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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 4704621" data-attributes="member: 18832"><a href="http://mhacdebhandia.livejournal.com/75362.html" target="_blank">Solano</a>Less than three generations ago, the Spring Empire looked to have a prosperous future of expansion and discovery. In your grandmother's and grandfather's time, however, the promise of the empire turned sour. Bitter rivalry and open conflict in the Imperial House led to bloodshed and rebellion; the Chosen Heir was murdered by her brothers, her brothers were cut down by her sisters, and her sisters betrayed by the captains of their forces. When it was over, the Water Palace was destroyed and the Imperial House extinguished.Your home, Solano, was in these times a frontier of the empire. Now it is perhaps the last village within three days' ride to preserve something of a civilised way of life - though, as you no doubt tire of hearing from your grandmother and grandfather, life in Solano today is so very far from the proper ways of the Spring Empire.Solano was originally founded as a mining town, in a dry gulch near promising veins of iron ore. After the empire collapsed and its once faithfully-maintained roads fell into sad disrepair, only a few brave merchants dared the stretches of forbidding wilderness between Solano and the remaining towns further east. The mine is still worked today by a few men and women with the skills to do so, but most of what they extract is used in Solano itself, with only a little traded to the occasional merchant caravan.Instead of mining, Solano today largely supports itself through farming and forestry. Refugees from failed villages came to Solano in years past, and most claimed farming land that lay untouched while the empire exploited the iron mine and could afford to bring in food for the workers. Miners who stayed when the empire fell did the same, or turned to forestry alongside the carpenters who had worked on the mine.You and your companions may have grown up in the town, but your fate doesn't lie in the mine, the fields, or the lumberyard. When the Spring Empire was strong it built Solano to support its exploration of and expansion into the lands to the west - lands that once, or so the tales of your grandmother and grandfather have it, were the heart of the legendary Winter Empire. Perhaps that is just a tale told by the venerable, but anyone with eyes can see the remnants of some civilisation in those western lands. There is no telling what might be lying out there waiting for young men and women with brave hearts and skilled hands to find.Besides, Solano no longer enjoys the protection of the empire. The magistrate still governs, but her authority comes from wisdom and experience, not imperial sanction; the village still has its militia guards, but they are few and do not venture far from the walls. The lands to the west - and some in other directions - harbour threats against the village, threats which must be averted or defeated.You were gifted girls and boys who grew into skilled and capable women and men. The path fate has drawn for you seems obvious.</blockquote>

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