Outer Lands

Some hundred years back, in the year 900, a group of human miners, craving adventure, ventured outside the fortifications and strongholds of the Midlands, the great Military Kingdom of Humans, and entered the Outer Lands just beneath the Troll Hills, though in those days they were called the Tower Hills. Dark legend still surrounded them even then, but the adventurers were heedless and set about digging for gold. Disaster struck suddenly. Trolls, a species of Cursed thought to have been dispersed with the Chaos, came up from their dark holes and lurking places, and slaughtered many of the miners. Those who remained fled, leaving their gold behind them, and ran frantically for the Gates of the Midlands. The Trolls nearly assailed them, but as they neared they were suddenly attacked by a Midlander army, led by the Wizard Anthelon and the Hussar Lucius. The Trolls were utterly routed, for they were attacked from behind by a legion of Rangers. The shadow passed for the time being, but undeniable evil still remained in the dark caves of the Troll Hills, as they were thereafter called.

Anthelon vanished into the shadows. Lucius established a line of valiant Hussars, True-bloods as they are called, and eventually died peacefully in the years that followed. The miners returned to the Outer Lands. For a time they mined peacefully, but dark things are again stirring in the hills.

The cities of the Outer Lands are Minerstown, the north-eastern settlement on the skirts of the Troll Hills; Genochar, an Elf city on the northwest; Westhome, the central hub and seat of the fragile government of the lands; Shorehome, a sleepy southwestern village on the front of the Sea of Division; and Homesburrow in the southeastern plains, a town mostly comprised of veterans from the Battle of the Outer Lands.