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Winter's Harvest

Background

The setting:

Twelve gods created this world, it is said that each will rule over a age, it is currently the age of empire, a time in which the race of man will dominate the earth.

The chosen people of the god of this age, Regis, are the Aleriat, a roman like culture.Since the start of this age the Aleriat have conquered the lands to their east, a gnome dominated city-state culture with some similarities to the Greek and have contented with the culture to their west, a fantasy elven kingdom. The south is a Moorish Spain like area partially held by the Aleriat and partial held by a Persian like culture from across the sea called the Morian.

The continent is dominated by a mountain range called the spine of he world, north of it is a culture of Celtic like tribes ruled over by a class of shape shifters who take on the form of their tribe totem beast.

Also in the north is the nomadic reindeer herding culture called the Norns who share a area with a culture of fantasy wood elves. A race of artic dwarves, the Kordan who live above the artic circle and guard a massive god built tower with 12 doors that marks the passage of the ages. In the north west a culture of Viking like humanoids are separated from the rest by a high ridge and are limited to sea travel or narrow passes.

The only large pass over the spine of the world is the Iago pass in the western elven lands, the Aleriat found a small high pass in their own lands and used it to march a army over the spine of the world to invade the elves from the north while advancing from the east at the same time, finally conquering them.

The Aleriat Empire is still in the process of fighting a border feud in the south and keeping a strong presence in the west, this has taken up much of their available military power. Because of this, the North has been ruled by a tradition of granting titles to some of the more cooperative tribal leaders and letting them take on old grudges on their rival while the empire collects it taxes and exploits the northern resources.

One of these main resources is the Cinnabar mines in the far north, Cinnabar is the main ingredient need for Firepowder weapons, devices that the Aleriat believe will give them the edge against the Morians in the south.

Fifteen years ago one of the titled noble of the north rose in revelation against the empire, partially because the punishment for failure to pay taxes being slavery in the cinnabar mines. Count Asterex Bleys might have succeeded except for his son, Asteron Bleys a commander of the imperial guard, who held true to his oath to the empire and led his troops against his father.

The Duke of Irinad, a rival of the Bley family choose to enforce the imperial law of treason to the letter, death of every member of the family out to 3 ties of blood, this included Asteron Bleys who had betrayed his own father to in service to the same law that now condemned him.

Asteon Bleys survived and somehow arranged to release the Dragon called Winter, the father of all white dragons, a creature created to guard the Tower of the ages in the far north.

With the aid of the Dragon and a cult of worshippers of the darkest aspects of the god of death Bleys has arranged for this past winter to extend months into spring, the Dragon Winter is concentrating this effect in the Iago pass cutting off the Aleriat empire from the north and the Cinnibar they need. By some prior arrangement the Morians are now pushing hard against the borders into the empire.

In desperation the Emperor of Aleriat pulls out the banner of the 13th legion, a legion retired because of its history of being wiped out in disinterest battles and lost causes. The emperor invokes his right to levy troops from all the local nobility, some of who call in debtors to their houses, free slaves, and even parole criminals in order to fulfill their duty of providing 100 men each. Such groups of ill prepared troops, together with half-trained militia, pampered imperial guardsmen, and one group of women gathered by the emperors eccentric aunt, are send over the forgotten pass to find out what’s going on, prepare for the arrival of more troops, and then reopen the Iago pass from the north.

The legion is nearly wiped out in an ambush, only the accidental detonation of a behemoth full of firepowder allows them a chance to run away. Some make it to the north in the magically created storm, most of the surviving flee back to the south.

The Templars:

The gods created the world on a foundation that separated it from the outer planes and established the laws by which the world functions, such as things fall down, time passes, and things start to burn when really hot. By accident the gods had discovered that every time they popped into and out of their world from their home planes they created a weak spot in this foundation. The gods built the tower of ages over the worst of these and used it as their main point of entry from then on. To guard against other crossing into their world by way of the tower, they created the dragon Winter to guard it and set the Kordan to prevent any mortal from approaching it.

To guard the other weak spots the gods set their priest to praying at them in order to lock down the tear to the strongholds of the gods, in this way no other creatures from other planes could cross over into their world.

To guard the priests whose attention would be concentrated on their duties the gods created the templars, people who were sensitive to the Foundation of the world and irritated by the presence of the tears and the extra planer creatures whose existence violated the rules that the Foundation enforced.

The Templars duty was to protect any priest of the 12 gods and their children, and to hunt down and kill creatures not native to this world.

Two hundred years ago, the emperor Shaddam got into a dispute with some of the priesthood, he ordered their arrest. His troops were stopped from entering a cathedral that stood over a tear by the Order of the Templars. In retaliation, Shaddam outlawed the order and wiped them out of existence.

All the player characters survived the ambush in the forgotten pass because they sensed the presence of a tear in a old Templars stronghold and headed that way during the fight, they have since then learned that a order of death priest are dedicating all the tears in the north to the icy hell of dammed souls, causing winter to never end and all dead to arise as Zombies.

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