D'oril lore: the recent past

     Part of the depth of the Imperfect Hope world is the past, as represented by the characters that I've either developed while writing IFGS D"oril games, lore, and player-characters I've adopted into the world.  I've touched on how I intend to keep some character concepts whole from my 'borrowed' character list, while adding a bunch of depth that fits the PC's into the D"oril world more seamlessly.  One way I'm doing this (as I get back into a writing habit, yes, it's coming back slowly) is to rework character histories by changing where they are from, and putting more detail into their past than the pc histories I pored through while I was writing D'oril games.

     Imperfect Hope references a few "old campaigners" that IFGS'ers may recognize, the most obvious being Brandis (a no brainer, since his background is the basis for all of my D'oril lore).  Because IH takes place some 50 or so years after the Old Campaign (here after known as OC), the 'great heroes' of the past have faded into legend, tales of which have actually been lost because of the turmoil following Sha'te Valley, and the chaos following the fall of the old kingdoms south of D'oril (unrelated to sha'te).  The old kingdoms, from which many of the heroes of SHa'te came, fell into a series of ugly wars against each other and outside influences (greed and poor leadership), much of the legends from before then were forgotten in the confusion as new heroes and more important (read immediate survival) issues abounded.  Only in a few areas (The Inn of the Stumbling Friar, for example, or the monasteries of the triad, or among the k'tath) are the histories kept whole.

     The confederacy, which has risen from the ashes of the old kingdoms, is still in its infancy, and is more concerned with cementing their position within the western realms of the continent than recalling the heroic times before the troubles.  The one time stranglehold on power that the old aristocracy held is now shared almost equally with the mercantile trade families that held the coastal towns together in the face of barbarian invasion, and the triad, whose monastaries provided intellectual sanctuaries inland, and their questors, who stepped in to protect areas of civilization as many of the aristocratic strongholds and families fell.  The aristocracy held on to it's top position, but only barely.

     Thus, the Old Campaigners are mostly forgotten, despite their crucial role in staving off the invasions of the Empire of Tallux.  However, they are not forgotten in the Empire, rather they are remembered with a mix of hatred, respect, and awe by the leadership, aristocracy, and middle classes.  (The slaves, of course, know little of life outside their small world, but the legends of Beauty and the Free-warriors of the east are still talked about, much to the dismay of the emperor and his supporters.)  The empire's current leader, taking the heart of the lessons from his father and the priesthood, takes into account his lessons and the memories of how the Old Campaigners opposed the empire in his plans to establish a foothold near the wintergem forests of D'oril.  However, none of the old campaigners remain, except...

     According to my storyline, the "OC" involved in Sha'te were never replaced by young up and coming's, since the situation in the new confederacy wasn't conducive to the methods of the "OC" (freelance, involved outside their own lands helping others or merely helping themselves (mercenary style).  Instead, the type of adventurer who would have become an "OC" instead ended up either involved in the triad questors, the mercantile trade families, or outright tied to old school ruling class families.  Free-lancing (outside the questors, and that is an entirely different animal) ceased to be when societal survival wasn't guaranteed.  To put it another way, The powers that be couldn't afford to let their 'free-lancers' go, and so ways were found to keep them within society. 

     Except for one.  The last of the independent Old Campaigners.  The Red Mage.  Rumored to be in his 80's already, a (some say bitter, some say merely crazy)wispy grey and red haired recluse who disdains almost all civilized contact.  He lives on his own island off the coast, brewing his own ale.  His recipes are slowly becoming legendary (some say magical), which he trades or sells only to a privileged few customers, including the Inn of the Stumbling Friar.  And that is the story that I'm going to visit this week as I jump start my creative side, the story of the last human survivor of Sha'te Valley. We'll see if a short story comes out of it.....

TTFN,
Jim