Unforetold: Witchstone is set in the rich, historied world of Horiza, where tired warring empires on the large continent of Orwindar look to the smaller, frontier continent of Kalsundia for the highly-prized witchstones, gems that store and discharge energy and so power many useful things—including deadly weapons.
Folk who sail the pirate-infested, stormy seas to Kalsundia see it as a chance to build new lives, free of the empires—for now.
You are one of them..
Kalsundia is a land of mountain ranges, tundra, verdant forests, and rolling plains, roamed by thunderbeasts (dinosaurs), some of which the humans, elves, and dwarves have domesticated. Others are raiders, or gladly eat people. They range from the hand-sized gothogs and thusk, often kept as pets, right up to the forest-shaking long necks, and the deadly roarjaws. A hungry roarjaws is often the last sight a Kalsundian settler sees.
Settlements are few and far between across Kalsundia, and law and order is more of a notion than reality, though warring factions impose their own harsh justice where they can. We’ll explore them later.
So what awaits you, in Unforetold: Witchstone?
Kalsundia offers you a chance to forge your own life. You choose your goals, you define success—though as one grizzled old prospector famously said, “Success in Kalsundia is staying alive.”
He hasn’t been seen for years, though they did find his hat. There was a lot of blood on it.
Some folk want to destroy witchstones. Others want to keep them for themselves, and even regard people not of their group as profaning witchstones if they handle them. Still others want to craft new and better devices to harness the power of witchstones. You can choose which of these approaches suits you—or you can choose to walk alone.
You can stay factionless, or join a faction, even rise in the ranks to perhaps lead a faction, and shape lives for all in Kalsundia. Or you can work with one faction on one aim but ally with another faction on another. There are no “right” or “wrong” roads, but there are roads that will take you where you want to go, and roads that will lead you to doom. So you can play the game over and over, trying for this goal or that one, and riding with this faction or that one. Kalsundia is a great big sandbox you can have fun in.
Kalsundia has its oddities, its remarkable sites. From the skull-and-ribs rock promontory of an ancient monster that looms over Kalsundar, the smelly crowded port that’s usually the first place a voyager to Kalsundia sees, to the Emasu at the other end of the continent, the fossilized remains of a gigantic, dragon-headed ocean creature, signs of the ancient past are everywhere. Pack merchants following trails from town to town will often pass huge bones jutting up from the earth, and there are tales of strange magic that lurks in Eolithic (ancient) ruins “somewhere out there.” As an adventurer in Unforetold: Witchstone, you will be one of the brave few who goes out there, and explores those ruins, and perhaps even enjoys that old prospector’s success: staying alive.
Some will achieve much more than that. Some adventurers will change the world.
Most believe that the witchstones will be the key to the future: using them in the right way, perhaps in ways not yet thought of, to shape better lives for all.
Others mistrust the witchstones, warning that they corrupt (as, they say, has happened to the elves, who suffer the Hollowing) or carry the curse of the Lynite-gods upon the dwarves—so that if you handle witchstones too much, or dare to try new uses for them, that curse will afflict you.
Many who shun witchstones look to another road to power: factions, working together with others, strength in numbers. They may be right, but the problem is that the factions on Kalsundia are fiercely opposed to each other, and work for aims that conflict. They can’t all win, and they can’t all be right.
Faction preparing to go raid a building
Faction in combat, raiding a building
The Commonwealth faction, for example, wants the will of the people to prevail from one coast of Kalsundia to the other, a law and order that always seems to involve public hangings.
Whereas the Free Legion wants to turn to martial law, with the Legion ruling Kalsundia as one great military camp, having vanquished all foes.
And there are many small but ever-rising factions like the Luck Turners, who raid others and are seen as bandits bearing a grand name; every charismatic and successful adventurer can lead such a faction, which is why they spring up as fast as they are smashed or collapse when their adventurer-leader dies.
And every faction has its spies, and its agents implanted in the ranks of other factions, so you can never trust a fellow faction member. Folk who came from Avondus may still be bonded, a compulsion bond riding their minds that will force them to do what Avondan commanders want them to do…so it seems your mistrust is well founded. And make no mistake: rising within a faction or getting the aid of a faction always has a price, and for adventurers that usually means a dangerous mission, often to explore the hostile settlement of another faction, or an ancient ruin sane folk stay well away from.
So go it alone or join a faction, it’s hard to get away from factions in Kalsundia. Which is why we’ll dig deeper into the factions next time.
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