Lands of the Seven Barons

Lands of the Seven Barons, on the world of Old Oarth

The lands of the Seven Barons is a geographical region located on the western coast of a large landmass currently referred to as the smashed lands on the world of Old Oarth.

What the characters know:

The following is general knowledge that any PC with an intelligence of at least 10 would know about the lands they live in. The history of the land is divided into two main historical eras; the pre apocalypse era and the post apocalypse era, each of which is marked by the number of ages.

The pre apocalypse era has the following ages:

The Age of Legend and Myth: A time of high adventure where heroes walked the land carving out great kingdoms, empires, and continent spanning nation states. Also a time of powerful forces of evil and chaos, demons, devils, and dragons, surged across the land for the heroic to battle.

The Age of the Great Conflicts: Powerful wars ravaged the lands laying waste to most of the civilization created during the age of legend and myth. Dragonborn and Tieflings are seen as the principal provocateurs of the wars and the collapse of world order.

The Age of Divine Rebuilding: The very gods themselves intervene in worldly affairs and assist the humanoid races to reestablish order and prosperity.

The Age of Arcane Perfection: Rise of the arcane powers, great cites of spiraling towers are built across the land, a life of ease is enjoyed by most and most evil (dragons, demons, other monsters) are eradicated or pushed to the fringes of the world. But the arcanists got to greedy for more power (at least that is the common belief) and are blamed for bringing about the Age of Desolation.

The post apocalypse ages:

The Age of Desolation: Earth quakes, Tsunamis, violent weather, and a series of meteor impacts devastate the land and push the humanoid races to the brink of extinction, the Fey leave the world and the divine seems to have abandoned the world as well.

The Age of Chaos (current age): Humanity begins to rebuild and reassert itself, martial warlords and primal tribes war across the lands, history is a blur, and “chaos storms” sweep randomly across the land often mutating those caught within, thus accounting for strange new humanoid races (goliaths, changelings, shifters, etc). Humanity has lost faith in the divine powers, and still holds arcanists in suspicion. Along with the humanoid races the monstrous forces being to regain strength as well.

The local region:

The land the characters live in is known locally as the Seven Baronies. A loose confederation of seven Barons and their land holdings that sometimes cooperate, sometimes war, but for the most part have an agreement to leave each other's lands alone. The history of the land that has been preserved holds that during the Age of Arcane Perfection the land was once divided into two great kingdoms, Borrealia to the North and Qua-Austor to the South.

The population is sparse and fragmented. Most towns, if they can be called that, resembled little more than refugee camps. Even the Baronial capitals consist of either little more than armed forts with wooden palisades and long houses providing shelter to the struggling population or rough settlements built on destroyed ruins.

The Seven Baronies:

Official Name: The Baronial holdings of Clan Baldersen
Current Baron: Baron Bjorg Baldersen (human barbarian) son of Freig Baldersen
Principal city(s): Kings Crossing (built upon the ruins of old Borrealia), Hazelwood
Characteristics: Viking like, very clannish, honor bound warrior culture, shield maidens, martial/primal/bard.

Official Name: The Freeholds
Current Baron: Baron Samadie Kane (human swordmage) and the Arcane Council.
Principal City(s): Highwater
Characteristics: Arcanists, artists, and a growing merchant class, most tolerant of arcane wielding. The arcane council consists of six arcane practitioners, three wizards, two sorcerers, and an artificer.

Official Name: Barony of Qua-Anovis
Current Baron: Baroness Lady Anielia Hoff (human warlord/bard)
Principal City(s): Ruins of Nie-Del
Characteristics: Clings to the old ways and claims ties to ancient aristocracy of Qua-Austor. All female line of Baronesses. Baroness Anielia is slowly trying to restore the splendor of ancient Qua-Austor and has is rebuilding on the ruins of the arcane city of Nie-Del.

Official Name: The Baronial Republic of Wellspring
Current Baron: Baron "Grandfather" Rath (ancient by human standards assassin)
Principal City(s): Wellspring
Characteristics: With the exception of the den of iniquity that is the city of Wellspring, the lands are overrun by thieves, bandits, and bravos, all of whom pay a grudging respect to Grandfather Rath and his cabal of assassins.

