| Despite how lush and green the forests, or gold the waves of grain, or purple the mountains capped in bright white snow. The world is not paradisiacal THIS is a grim land. Here the Summers are short. the Winters are Brutal. Spring and Autumn seem to define whole generations in an endless cycle of growth and harvest; months of dire pagan promise. In the 'urban areas' towns find themselves overcrowded with people of wealth inside, the poor living without because in THESE places humanity has a modicum of control over their destinies. Castes systems of grinding order. Systems of control and safety. Guilds to determine terms of trade. The nobility to determine taxes. And the Priests to pray for our damned souls. But out there, beyond those walls, there is the unknowable chaos - beasts, bogies, and monsters. They glide through the shadows, whisper in the forests, burrow under the fields, slog in the swamps, dwell the ruins of our once great fortresses, and rise from the battlefields of our historic excesses. They inhabit the long dark deep silence between sunset and sunrise that wears against the fragile skein of our psyches. Nightmares that we once controlled. This land is wyld, untamable, and in it, we struggle to survive. We thought we could conquer it, subjugate it. And maybe once ...we did. But now? Now we are guests in the green. No longer do mortals hold themselves above every Apex Predator. Here we part of the endless circle, of Predator and Prey. During the Age of Dreams, our forebears succeeded in claiming this land, this world, wresting it from the agents of chaos who then controlled it. We were a Bastion of Order. And in the port cities, there are men who think this STILL. Think that they are powerful, that they keep the toehold of civilization in the gathering darkness. A point of light in a vast, weird world. The Age of Dreams came to an end when our hubris led us to the belief that we had won, that ultimate victory was inevitable. And our power insurmountable. We were wrong ... though no one can say for certain what caused the Great fall just that it happened. And now? Now the forests fight back. The mountains rebel. The seas heave in protest. Things issue forth from crevices in the long walk between places. And in the dark, in the foam, and fire ...a writhing, crawling answer to our fathers’ “conquest” spit forth. We have fought them all our lives. Banished them as we are able. Flinging spell and prayer, sweat and steel into the shadow. But still, they come ...like a creeping tide, forcing us wage ware for every foot claimed. Some of us have given up and crowd into walled towns. Making do with those places where the wyld does not go. But WE, on the Frontier, WE are hardy folk. We brave the long nights, far from walls of lesser men. We work the soil at dawn to dusk. A few of us even take up torch and sword, striding forth into the dark wilds to bring the fight into the dark wilds to spit our last breath into its terrible maw. And so saying we will not give up the fight. Underneath the roots are the ruins of those who came before us, who have done the same. Layer upon layer of foolhardy civilization crumbling atop one another and overgrown by branch and bracken. Battlefields of wit and will. Each empire before ours who thought they could prevail and conquer this land. Most have failed. But in failure, they left us hope. They left us gold, artifacts, secrets, and knowledge. And those brave or foolish enough to bring back these lost treasures can use them rise above their station. Proving in each one of us is a hero. …if we can but survive the night. |
The way forward.