Saltmarsh
Saltmarsh is a nondescript fishing village tucked away on the North-western coast of the Empire of Vestanfalls. For several hundred years, Vestanfalls was a formidable military power. Its superior might pushed the empire’s borders outward to the west, east, and south. Each successful campaign increased both the emperor’s wealth and power, and each one in turn drew the empire’s attention even farther south. The western coastal regions of Vestanfalls remained a backwater.
The empire’s benign neglect allowed piracy and banditry to flourish. Saltmarsh and similar towns kept to fishing, content to maintain a low profile and avoid imperial entanglements. Decades ago, the pirates who prowled the waters off Saltmarsh grew strong enough to create their own realm, a loose confederacy known as the Sailors of Fate. With the rise of that nation came increased raids on Saltmarsh and its neighbors. The Sailors of Fate’s raiding ships pillaged the coast for more slaves to support their growing realm, and Saltmarsh suffered heavily. The memories of those times loom heavily over the area, and the locals' hatred of the Sailors runs deep.
In time, Vestanfalls victories in the east and south gave way to a string of defeats in which its neighbors pushed the kingdom back to its original boundaries. With the world closing in, the Emperor looked to the west and saw unchecked banditry and a rising pirate nation. The Emperor struck peace treaties with its former foes to the east and south, raised a navy, and dealt a sharp check to the ambitions of the Sailor’s of Fate—but the conflict is by no means over.
The Emperor has decreed that the pirates must be put down, the sea lanes secured, and trade cultivated. If Vestanfalls cannot prosper as a military force, it must grow mightier as a center of trade.
Saltmarsh, remote though it might be from the center of power in Vestanfalls, is entering a new phase of its life as it reacts to the Emperor’s plans. The empire’s agents want to expand the village's port and make it a prime location for trade with the world. In another recent development, a band of dwarves—bearing a decree from the Emperor himself—have arrived and begun to excavate the hills and seaside cliffs near town, looking for precious metals. If their work bears fruit as expected, the mine stands to become a major factor in the village's—and, indeed, the entire region's—prosperity.
Naturally, not all of Saltmarsh's residents feel the same way about the recent developments in and around their community, which is the key issue that affects their lives and livelihood. Although the recent changes stand to bring new prosperity to the area, many locals don't want to see their home changed. At the same time, as an undercurrent through all the goings-on, agents of the secretive and mysterious Crimson Guardians work to thwart the empire’s ambitions while advancing their own.
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