[Varyonde] The Campaign Sales Pitch

The world is known in the common tongue as Yandro. The continent upon which the campaign starts is called Yandiir; it is a rough analogue of Europe. The campaign begins in the heart of the continent, a debatable territory sandwiched between the Iron Dukes of the north, the Elysian City-States of the south, the Draconian Empire of the west, and the Savage Steppes of the east.

Civilization is in flux, as three generations ago (as such things are measured by Men) migrations of human and humanoid tribes broke pell-mell into the Warring Kingdoms, the squabbling successor-states of the New Elysian Empire. Between the migrant tribes of barbarians and the plagues they brought, and the already war-torn society they found, all order broke down. The Warring Kingdoms broke up into petty principalities; the principalities thence into doddering duchies; and these last flew apart into bedraggled baronies, cities, towns, and tribes. Only in the last generation have larger kingdoms arose again, most notably in the west, where the Order of the Dragon (aka the Chromatic Temple) founded a new empire in the ruins of the old western kingdom.

Your adventures begin in the city of Varyonde, a cosmopolitan Free City of men and elves, dwarves and halflings, gnomes and others even more esoteric. Ruled by a dynasty of half-elven princes, Varyonde is a point of light in the darkness of the New Dark Age. To the south and west stands Castle Hexpools, a vasty ruin and depthless dungeon dating back to before the founding of the Great Wizarding Empire of Tarquinax. It was the Wizard-Kings of Tarquinax that nearly sundered the world in the Great Wizard War ere the founding of the First Elysian Empire; the damage they wrought can still be seen today in the great ruins and vast wastelands that dot the continent of Yandiir and beyond.

Gold and glory or death ignominious and unmarked awaits you in Castle Hexpools!