General key words: points of light amongst harsh darkness, High Fantasy, Prevalent Magic, small cities, multiple mythologies, bizarre/otherworldly sites, the planes.
More specific key words: Towers, blighted landscape, dark sun (campaign setting), almost planescape, dark and weary.
The Story:
Upon the smitten Aerth, fortune smites the weak and favors to the bold. The chasmed plains are bleached rough from the Sun and her sister winds are like razors to the cracked ground.
Most believe the Benevolent Gods have forsaken the realm. They are they who call it “Scourge”. They are faithless to salvation and now bow to mystic Lords.
Some of these sovereigns sit upon high Arcane towers. Eboracum, Amalgoloth, and Mortari are just some of the citadel’s names. Though men may not call the Lords of these towers “master”, they know not to venture lightly into their proximity. Many Lords go unchallenged. It is as if the Gods favor them and have given them pedestals from which, at times, they have reigned down fear and sorrow.
The realm is a great expanse of Sword and Sorcery. It is a time where men are crippled by mysticism and tyranny. It is home to many pantheons, where obscure Gods are pled for favors, where innocents are sacrificed to appease them. In the name of malfeasance, men covenant with devils in the shadows, they appease demons to blight the lands of their enemies. The rampant suffering in the land is evidence that these methods are often effective.
Civilization is scarce. Technology is crude. Superstition has almost replaced religion. The worst monsters run rampant and are often worshipped.
Waking up in the world of Scourge is like waking up into a nightmare. At the fringes of chartered territory, the elemental chaos bleats through with the hisses of a thousand fears. The higher planes are also easily accessed, as shrines to deities are often gates to the heavens and hells. A grove of trees might actually be a pit-trap leading to the ferocity that is the Feywild, and behind a mirror may lie a gate to the Shadow.
As evidenced by the Towerlords and the vomit of the hostility of darkness, Scourge is a breeding ground for heroes and villains. As nature and life are ruled by survival of the fittest, men only last if they emerge from the fires of oppression. Scarred, but more powerful.
The rare person that keeps his wits and wills inevitably proves to be a fulcrum in the greater story being told.
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