THE GOOD WIFE
The faithful of the King in Splendour came into the Shrouded Lands from all sides, and had much success against the creatures of the night. Foremost among them was tunath, who had as her weapon a meteoric sword - like the Last Light. When she drew it, they were blinded, and when she swung it they were deafened, and when it touched their skin, they died.
Among those impressed by Tunath's mission in those days was the Lord of the Verlimes, Cosimo, who was troubled by raucus werewolves who ate his flocks of sheep and chased his servents through the fields if they dared stray after dark.
"If you can rid me of these vexatious wolf-men," said he, "I and all my line will cast aside the old gods and accept in our hearts the King, the Lion and the Sword that Slays the Night."
And so Tunath went into the dark places and the werewolves were seen no more, and Cosimo Verlime and all his line were converted to the worship of the King.
All but Cosimo's wife, Martia. Martia was of the stock of Zhuriman, being the last of that doomed empire, and she was embittered towards the lion preists of the King, for it was the opinion of the Zhurimani that the faith of the King in Spelndour had done nothing for unity in that empire.
But Martia stayed silent, as a good wife does. And Cosimo opened a great band in the ceiling of his feasthall, that the sun might shine through onto his table at noon each day.
And Cosimo tore down the walls and battlements about his palace, for the King would protect him. And Martia stayed silent, as a good wife does.
And Cosimo sent away the Magister who had tutored Cosimo, and Cosimo's father, and Cosimo's father's father, and employed instead a green lion priestess from overseas, whose accent was still so thick that none could understand her. And Martia, the good wife, stayed silent, though she noted that hte lion priestess was very beautiful.
It fell to Martia to educateher children with Cosimo, the heirs to the lordship.
"Let us talk about the foresight of the King in Splendour," she said in the feasthall, as the rain fell through the hole in the ceiling.
"Let us talk about the virtue of the King in Splendour," she said, outside the room of the lion priestess.
"What are those sounds issuing forth?" the children asked.
"Those must be the growls of the Lion", she said, but it was not lost on the children that the sounds sounded like the sounds made by rutting beasts in the field.
"Let us talk aobut the power of the King in Splendour," she said by the ruins of the catle walls. For here was a troupe of Zhurimani, led by her sisters, who had settled at the holding of the Lord Ward after the fall of their empire.
Not a drop of blood was spilled, but her brothers convinced Cosimo to give up the worship of the King in Splendour and return to the old ways. And the lion priestess was sent away, heavy with child, and was adopted by the Stannevs.
And when Tunath next showed her face in the area, her sword had been melted down to make Teodo, and she was sent packing with the flat of a sword not made from meteoric iron, but from good old orcish steel.
Hooks
What caused the fall of Zhuriman?
Where else did refugees of its fall travel to?
What happened to the child of the lion priestess?
WILDLIFE OF THE SHROUDED LANDS
As you'd expect from a collaboration, ground-up fantasy setting, the Shrouded Lands don't seem to match the flora and fauna of any particular part of the world - and that's for the best, of course. I wouldn't sacrifice the Australasian drop bears and daggerfeet, Africna ostriches and hippos, or American beavers and mocking birds for the illusion of unity.
However, I really like that the Shrouded Lands are large enough and rich enough that we can 'research' them and draw interesting conclusions, and one observation that I've made is that most of the Shrouded Land's fauna is native to India, or was in the recent past. India is lucky to have much of the world's charismatic megafauna, which helps.
I point this out not to limit you, but to inspire! I think it's cool to imagine the nordanbjorn as sloth bears, the deer as blackbucks, the elephants as Indian elephants, the lions as Asiatic lions, and so on.
India: Cormorants, vultures, pit vipers, hyenas, jackals, peacocks, chickens, lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, mammoths (extinct), catfish, buffalo, parakeets, ibises, pythons, mosquitoes, boar, bears, crocodiles.
Other parts of Asia: Alligators, wooly rhinos (extinct), crayfish, beavers, apes, antelope
Africa: Giraffes, hippos, ostriches, dodos, crayfish
Australasia: Butcher birds, koalas, macropods, birds of paradise, crayfish
Americas: Mocking birds, pumas, hummingbirds, electric eels, blind salamanders, lemurs, spider monkeys, musk rats, coyotes, crayfish, voles, snapping turtles
