The setting

The World of Drakarith

A land that was taken, renamed by the people who took it, and never forgotten by the people who lost it.

Dawnholm

Little is known of the Despoilers before the fall. No histories speak clearly of their beginnings, and the few records that survive tell of scattered tribes beyond the borders — violent men who lived by raiding and took what they could from those too weak to defend it.

Three hundred years ago they came in their hundreds, spilling across the peaceful lands of Dawnholm in an orgy of bloodshed. The old kingdoms fell, their people slaughtered or driven into exile. Forests burned, settlements were put to the torch, and the fields were left to the dead.

The name Dawnholm was lost. The conquered lands became known as Drakarith: the Land of Serpents, named for the evil that had been unleashed upon them.

Three hundred years of exile

When Dawnholm fell, the survivors carried what they could northwards: their children, their faith, their histories. They found refuge in the north, where the old houses endured and where new generations were raised in the shadow of a lost homeland. The years became decades, and the decades centuries, but the desire to return to what was lost remained.

The knightly orders guarded the old vows, passing them from master to page, from father to son. The names of fallen heroes were preserved in song and lore, and the claims to ancestral lands recorded in the halls of the great houses. Honour, duty and faith were not relics of a forgotten age. They were the foundations upon which a new way of life was built.

What became of the conquerors

The Despoilers are not one people, but a hundred warring tribes, bound by nothing but bloodshed and the strength to survive it. A chieftain holds his lands by taking those of the chief beside him — his cattle, his fields, his head. Power is taken, never given, and weakness is an invitation to slaughter.

Yet there is something worse at work among them than the cruelty of men. They have lived with violence for so long that it has become part of them. What began as a way to survive has become a way to live, and what was once a choice is slowly becoming something they can no longer resist. Some descend into madness, others into monstrous forms. Each generation seems less restrained than the last, and the line between man and monster grows ever thinner.

The bells of war

Now the bells ring across the northern lands. The armies gather, knights buckle on their armour, and the colours of the old houses rise once more. They march south to reclaim their birthright.

They do not come to conquer foreign lands or impose their faith upon unwilling peoples. They come to reclaim the valleys, fields and settlements of their ancestors. This is not a war of ambition — it is the fulfilment of an obligation carried across three centuries, a debt owed.

The Despoilers have no memory of Dawnholm beyond the ruins beneath their feet. They see no rightful claim, no ancient oath and no reason to surrender what they hold. The fields belong to those strong enough to keep them.