Official Name: The Barony of Greenthorn
Current Baron: His August and always Illuminated Baron Delonious of the Thornwood Tribe (elf ranger)
Principal City(s): None
Characteristics: Rustic and primal forest land of primitive tribal elves and gypsy like criminal oriented halflings. The elves are mostly isolationists and have reverted to an almost primitive state. No established towns or cities.

Official Name: The Barony of Rockridge
Current Baron: Hyjinx Messerschmitt (dwarf fighter) the 4th, Baron of Rockridge, Mayor and Sheriff of Gorgetown, Master Brewer of the finest Ales of the Seven Baronies.
Principal City(s): Gorgetown
Characteristics: Kind of fantasy wild west, a touch of steam punk. Gorgetown is a split level city consisting of caves on a ridge overlooking the ramshackle town below, it has a mixed population of most humans and dwarves.

Official Name: The Barony of Caepyra Crags Home of the recently self proclaimed Overbaron.
Current Baron: His Magnanimous Sir Krius the Overbaron (human warlord?)
Principal City(s): Camptown (where the adventure begins), Godsforge
Characteristics: Largest and most chaotic of the seven Baronies, home to warlords, mercenaries, barbarian clans, and traveling missionaries. Adjacent to the region know as the Chaos Scar.


Campaign Guidelines:

Races:

I tend to like the anything goes approach, but I also dislike the image of groups of PC's that resemble a motley collection of refugees from the Star Wars cantina more than a classic fantasy assembly of mostly humans or easily recognizable/relatable characters. That being said the races that exist within the context of the campaign are as follows:

Common (Human, elf, dwarf, halfling), humans are the most prevalent, elves and dwarves tend to isolate themselves in their tribal or clan lands, halflings are wanderers with no established homeland:

Uncommon (Goliath, Shifter, Changeling, Kalashtar, Deva), the following races are humans affected by the chaos storm; they mostly mix freely and appear as exaggerated version of humans. Rules wise just treat them as the race they are, from a campaign perspective and how others see you, you are a human.

Rare (Dragonborn, Tiefling, Eladrin, Half-Elf, Gnome, Drow, Half-Orc, Wilden), it is believed that an island empire of dragonborn exists to the west across the Serpent Sea, the fey (eladrin, gnome, wilden) races left the world during the apocalypse, the drow are half insane murderous psychopaths and despise surface dwellers, they live in the underdark and are killed on sight. Half-Orcs live on the fringes of the civilized lands, the product of selective breeding experiments during the height of the Age of Desolation.

Note: These races are available for play, but it would be cool if you wrote a compelling background for how/why your character (who will stand out) ended up in the Seven Baronies.

Special:
Revenant, this race will be available should tragedy occur and a PC dies and wishes to come back.

Classes:

Martial, steel rules, exists everywhere, most common. Fighters and warlords, rampage across the land drawing others to their banners. Rogues prowl the cites, and rangers the woods.

Primal, in the post apocalyptic world the primal spirits are reasserting themselves; also fairly common across the lands. Barbarian tribes raid into the civilized lands, often led by shaman or druids. Warden and Seekers are seen as protectors of tribal lands.

Arcane, there is a bit of stigma associated with practitioners of the arcane arts due to the apocalypse. Wizards, Artificers, and Sorcerers are tolerated as long as they make no ostentatious shows of magic. Warlocks should keep their identity secret. Swordmages and Bards are recognized more as martial or holders of old tradition and not as shunned.

Devine, the gods (use the standard deities from players handbook) no longer involve themselves directly in worldly affairs. Humanity has lost faith in their divine intervention thus divine classes are rare. Any divine PC would be expected to adopt an almost missionary like outlook, attempting to recruit followers to reestablish temples and the like.

Psionic, the psionic power and classes have never existed in the world. There are no monks. However something mysterious has started to stir, some children born in the past 15-20 years have strange sparks of psionic insight...thus the Psion is not out of the question but the PC must be 15-20 years old.