House D&D

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Introduction to the Setting

It's a world of magic and monsters. Towns and cities are places of light in the darkness. The unsettled lands between them are often dangerous expanses of wilderness. Most people don't ever travel far from their homes, and caravans travel with hired guards. Even still, some are never heard from again. Monstrous races like orcs and goblins and gnolls raid borders. Tensions between kingdoms never completely settle, but seldom flare into open warfare.

The elves and dwarves are among the oldest races, and once ruled mighty empires, before the time of humankind, halflings, and gnomes. Humans live in four kingdoms, on the northern continent. Elves have three of their own, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings each have their homeland kingdoms, but all of them are also found in human cities. Trade brings foreign goods across the world. Royalty might fly from place to place on griffins or giant eagles, while peasants wallow in poverty. 

Powerful wizards can shape reality to their wishes. Gods lend power to their most loyal priests and wandering clerics, though less than in the past, as some gods seem to have withdrawn from the world and the rest remain at least somewhat removed from it. Most cities will have at least one wizard or other arcane mage, and some towns might, while small villages might only see one passing through occasionally. 

Wizards gather at libraries studying spells and history and lore, while for some sorcery is an inborn talent often passed down through bloodlines, and some warlocks make pacts with powerful entities in exchange for power. Bards explore ways sound can manipulate magic. Holy knight-like Paladins take oaths and wield divine power along with swords and other weapons. Mercenaries and soldiers-of-fortune travel as swords for hire, while others rely on cleverness and quick reflexes to get what they want. In remote monasteries monks study martial arts and spiritual development. 

Your travels have brought you to the Chaparra/Samur Border Region, where the Blue River creates the "Thin Blue Line," the border between the human kingdoms of Chaparra and Samur. Chaparra is a Europe-like land of moderate weather and light forests where acting in noble ways is honored and knighthood is seen as a revered duty or calling. Samur is a swampier land once ruled by mystical nagas until high priests of Klothys, Goddess Of Destiny, led a rebellion to overthrow them 150 years ago. Now Samurrans are at best skeptical of most mages, and especially intolerant of warlocks/witches who they assume bargain with evil for power.

Cities along the Blue River become trade centers but also military staging points. Tensions rise and fall, but it has been decades since the last cross-river skirmishes. Neither side expects the other to invade, but both keep troops in the area.

The Chaparran side is less populated than the Samurran side, which is fairly well farmed. But on the Chaparran side this is frontier land, with wide stretches of unsettled wild light forests and rolling plains. Monsters and bandits hide among the trees, and travelers stick to roads and often hire locals as guards.

The game begins as you find yourselves in the sleepy mill town of Kepper's Mill, a day and a half by foot upstream from the small riverside city of Kurvisdale. The region is not widely traveled, and the old southwest-northeast road, such as it is, rarely gets used at all, and doesn't even go all the way to Kurvisdale. A caravan is in town, one of the rare ones that travels through the wilderness to the west to connect these parts with the rest of Chaparra. It has come from the border cities with goods and rumors from many lands. You've been in town at least a day or two, and have met some of the locals, mostly friendly and welcoming even if they have little of anything to spare.