The Chronicles of Thale

A World of High Adventure
The Chronicles of Thale campaign, a world of adventure, arcane secrets, and untold riches, where a sharp sword and a shirt of mail are a warrior's only defense against wicked mages, monstrous hordes, and fierce dragons of yore. The campaign is centered on the fiefdoms of the northern Fangs Mountains in the Empire of Crieste, which is prominent among the Known Realms of ?ereth. The region is largely unexplored and overland travel is dangerous. Sporadic fortified towns and city-states are the centers of civilization, however these locations are small in comparison to the imposing wilderness surrounding them. The light of civilization in the northern Fangs is indeed a dim spark against the darkness.

The fiefdoms of the northern Fangs Mountains are not carved up between feudal lords that jealously enforce their borders. Only a few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring communities together. The Fangs Mountains are home to countless ruins and remains of past civilizations. Settlements that exist today are generally built on the sites of ancient cities, some among the ruins themselves. Broken roads, crumbled walls, sunken buildings and half-ruined towers dot the landscape, a constant reminder of the faded past.

Life in ?ereth can be summed up for the average commoner as follows: Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. The average life expectancy is twenty years unless one lives in a walled city or town, in which it is only a little higher. Almost all Human families produce at least ten children, of whom two or three may live long enough to have children of their own. In the wilderness villages, wandering monsters and the raids of nomads, brigands and various humanoid species, which are inherently evil, are the bane of many.

Rampant, unchecked disease is common to both walled city and wilderness village; so is infant mortality. The dangers of wandering monsters are lessened in a walled city or town, but the concentration of people in a small area leads to a high crime rate and poor sanitation; therefore, instead of being slain by a marauding dragon, a city dweller may have his throat slit for the contents of his purse. Few men manage to live past the ripe old age of thirty-five, and the fact that a man is fifty or sixty years old indicates great wisdom on his part or an incredible run of luck.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/chronicles-of-thale

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