The Missing Dom
Five Hundred years ago the Forerunners came to these lands
and brought tidings of Greatness to come.
Nothing happened for a few decades and the people that dwelt there fell
into complacency and the Forerunners into legend and myth. Then a great flotilla of one hundred and
eight of the largest ever seen came and landed on the shores. The great size of the flotilla awed the
natives and they fell back with dismay.
That day was the founding of Altaia the city and the start of the
greatest empire the world had ever known.
The Altaian Empire stretched, it was said, to the end of the World and
across the ocean. For four hundred years
the Empire grew and expanded until the emperor said all the lands that are
important are under its sway were all the important lands and conquest would
stop.
That was two generations ago and the Empire has stayed
steady, tribute from the empire pours into Altaia, food, luxuries and
everything anyone can desire. Skilled
labourers pour into the city and build the marvels that make the city better
and better every year. The politicians have
realized that if this is to continue indefinitely then the tributaries must
grow too to supply the empire with new goods, skilled labourers, and food. The streets were scoured, and the poor and
the criminal were found and deported, but not completely, the councillors knew
that there was a need to have an underclass of unskilled labourers to do the
work of keeping the city running. Grants
were paid and poor farmers were shipped out, jails were emptied, prisons
repurposed and people dropped off to create a new life on the edges of
civilization.
Kraj is one such nation, in the periphery of the Empire, but
a nation that has been conquered more than a century ago. The Duke, a former General who captured the
region, retired and set up her family here.
She granted lands to her legion and many of them set up here with
her. The nation once started grew in
fits and starts and life was hard for a while, but now the region is as tamed
as many places in the Empire. It is
settled and pastoral, but life is still hard.
The Nation is small, there are less than 100,000 people here. 24k in the capitol Maisto, a port city on a
good river and the Sea. There are six
Doms, regional provinces with a chief town and 5-10 Chatta (village) nearby. These Doms control the countryside and were
founded by one of the General’s Lieutenants that stayed with her. Each Chatta has less than a thousand
residents and each Dom has about 5k people.
The Six Doms
Count Gerwazy
Count Kluz
Count Swatek
Count Bogdan
Count Joachim
Count Skuza
Each Dom has an average population of about 10k, but
expansion has slowed to a crawl in the last 50 years. Outside the Doms there is a lot of
danger. The conquest of the region may
have toppled the organized resistance in the area, but there are some pockets
of unorganized resistance. There are
monsters and the monsters make life hard here.
They need heroes.
The Adventure’s Society which you belong has a board of job
postings, Ogres in Gerwazy!, Trolls infesting Bogdan, Dragon sighted in Joachim
and Kluz, Hobgoblins, Rocs, and Giants too.
The question is not how you will die out here but how soon. There is a lonely old man sitting at one of
the tables. He perks up when he sees you
looking his way; the cost of leaving this provincial death trap is 10,000sp and
you know it will take you a long time to raise the money with your trade.
He is Count Nigzie, he is the last living child of the last
Lieutenant of General Maisto. His father
set up a Dom as well but it was overrun with invaders seventy years ago. The Dom was far from the other Doms, close to
the mountains and so it was located near the passes where the trouble, that is
plaguing the nation, is coming from. My
father was not able get the Dom running smoothly to counter the threat before
it was over run, but he was able to take the income from the mines of the area
and invest it into a trading company.
Now I have the money to hire enterprising individuals to free the Dom
and set up a proper defense of the region.
I will give each of you a 10,000sp reward for clearing out my father’s
legacy. That is enough, I think to pay
for passage out of this small desolate corner of the empire and back to
Altaia.
The caves of Chaos are the first problem then there is
Castle Caldwell the keep, Elwyn’s Sactuary is a temple, the silver princess and
the Horror on the hill where the players determine that there is a source of
evil humanoids in the area, which leads to a last outpost of the people that
dwelt here before the empire conquered them to the Lost City. they may hear rumours of other troubles.
Try to bring in the player’s hooks and give reason to do the
things that they need to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment