Introduction

Just over one thousand years ago, two ancient western empires, the Suel and the Baklunish, were enmeshed in titanic conflict. The root of animosity between them is lost, but the result of their final war haunts even the modern historian.

After sixty-three years of conflict, the Suloise Mages of Power called down the Invoked Devastation on the Baklunish, resulting in an apocalypse so complete that its true form remains unknown. Entire cities, nations, and millions of people were purged from the Oerth, leaving no sign of the great civilization that once thrived north of the Sulhaut Mountains.

In retaliation, a cadre of Baklunish Mage-Priests brought the Rain of Colorless Fire on their hated enemies. The skies above the Suloise Empire opened, and all beneath were burned to ash.

These catastrophes came to be called the Twin Cataclysms, and the Dry Steppes and the Sea of Dust are geographical reminders of their unbridled power.

Thousands survived the Twin Cataclysms by fleeing east over the Crystalmists in the early years of the conflict. The Oeridians, a confederation of tribes nestled between the empires, took the wars as a sign from their gods to continue migrating far to the east. They were the first to enter the lands they called the Flanaess.

Soon, Suloise refugees followed, sometimes working with the Oeridians, but more often warring with them. For more than two centuries, Suel and Oeridians battled for conquest of the Flanaess. The Suel often lost, and they found themselves pushed to the periphery of the Flanaess.

Though some Baklunish folk migrated east, many more fled north to the mountains, or to the shores of the Dramidj Ocean, where their ancient cultures flourish to this day in the lands of Ket, Zeif, and Tusmit.

The most successful union of Suel and Oerid was the Kingdom of Keoland, founded some eighty years after the Twin Cataclysms, Suel Houses joined with Oeridian tribes on the banks of the Sheldomar River and pledged themselves to mutual protection and dominion of the western Flanaess. Of all the kingdoms formed during those tumultuous days, only Keoland remains.

Far to the east, the greatest Oeridian tribe, the Aerdie, conquered indigenous people and migrants alike. In time, their kingdom, Aerdy, conquered the whole eastern Flanaess. The Aerdy leader was crowned Overking and decreed that his land should henceforth be known as the Great Kingdom. The Great Kingdom declared the birth of a new calendar, and with the declaration of Universal Peace, the sun arose in the east on the first day of the first Common Year.

(D&D Gazetteer, p. 3)

It is beginning of Fireseek, the first month of the New Year, in the 591^st year since the Declaration of Universal Peace according to the reckoning of the now fallen and unmourned Great Kingdom, the weeklong midwinter festival of Needfest having just ended. Not that there is any winter worth speaking of in the Hool Marshes, only the warm humid days of what passes for winter. Winding through the marshes and swamps is the River Javan, though really it is not so much a river as a series of sloughs meandering down to the mangrove choked estuary that empties into the pirate infested Azure Sea. In the midst of the sloughs and bayous the garrison city of Westkeep slowly sinks into the marsh. 

The inhabitants would like to claim that Westkeep was once a proud citadel against the chaos and monstrosities of the marsh, first for the Kingdom of Keoland and later, after it had won independence from said kingdom in order to become a nation of pirates and slavers, the Hold of the Sea Princes. But really it has always been nothing more than an overgrown garrison and a last stop for every scalawag, rascal, bandit, rogue, sell-sword, practitioner of the dark arts, or down on his luck pirate or slaver desperate enough to leave more civilized lands and take their chances in the muck and mire of the Hool Marshes.

Seven years ago, the Hold of Sea Princes fell to the machinations of the Scarlet Brotherhood, a mysterious religious or semi-religious order from the far-off Tilvanot Peninsula across the Azure Sea who assassinated all those sea princes who were not amenable to their cult of Suloise superiority. The Suloise peoples of the Flanaess continent are the remnants of a great empire that once lay far to the west over the volcanic mountain range known as the Hellfurnaces over a thousand years ago. Many of the peoples and especially noble houses of the Sheldomar Valley, in which nestles the Kingdom of Keoland, and of the southern swamps and plantations of the Sea Princes can trace their lineage back to the Suel Imperium. Most gave no thought to this, but less than a score of years past the monkish emissaries of a “Kingdom of Shar” appeared in courts throughout the land offering their services as advisors. It turned out that “shar” means “pure” in the forgotten language of the lost Suel Imperium and that these pale, flaxen haired, blue-eyed ambassadors intended to reestablish a new Suel Imperium through guile, subterfuge, terror, assassination, and occasionally outright invasion using forces of orcs, goblinoids, and savage tribes from the remote jungles of the south. After the assassinations in the Hold, an invasion force, under the Scarlet Sign of the Kingdom of Shar, attempted to land and establish a foothold at the Keoish coastal city of Gradsul; but were defeated, as much by the sudden onset of a summer hurricane as by the bravery of Duke Luschan and his fleet. Two years ago, a vast uprising against the current rulers and their “advisors” swept through the Hold of the Sea Princes, apparently led by renegade monks, a rumored Black Brotherhood dedicated to the dark god Tharizdun. The entire Hold has since dissolved into a chaos of warring cults, factions, and warlords. Last year, afraid that all of this would spill over into his own kingdom, King Skotti of Keoland led an army across the Hool Marshes in what some in the court of the royal capital Niole Dra claim is a futile and misguided attempt to control the situation. Westkeep was taken but the king withdrew after leaving a garrison there under the control of a military governor – Prince Prospero of the House of Ilshar. 

So far, neither the Scarlet Brotherhood led by Elder Brother Hammandaturian, the Shepherd of the Sea Princes, ensconced 120 miles away in Monmurg on the coast, nor the rumored Black Brotherhood, nor any of the other factions or warlords has attempted to take back Westkeep. They may not need to. Many fear that Scarlet Brotherhood agents already have their run of the city and can strike at any time. Disease runs rampant through the city and the clerics are unable to keep up with it (even if they were inclined to try – and not all are of such goodwill as to provide cures for free), and this too is laid at the door of the Scarlet Brotherhood though one need only look over the crumbling walls of the city into the festering pestiferous bogs and mires that surround it to find the cause. The outlying plantations grow what they can, and the local fishermen, crabbers, and shrimpers catch what they can but it is never enough, and it is difficult to send supplies through the monster and lizardfolk infested marshes from Keoland or up the Javan River past the Scarlet Brotherhood’s fleet. Only the black market seems to be thriving. Morale among the garrison could not be lower, and there is a sense that they will die to a man of starvation, plague, or a hidden blade if they stay, or that they will be torn apart by swamp creatures, speared by lizardfolk, or drowned in a quagmire if they try to leave. It would seem that only the Scarlet Brotherhood, or perhaps the even worse fiends of the Black Brotherhood, stands to gain anything from this ill-fated venture of King Skotti. 

It is in such a place and time that the story begins…