History of the Region

 A thousand years ago, there was a great empire that spread across much of the known world.  The arts of crafting magic were prosperous widespread.  The world was safe from the aggression of giants, dragons, and any number of other non-human beasts. As the population increased, a great plan was made to expand the known world.  This plan called for a number of keeps to be constructed far beyond the current borders.  They would be garrisoned by the finest troops, and be made to be self sufficient.  With these outposts far beyond the current borders, pioneers would be able to move westward in relative safety. 

The construction of these keeps took more than two generations, but when they were complete, pioneers began to move westward to ease the crowding in the heartland of the empire, safe from marauding bands of orcs and giants.  Occasionally, towns and homesteads would be lost, as it was still a wild and untamed land, but for the most part things went according to plan for nearly two hundred years.  Then, three hundred years ago, for some unknown reason (whether it was known and now forgotten, or merely never known remains a mystery to this day), the empire began to fall apart.  The keeps began to rebel, realizing that they were strong enough to stand in their own right, setting up feifdoms on the borderlands.  The central empire, by then too fragmented to hold the empire's fringes together, collapsed almost overnight.  Centuries of knowledge, both arcane and otherwise was scattered to the four winds.  Today, magic is still greatly present in the world, but no longer in every day life.  Magical weapons, once within reach of the meagerest of knights, are nearly unheard of today.  Today, only a limited form of magical enchantment remains.  Most magical items, those more familiar to the realms of Dungeons and Dragons, exist only in a "charged" form.  Weapons cannot utilize their powers all of the time, and can only manifest them when the user activates them for a short time.  Unlike the "true magic" of old, these newer items lose power over time, the more often they are used.  Magical libraries and universities are now few and far between.

The town of Darrowshire lies east of one of those keeps of old.  Darrowshire is the first major pioneering undertaking in a generation, and only scant hovels lie between it and the nearest keep on the borderland.  The last surviving bastion of the old empire, Hawkshire, lies another 50 miles east.  From there, the various kingdoms that filled the void of the collapsing empire of old are easily accessed and traversed.  Goods from all corners of the world can be had there.  But in Darrowshire, so much closer to the borderlands, things are much more spartan.  A man only survives by the sweat of his brow, and the strength of his back.  The people of Darrowshire are a tough breed, as the weak ones died out in the first few years after settlement.  Today, the town is nearly self sufficient, and comfortably houses a population of 2,000, with surrounding homesteads for miles around.

To the southwest of Darrowshire lies a great desert area known as the Badlands.  Attempts were made years ago to colonize it, but all met with failure.  The Keep to be constructed in this region was never even started.  Few dare to go there, and even fewer survive to return.