Homebrewed 3.x setting in Conan's Hyborea using the Pathfinder System.

As you know, good Alcemides, the countries of these barbarians are divided into a western meadowlands which stretch to the distant ocean, and in which rise the cities of the town-dwellers, and the eastern deserts, where the lean nomads hold sway: there is incessent warfare between the dwellers of the cities and the dwellers of the desert.
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Rumor. Fragment. Whisper. Horror.


You have all heard the stories being told in hushed and shocked voices at the bazaar in the last three days. The City of Asgalun. Port city jewel of the Kingdoms of Shem; home to forty thousand people and hub to a thousand traders a day...Destroyed in an hour.

Tens of thousands dead, crushed by the uncaring hand of a mighty Sorcerer-God, in the old Stygian style. The few dozens of survivors dazed, physically battered and broken, incoherently babbling stories of an unstoppable force, a furious crackling sound like lightning, a frisson-tingle of cold down their spines...some whisper, eyes darting nervously, that the Amir's Council is experimenting with forbidden magics, and this is the result.



Asgalun Travel Forbidden!
A circulatory announcement from
Grand Vizier Amon Khel'ta demands
that no foreigners nor citizens of any
Shemite Kingdom or independent city-state
travel to the city of Asgalun on pain of
imprisonment or execution. Foreigners
found within Asgalun's city boundaries
will be executed as thieves and bandits.



You are each approached by a bland-faced man of utterly nondescript appearance, dressed in well-made but very unremarkable clothing. He walks beside you for a moment, then as the crowd thins briefly, mutters that a very lucrative job opportunity is available to travelers of some skill, and to be at the Jeweled Horn inn in the Ninurta ward of Eruk at six bells of the evening.