Tetherai and the World of Havenrick

Welcome to the World of Havenrick and Tetherai! A little bit of background. When I was a child, I made up a character named Mikeal Starkz. He was originally the best friend of Han Solo. Then he migrated to a fantasy setting. Eventually he was a multi-classed Warrior-Wizard in an AD&D 2nd Edition game. Then, I drew my first fantasy maps so I could be the Dungeon Master, representing the world Hai, and it’s major political power. Havenrick came to life as a country that Mikeal Starkz ruled with his second wife Daun, a priestess, after his first wife, a dual-wielding warrior, got killed by a Beholder. This is all by 14 years old. I moved on from D&D for a bit, and when I returned in 2001, it was to create a world map, put Havenrick on it, and start writing a new campaign. That campaign never really got off the ground, but the map became the basis for a writing project of mine that continued for years, one small piece at a time. Now, thanks to George R.R. Martin, Mikeal Starkz is Mikeal Haven’ren, but he’s still King of Havenrick, begrudgingly.   What you have in front of you is the culmination of an almost two-decade-long project. This is the entry point for a Havenrick campaign. The continent is now called Tetherai. Civilization is about as old as ours, with some hiccups - a more powerful magical race known as the Edam once ruled this world, and were the shepherds of mankind and the other races. Their kingdom achieved levels not seen since, and was something of a naturalistic integration between civilization and nature. No one remembers when or why their power began to slip and man began to dominate their former stewards. They slowly retreated into fairy tales 4000-3500 years ago, though many say they still live in the dark and haunted places of Tetherai. There are inexplicable ruins that could be from their civilization or from past human empires. The groves and lakes that formed the centers of their “cities” still remain as well. Technology approaches that of the 1650s level in our timeline, but is less common.   Eight hundred years ago, a cataclysmic war grew out of the regions described here and engulfed a region 2500 miles west to east, and almost as large a region north to south. Eventually there will be a timeline here of those events. Only through the actions of Mikeal Haven’ren’s great-great-great-(to the 18th time) grandfather and his 13 companions was complete disaster averted. Following his death, some of his companions secured things enough that civilization became stable again. As part of the treaty that ended the war, a ban against the use of the magical arts was signed by most of the countries involved. This is almost an irrelevant afterthought to the war, as the level of magic in the world plunged to near nothing due to actions taken during the war.   Stirrings from the south, as well as rumors from lands both near and far, suggest a new age is coming. Magic returns to pre-war levels in the 750s. Contact increases with other continents of the planet. Weather patterns shift some, storm levels increase. Things seem to stir in the dark ruins of the past. A few plague outbreaks occur, though none last more than a few seasons. The birthrate of the magic-touched increases as well, and some of the old ways return to the world, as if they’d never left.     Seth R Feldman                   Copyright © 2017 by Seth R. Feldman