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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 3995290" data-attributes="member: 697"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Sorry, been too busy to check the boards lately.In a nutshell: the gods of humanity are a little miffed that mortals have started using forms of magic other than divine. They band together and back a theocracy that tries to conquer the entire world. An alliance of wizards, led by an aristocracy of lichs, bands together to fight them.The two sides unleash magics that warp and twist the world. Most folk caught in the middle are either lucky enough to survive or have to flee underground. The gods blame each other for the rampant destruction, the lichs and theocrats annihilate each other, and the sole, remaining good god manages to convince the rest of the gods to sacrifice part of their power to prevent the entire world from falling back into chaos.Currently, there are a few underground cities of men and dwarves, isolated elf and halfling communities, and a land wracked and twisted by runaway magic. The gods have broken their alliance. Magic of all types has been permanently changed. Aside from the few civilized outposts, the land is warped, twisted, and filled with deadly monsters. The gods of the evil humanoids, who were imprisoned by the human pantheon, are out for vengeance.The campaign starting point is a small surface town, the outermost stronghold of an underground human city, named Sun Vale. The town is ruled by an ancient treant who stands in the middle of the town. His roots stretch of miles around, allowing him to see, hear, and know everything that happens nearby. The town stands on the slope of a mountain at the edge of a vast chain of peaks. In the upper peaks are giants, orcs, and worse. Below, on what was once a vast, fertile plain, is a sprawling, mist-shrouded forest haunted by undead and goblin hordes.I'm using B1 as the first adventure. The characters find a map that leads to an ancient, lost stronghold of an archmage named Zelligar. A sage offers to decode the map and lead them there, if they help him find Zelligar's lost library. The ruin is somewhere in the Mist Wood, below Sun Vale.The setting is a pastiche of some of my favorite fantasy settings. There's nothing really original here, but I like the stories it suggests and the potential for a lot of long-term story arcs. As per Winninger's excellent articles, there are secrets buried behind almost every aspect of the setting that the PCs can uncover, most (if not all) of which have important implications for the setting as a whole.It's been really fun. I can't recommend the series highly enough.</blockquote>

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