The warm, northern winds slip free of the stone bulwarks of the shattered Dwarven Clanholds and tumble out upon a vast sea of rich, waist-high grassland that stretches ten-dozen miles in all directions. The rustling stalks spread seemingly forever, not ending until they are swallowed by the marshes that run astride the muddy Blood River or until they vanish into the the Burnished Sea. The Weald is the heartland of the region, supplying all manner of grazing animals to opulent Nob-Nar, City of Glass, that rests like a glittering jewel at the southernmost reaches of this epic sargasso. The sod houses of hardy farmers and ranchers dot the grasslands; these and a few scattered shrines to Liona, their patron goddess, are the only signs that anyone lives in this region at all.
But all is not well here. The blight that has fallen across all places may not bite as keenly here as it does in the northern lands, but still it shows its teeth. Goblins, giants and worse slip from the crumbling ruins of the failed Dwarven Empire to raid the homesteads upon the northern Weald. Each year, their raiding grows more bold and stabs further southward; the bickering Dwarven Clanholds are too self-absorbed to maintain control of their outlying regions and the swelling grassland acts as a buffer that keeps Nob-Nar’s troops at bay. Elsewhere, foul, slinking things creep from the heart of the Ten Fathom Bog, that stinking mire at the mouth of the Blood River that no man has crossed and lived to tell his tale. Fishermen among the quays of Nob-Nar whisper tales of nets filled with strange things, and all manner of debris and detritus washes ashore, some clearly not made in any nearby land.
It is good, then, that from the hardy stock of the Weald farmers heroes are born. For as long as the Weald has faced encroachment, it has produced the finest adventurers in the land. Time and again, these brave few rise to meet the challenges in this unexpectedly dangerous, wide-open country. May it so be again, for the Weald is once again stirring and the northern wind brings naught but ill news.
The Weald is a player-driven, fantasy sandbox campaign centered on a region of warm, southern lowlands dominated by a vast field of waist-high grass, bustling port cities, foreboding forests and a failed Dwarven Empire crumbling to ruin. The adventurers, sons and daughters of the doughty farmers and ranchers of the region, are free to roam over this area, searching for their fortunes while building a legacy they hope will carry their names through time.
The Weald is played using Savage Worlds Explorer Edition. If you are looking for an open-genre, rules-light game system that still manages to deliver tactical granularity, Savage Worlds may just be what you are looking for. Try it out.
We are the Northern Montgomery County Gamers Association (NMCGA), a group of older gamers that have been playing together for more than a decade. Some of our members have been gaming together for more than 20 years. We meet 50+ weeks a year, every Thursday evening for 4-6 hours to tell tales of high adventure, low adventure and just plain destruction.
A typical campaign runs about two years or so. Most recently, we finished Paizo’s Age of Worms Adventure Path, an affair that took over two years to complete and that ended in the party being reduced to a gooey mass of worm-riddled slime. It sure was fun though.