Stefanos Karameikos had
done the unthinkable.
Less than a year ago, the Emperor’s first cousin had exchanged his family’s ancestral holdings in the very heart of the Thyatian Empire for a swath of untracked wilderness on the edge of the western frontier.
The Emperor could still hardly believe his luck as Duke Stefanos departed the imperial capitol with a fleet of new sailing ships, his freshly executed charter in hand. The Karameikos estates were among the richest in the land and would help sustain the exalted status of the Emperor’s household for generations to come. All in exchange for distant lands that were occupied either by men the empire considered uncivilized barbarians, or demi-human and humanoid clans that rarely, if ever, took notice of the imprimatur of Thyatis. The Emperor had always thought his cousin to have been a shrewder man, but who was he to argue when fate had left him such a prize!
The newly raised Archduke was not unprepared for his situation, however. His most trusted lieutenants had long ago scouted deep into the mountains and forests of this new domain and had found both abundant resources and sparsely placed settlements. In preparation for this undertaking, they had patiently and carefully procured the provisions necessary to begin to build a new realm. Ambition would supply everything else that was needed.
And so it began.
Upon his arrival, Stefanos adopted the region's only natural seaport with a sheltered harbor as his new seat of rulership. A marauding horde of gnolls had assaulted this new capitol within only a few months of its establishment. The humanoids were successfully driven off, but the Archduke and his loyal retainers had not been ready for a challenge to the new order so soon. Stefanos renamed his capitol Specularum, or “watchtower,” in his native tongue, and a watchtower it would prove itself to be thereafter.
He then sent out newly anointed barons to administer the realm’s three largest towns of note as well as their surrounding lands and villages— Luln in the west, Kelvin in the north and Rugalov in the East.
Now, as the new year approaches, the Archduke has decreed the commencement of the creation of both a Grand Westron and a Grand Eastron road, connecting Specularum to Luln in the west and to Rugalov in the east, thereby endeavoring to firmly reinforce the security of the entire Southern length of the realm. His command of the Volaga River and its tributaries would suffice for the time being for keeping the north in check.
Word had arrived in Westwind Village, a small hamlet a day’s ride northwest of Luln, that the Archduke’s engineers and surveyors and workmen were on their way to begin preparations in the nearby township. When the Archduke first arrived almost a year ago, the villagers had adopted a saying—“if the Archduchy is at the edge of the Empire, then Westwind Village is at the edge of the Archduchy”— and so it had been, but that was about to change!
With the announcement of these great civic projects, talk of the promise of economic and cultural opportunity rapidly spread among the local folk. Not only would the veritable army of workmen need provisioning and other services, there would also be need of scouts and explorers to assist in the endeavor. In the minds of the local peoples, the possibilities were nearly endless! Fields that had been left fallow via crop rotation would all have to be planted. The villages of the region would have to up the output of each of their specialized goods.
The announcement had even drawn the interest of the small clan of elves that lived in the nearby forest and emissaries had recently arrived to confer with the village magistrate, who had issued his own proclamation seeking out those willing to take the chance of improving their lot.
In response to this
summons come the player characters, green but ambitious, ready to take a first
step into a broader world in search of adventure. Unknown Frontiers await!
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