This continent, as far as you know, has always had humans in it... but it was once a land of monsters and magic and danger, and every human settlement was tiny and constantly endangered. Humans, and whole settlements, often just disappeared.

3000 years ago, elves came into the world. They had been humans, kidnapped to the feylands. When they escaped and returned to this world, they were... different. They move with speed and grace and a light step through the forest, and humans welcomed them (after they got over their fear that they were fairies come to kidnap them).

2000 years ago, dwarves and kobolds, both descended from kidnapped humans, changed, worked together, and also escaped and returned, this time from the glowing caverns and tunnels far below the fairy mounds... Humans welcomed them, for their arms and armor and fortifications and clever traps (respectively) were very welcome in the fight against the monsters of the world...

1500 years ago, the people now called the gnomes escaped from the hills of the feylands... They were welcomed for their cunning illusions and their wisdom and their skill at evading danger...

1200 years ago, the humans who call themselves "salamanders" escaped-- this time from the elemental plane of fire, where they had been kidnapped from the human world by the efreeti... Their skills in fire magic were valued greatly against the threats to the united races (once everyone got over how scary they looked, with their glowing eyes and ashen skin and their voices, crackling and rumbling like a roaring bonfire)...

1100 years ago, the goblins escaped from the swamps of the feywilds...

One thousand years ago, the sorcerer Julian put an end to all of it. Humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, kobolds, gnomes, salamanders, goblins remained. All other monsters were banished, and all sorcerers lost their magic, and priests and druids lost their miracles, and finally the united races knew peace. No sea monsters came within 100 miles of shore.

Then 300 years ago, a ship arrived... manned by centaurs and satyrs and other demihumans.

They told of a New World, to the west, where magic and miracles still worked, and where monsters still dwelt, where the centaurs, satyrs, firbolg, tuskers, gnolls and more all lived, united, in the New World, working together against the greater threat. 200 years before, they'd escaped to the New World, and more recently they carved runes into their ship to keep sea monsters away, and went exploring... and found the continent they'd been kidnapped from, ages before...

50 years after that (250 years ago), Lizardmen showed up in the New World, and joined the united races of the Free Coast... they didn't really know where they'd escaped from... either the feywild swamps, like the goblins, or the elemental plane of Water...

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You start in Trevisi, a mostly-human village or city...

To the west is the large port city of Vierna, where the New World explorers landed... there are a lot more immigrants from the New World there, and a lot more trade and wealth...
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:32, Mon 14 Feb 2022.