Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="bramadan" data-source="post: 4102124" data-attributes="member: 1064">I don't think that PoL is a stable historic equilibrium (and by that I think it is not something that can last more then a few hundred years on the outside). Therefore I intend to treat mine as a bit of a pre-industrial post apocalyptic world inspired by the europe of the early dark ages. Generally the spirit is thus:There was a great empire of men and the oldest of the people living today remember its dying days. Towards the end of its life the empire was riven by an intermittent civil war of increasing brutality that lasted several generations. Many beautiful things were lost in the civli war and many of the wise men of the Empire turned to evil to further their cause. Perhaps most pernicious was the fact that as the civil war entered its second generations all sides turned to mercenaries to fill in their depleted armies and in particular towards the war-like race of Orcs who have in the ages past been pushed by the Empire into the inhospitable north. For a while this worked, as ancestral fear and awe kept Orcs in line under their Human generals, and the warring sides kept on hammering at each other. However, as the second generation of Orc mercenaries grew up they saw the Humans for what they were - weak, corrupt and ultimately powerless. After the death of one of the last great Imperial generals, Orcs turned on their masters and civil war degenerated into a carnage of free-for-all plunder and looting with Orcs leading the way and some Human regiments resisting them but many more simply joining in. When the dust settled the great cities of the Empire laid in ruins (with possible exception or two if that suits your campaign) and only areas of relative safety being ones that were either too poor to begin with to attract the attention of Orcs and looters or the ones which were taken as a home to  a particularly tenacious and competent army captain with a loyal regiment on his back. Those places are your Points of Light. It is now some 40 years after the beginning of the great looting. Two generations of Orcs and Humans have grown up that have known neither the Empire nor the great war. Most of the old human settlements and monuments lay in ruins. Some have been taken over by Orcs (who are by nature very bad at building things) and some are avoided even by them having been in some ways tainted by the Imperial wizards in the last days. Being physically stronger and faster to breed in the aftermath of the looting Orcs are probably the more numerous of the two but they lack all but most rudimentary political structure to enable them to exist in a group bigger then a small tribe. Humans on the other hand have congregated to the Points of Light and begun forging a civilization of sorts from the ashes. Each PoL is ruled by its own petty-king, usually the best warrior or otherwise someone able to provide a modicum of protection. Their resources (and willingness to use them) however  are stretched thin and in the world where Orcs and worse threaten the humanity's very existence, most of the people organize themselves into yeomen militia, trained at arms and willing to drop their plows and pick up the spears at the moment's notice. It is from the very best (and blessed) of those yeomen that the PCs/Heroes are coming from. Theirs will be the story of trying to re-discover and re-build what Humanity has once had.</blockquote>

Verification