[kakimasu]

Hello. I'm a relative newcomer but no stranger to roleplaying. I've been trying to get a game going for keeps and here's hoping third time's the charm!

Despite the overly verbose setting "blurb" this is not a very ambitious concept. Just six inexperienced adventurers setting out with a caravan and taking the story wherever their decisions lead. There will be dungeons but most of the set-pieces touch matters that actively concern the average inhabitant of a hinterland and, later, average city. War, crime, schemes and a marauding monster or a dozen.

If the party proves up to what they find in their path, they might find themselves holding in their hands something worse than any monster: responsibility.

Cross our fingers.

Impiltur. The Forgotten Kingdom. Every year they come to the Farwater. Callow young men and women with grand dreams and bigger doubts. At the gateway to Impiltur's hinterland stands the city of Ilmwatch. Each summer traders arrive on ships from across the Sea of Falling Stars to attempt the journey north along the Merchant's Run. In their wake sellswords and sell-spells chasing coin and recognition. Many fall never to return. Sometimes a few come away with more.

The life of an adventurer is uncertain and beset with trial. But it is welcome to anyone willing to try.

Character creation:
Level 2, 28-point buy.
1,000 xp starting experience. 900 gp starting wealth. Full HP 1st-2nd level.
HP 3rd onward roll and take the better of the result and the average (HD*1/2, +1 at odd levels).

Allowed material:
PHB starting classes only.
Non-PHB variant/alternative classes/features/levels ask.
Non-PHB/DMG feats and and items allowed but subject to DM discretion.
PHB races and Forgotten Realms variants only (strongheart halfling, lesser tiefling so on).
Post requested prestige classes and non-PHB classes for (future) multiclassing.
No LA. No monsters. No templates.

The Kingdom of Impiltur and the Farwater

The year is 1375 in the Dale Reckoning. A year after receiving the Crown of Narfell from the Queen Regent seventeen-year-old King Imbrar II Heltharn oversees a stable and expanding domain. One that has taken a secondary role in the politics of Faerun's Unapproachable East until recently.

In the east a quarter of southern Damara bordering the Farwater, a coastal plain crossed by rivers north of the naval citadel of Ilmwatch, seceded twenty-seven years ago when the lich Zhengyi invaded Impiltur's neighbor. With the Witch-King's demise at the hands of the Damaran champion and later king Gareth Dragonsbane and the return of peace Impiltur at last holds a portion of an overland route to the riches of the lands east of Thay. Imbrar retains his aunt Sambryl's policies: settling the new frontier with loyal subjects and fending the Merchant's Run from outlaws plying the Farwater's rivers and monsters and evil humanoids from the nearby Giantspires and the Rawlinswood.

Young Imbrar knows he faces difficulties peculiar to his kingdom's character. The same stoic perseverance inspiring Impilturans from the dominance of the churches of the Triad (the lawful good deities Torm, Tyr and Ilmater) makes them overly suspicious of newcomers. What foreign trade lands in the booming ports of the Easting Reach goes through the hands of grasping nobles. Vessels sailing the waters of the Reach and the rivers linking lonely Ilmwatch to the bulk of the population in the west fall prey to pirates ruling the Farwater from the shadows. Darker things from Impiltur's ancient past as the battleground of the demon-influenced Nar Empire and the magically empowered Raumathari haunt ruins dotting the hinterlands. More recent evils fleeing Zhengyi's fall in neighboring Damara plot a resurgence.

Then come threats from farther afield. Impilturans look warily on the designs of the Red Wizards of Thay in the necromancers' attempts to gain a foothold in the coastal metropolises under a flag of trade. A smaller number speak in fearful whispers about more discrete inroads by the Shadowlords of Telflamm. Agents from Sembia wear a friendly face but stop at little in their goal of dominating merchant traffic in the Sea of Fallen Stars. All fear it remains but a matter of time until the Black Network arrives with their reign of terror as the Zhentarim have done in the unfortunate nations west of the Sea.

The King counts on the strength of loyal allies. His dutiful subjects form ranks in the kingdom's standing army, the Warswords. The Lords of Imphras II, a circle of paladins drawn by Imbrar's grandfather from the churches of the Triad, lends wise counsel as does his mentor the crafty Queen Regent Sambryl. The churches themselves call on Orders of young paladins, descendants of the ancient Triad Crusade that cleansed Old Impiltur of the demonic hosts of the Fiend Wars and founded a new monarchy.

Their cousins in faraway Cormyr view Impiltur as a crusading kingdom and regularly send forth questing knights. More unlikely cohorts, the autocracy of Aglarond and the allied Witches of Rashemen, hold the Crown's favor from the time Aglarond's ruler the Simbul herself set foot in Impiltur to crush the most recent demonic outbreak. Immigrants from Thesk recall the coming of Impilturan soldiers beside a Cormyr-led alliance that saved their homeland from the invading Horse-Lords of the Tuigan Horde.

But the Forgotten Kingdom's greatest resource perhaps lies in the fact it remains a land of promise. Vigorous new blood could stir long dormant notions and wake a nation of one million from its slumber. From the towers of the capital Lyrabar overlooking the Easting Reach to the streets of the smuggler's haunt of Bay Town to the barracks of high-walled Ilmwatch jaded eyes could look upon their surroundings afresh and once more dream of what could be.

But, like the kingdom of Impiltur itself, the newcomers have to start somewhere.

Impiltur the Forgotten Kingdom Map

Unapproachable East Map

All information pre-Spellplague. Maps Credit: Realmshelps/Wizards of the Coast.

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