Haven

Spring has returned to a broken world. Civilization didn't die during the Forty Seven Year Winter, but what remained to see the first rays of spring sunshine little resembled the prosperous and thriving lands that stood when the first snows fell almost five decades before. When crops won't grow, hunger is inevitable, and the first thing hunger devours is our bonds with one another. As what little food could be scrounged, conjured, or bartered grew scarcer, kingdom turned against kingdom, city against city and eventually, inevitably, brother against sister. Peaceful, well kept fields fell into disrepair and hideous monstrosities, human and otherwise, driven into the dark places by the spread of civilization emerged to pile horror atop misery.   The human and halfling kingdoms fell into darkness first. The Plains Confederacy, which had been gradually forging ever closer bonds prior to the Winter, could not sustain its founding spirit of openness and cooperation in the face of empty storehouses and starvation. The gleaming knights and proud footmen who once jointly patrolled their highways degenerated into raiding bands and eventually ronin and bandits, with no master but their own hunger and need to survive. The Confederacy nobility became increasingly insular, paranoid and in places decadent, either clinging to power through bribery and force of arms or drinking themselves into a stupor within castles where every excess and debauchery was embraced in an effort to shut out the howling winter wind and the wails of the starving masses beyond the walls.   The wild-elf forest home of Nilmarr, once a peaceful if not precisely warm neighbor of the Confederacy's eastern kingdoms, cut off all contact at some point during the second Winter decade. Where once any could step beneath Nilmarr's shady boughs and await a guide, now only death greets any foolhardy enough to seek the forest's ever changing paths. None have seen a wild-elf for many years, but fresh markings in their elegant twisting script appear semi-regularly on the trees marking the forest's edge, a final warning that to venture further invites a swift demise.   Of Thronilmarus, the high elf and gnomish Artificidium, little remains but a blasted ruin and hollow eyed, haunted refugees. Few will speak of what transpired there, but rumors abound of arcane rituals and potent devices which sought to pit the ingenuity of Thronilmarus against the very elements themselves in an effort to break Winter's grip. The resulting cataclysm shattered the tall spires of their once pristine and wondrous city, taking with it the greatest collection of knowledge the continent, and perhaps the world, had seen for millennia.   Perhaps best equipped to survive the long cold, the dwarven, goliath and orc Iron Triumvirate fared well for a time. Dwarven caverns deep below the mountains churned out mushrooms and fungi by caravan load, feeding not only the the Triumverate's own people but many in the Confederacy. Yet, as the Winter wore on and desperation mounted in the lands beyond the Triumverate halls, even the mighty Iron Legion were stretched thin protecting shipments from bandits, opportunists and those simply driven mad by hunger and disease. In the face of mounting losses and with internal dissent, some say not of entirely mundane origin, rife among the Triumverate leadership, the caravans dwindled and faded.   As the Winter grew long, its storms battered even the sturdiest vessels to splinters and all but cut off contact with the islands of the Swirling Sea to the west. Of the continents beyond even those, nothing is known, and for the people of the Confederacy and its surrounding states, the world has shrunk.   The coming of spring last year was without clear sign or portent. Simply, on a day like any other, in months that had long since lost all significance beyond the counting of hungry days, sunlight burst through thick grey cloud and warmth once again caressed Haven's frozen skin. When one warm day led to another, and then a third, the first inklings of hope flourished among generations who had only ever heard of warmer days in the stories of their fading forebears. Now, as the first winter beyond the Winter once again gives way to spring, the people of Haven tremulously look out into a shattered world.