Long ago so long ago that the details of the conflict are lost and only the merest legends remain the world of Velgarth was wracked by sorcerous wars. With the population decimated, the land was turned to wasteland and given over to the forest and the magically-engendered creatures those peoples had used to fight those wars, while the people that remained fled to the eastern coastline, for only in those wilderness areas could they hope to resume their shattered lives. In time, it was the eastern edge of the continent that became the site of civilization, and the heartland tftat in turn became the wilderness.
But humans are cesilient creatures, and it was not overlong before the population once again was on the increase, moving westward, building new kingdoms out of the wilds.
One such kingdom was Valdemar. It had been founded by the once-Baron Valdemar and those of his people who had chosen exile with him rather than face the wrath of a selfish and cruel monarch. It lay on the very western-and-northeramost edge of the civilized world, bounded on the north and northwest by wilderness that still contained uncanny creatures, and on the far west by Lake Evendim, an enormous inland sea. Travel beyond Valdemar was perilous and uncertain at the very best of times, and at the worst a traveler could bring weird retribution on innocents when the creatures he encountered back-trailed him to his point of origin.
