatives under threat. Most communities rejected it; the state treated it as binding.
- 1836
The Path of Embers beginsDocumented
Hollowfold
Columns of 300 to 800 leave under guard, in winter, bound west for Dunmarsh.
- 1837
The Hunt proclaimedDocumented
Brother Voss's Camp
At the Cumberland pass, Brother Voss preaches that those who break from the columns are to be hunted as the unredeemed.
- 1837
The Long Field burialDocumented
The Long Field
About 400 buried in one night.
- 1838
Hollowfold destroyedDocumented
Hollowfold
Resettled by Kindled-loyal families and renamed Settle Dale.
- 1838
Sennet Vale burnedDocumented
Sennet Vale
About 200 of 1,100 escaped.
- 1838
Ashgrove Camp counts the columnsDocumented
Ashgrove Camp
The first breakaways leave in the night for the river.
- 1838
The Pyre Chapel's first burningDocumented
The Pyre Chapel
A captured family is burned before the congregation. Others follow.
- 1839
The Night of Open Doors, 17 FebruaryDisputed
Corrin Weir
Casualty estimates run from about 4,000 (state record) to over 31,000 (diaspora tradition).
- 1840
The second rescue at the Cold GranaryDocumented
Harl's Ford
The Bellringers free prisoners. Bishop Ansel Rask is arrested the same year.
- 1840
The ferrymen refuse the VigilDocumented
Cold Crossing
The river ferrymen carry the breakaways west and refuse the zealots' fee.
- 1841
Harrow's Landing foundedDocumented
Harrow's Landing
By refugees from Saltmere.
- 1841
The Red Vigil rides westDocumented
Vigil House
The Vigil opens its lodge on the Mississippi and sends riders after the breakaways.
- 1842
Stillwater foundedDocumented
Stillwater
- 1842
Greywater foundedDocumented
Greywater
The first column to survive the southern trail.
- 1844
The Dunmarsh scandalDocumented
Dunmarsh Reserve
A physician publishes the death figures.
- 1844
Openhand foundedDocumented
Openhand
The last columns arrive at the far northwest.
- 1845
Greywater faces the VigilDisputed
Greywater
The settlement stands off the Red Vigil. Accounts of the night disagree.
- 1846
The second burning of the registersDocumented
Brennock
The Second Tallies and the reserve rolls are burned.
- 1847
The Reckoning at ValdenContested
Lindenholm
31 leaders tried, nine convicted. Survivors call it a second injustice.
- 1849
The Covenant's second repudiationDocumented
The Cinder Guard is dissolved. The doctrine is still not banned.
- 1889
The Tallow Cross Roll foundRecovered
Tallow Cross
The only intact Tally Roll, misfiled in a land registry.
- 1904
The Hale Ledgers recoveredRecovered
Lindenholm
Found in a sealed Lindenholm cellar.
- 1931
The Ashfront riots beginDocumented
A modern descendant of the Settled Light Party mobilises on restoring the old order. The first sign the doctrine survived.
- 1952
The Long Field graves identifiedDocumented
The Long Field
- 1971
The Orrin Moor excavation stoppedContested
Orrin Moor Pits
About 1,800 individuals recovered before descendant families disagreed on reburial or leaving the ground untouched.
The places
- Hollowfold · Valley villages in the Virginia uplands with a famous bell-foundry. Destroyed 1838, later resettled as Settle Dale.
- Sennet Vale · Terraced farming community in southwest Virginia. Attacked 1724, burned 1838.
- Corrin Weir · Mill and dye town in the Shenandoah. The Night of Open Doors, 17 February 1839.
- Tallow Cross · Market town on the trade road. Wick Hall stood here.
- Harl's Ford · River crossing and grain town. The Cold Granary stood here.
- Marrowgate · River-guild city in Maryland. The Metamorph quarter, the Weirs, was walled in 1703.
- Brennock · Seat of the Virginia government and capital of the persecution.
- Ashby Landing · River landing on the Potomac. The first recorded petition against Metamorph households, 1618.
- Saltmere · Free port on the Chesapeake from 1710. Watched by the zealots after 1832.
- Lindenholm · Free township in Pennsylvania that refused both edicts. Home of Bishop Moor and the Hale Ledgers.
- Brecken Hills · Remote highland settlements in the Carolina mountains, mostly Metamorph-founded.
- The Cinder Muster · Muster ground and chapel of the Cinder Guard outside Brennock.
- The Edict Counties · Where unsettled status was a crime: 1709 to 1761 and 1830 to 1846.
- The Upland Removal Parishes · The parishes cleared under the Removal Act, 1836 to 1839.
- Cumberland Gate · Halt 5. The pass through the mountains where every column funnelled into one road.
- Brother Voss's Camp · Where the hunting parties gathered at the pass and the Hunt was proclaimed from the pulpit.
- Weir Bridge · Halt 6 on the Path. A Quiet Parish sheltered marchers here.
- The Long Field · Halt 9. About 400 people were buried in one night, winter 1837.
- Ashgrove Camp · Halt 11. The great gathering camp, where the columns were counted and the breakaways began.
- Orrin Moor Pyre Fields · Open barrens where the fires were set. Now partly a nature reserve.
- Orrin Moor Pits · Mass graves used 1840 to 1844. Excavated in part in 1971; the rest is left unexcavated.
- The Pyre Chapel · A zealot chapel with a pyre yard, where captured Metamorphs were burned before a congregation.
- The Bitter Reach · Halt 14. The deadliest stretch of the road: swamp, cold and fever.
- Cold Crossing · Halt 17. The ferry landing on the Mississippi where the columns split: south to the reserve, or west.
- Dunmarsh Reserve · Fever-marsh reserve in the Louisiana delta, reached by river barge. Thousands died in the first two years.
- Vigil House · Lodge of the Red Vigil on the upper Mississippi, from which the western hunt was run.
- The Quiet Towns of the Ozarks · Hill settlements west of the river, reached by the Bellmen's Path. Position not yet established.
- Greywater · High-desert refuge at the end of the southern trail, founded 1842.
- Openhand · Valley settlement in the far northwest, founded 1844 by the last columns to arrive.
- Harrow's Landing · Northern cold-coast settlement in Maine, founded in 1841 by refugees from Saltmere.
- Stillwater · Gulf-coast port quarter founded in 1842.