The Southlands - Introduction and Background

This is the introduction and background information for the Labyrinth Lord campaign I'm putting together.  It borrows heavily from other sources, and the names have been changed to protect the mostly innocent (me).

Introduction

"Greyport, on the horizon!"

The popular trading hub between the port towns of Thalia and the mountain reaches of the Geir, Greyport seems like a fitting place for someone to start a new life.  The guilds around the city are always looking for a few brave souls to do the jobs they won't, and enough civilizations have fallen, risen and fallen again that their remains dot the landscape, like beacons showing a path to the wealth hidden beneath the mud of the Moorlands.

You step off the ship into the town of Greyport, and with that step you leave your old life behind you.

Background

The regions that make up the Southlands are divided into four distinct provinces:

Lavonry - Home to the capital seat of the Southlands, Greyport, Lavonry extends north from the South Sea to the twin peaks of the Strand, the mountain range that crosses east-west through the lands.  Its rolling hills are dotted with farms and forests, though they are dwarfed by Hessig's mighty hinterlands.

Within a few miles of Greyport's walls, there are several medium-sized towns. This area is called the Nearheath and is inhabited mainly by artisans and farmers. Being so close to Greyport affords a good deal of protection to these towns. Most have fortifications or walls in case of a ghoul attack or some other threat, but there are many outlying farms as well.

Thalia - This province is defined by water—by its access to the ocean (the easiest of any province), by its many rivers that lead deep inland, and by its deltas, marshes, and lakes. Water enables commerce here but also gives Thalia a silvery, mystical character; the clouds and the moon seem to be both above and below in most places.

Hessig - The province of Hessig consists of rolling farmlands surrounded by grasping fingers of dense, dark woods. The woods are almost supernaturally dense, filled with dark, sinuous trunks and a constant, hanging mist. The trees have broad leaves in muted reds, golds, and greens, and the forest floor is papered in damp leaves. The largest forest in the province, the Ulvenwald, tends to isolate Hessig from the other provinces, as travelers through the woods are subject to attacks by wolves, hauntings by all manner of primordial spirits, and mysterious disappearances in the mist. At night, the autumnal colors of Ulvenwald turn stark and steely under the silver glow of the moon. The only spots of color that appear are the luminous eyes of animals and the geistfires of shimmering apparitions.

Geir - The province of Geir is the darkest both literally and figuratively in the Southlands, but also the most dramatic, the most storied, and the most unexplored. Its valleys range from pastoral (albeit dusky) range-lands to black bogs into which dead conifers slowly sink. Its black-pine-forested midlands, riddled with wisps of thick fog, show colors from deep green to purple to orange-grey. Its far-flung indigo and black mountains disappear into the clouds, and humans can only imagine what dwells among the shrouded peaks.