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You are residents of Kaerhavn, the northernmost city of the realm, nestled in a pocket where the northern mountains meet the sea. Protected from harsh storms and north winds in the lee of the mountain peaks and warmed by the southern ocean currents, the city fared better than the surrounding lands.
Originally a small human settlement, it was the arrival of a dwarven enclave which brought prosperity for the past two hundred years. The dwarves mined coal and diamonds which abounded beneath the mountain, attracting trade vessels to the deepwater port, turning the settlement to a noteworthy city. All races, occupations, and aspirations came and melded into the tapestry but the city was always held together by the cultural weft of the orginal northmen.
North into the mountains and beyond is wilderness and wildness, the home of dragons, giants, and goblinoids who cause problems of some kind at least once every generation. East and southeast is the inland tundra - vast and arid, sparsely populated without rivers or streams to sustain settlement. The coastline runs south, a narrow ribbon of civilization clinging to the habitable ports and beaches, marked by small keeps and holdfasts between Kaerhavn and the warmer, temperate southlands. Civilization moves on the sea, and the northmen conquests over centuries makes much familiar on the islands and coastal villages anywhere within a week's travel.
The Coming of Change
The reptilian races live across the arid wastes to the southeast, known in the northmen tongue simply as "The Empire." Kobolds, dragonkin, and drakes of animal intelligence were rare enough to not threaten this city which always looked westward ot the sea. Over the few score years, however, the influence of secret cults has spread - fanatical doctrine of the Empire's religions taking great interest in the massive, intelligent dragons that brood and breed in and beyond the northern peaks, in the Valley of the Withered Heath.
They had little impact on the daily life of most in Kaerhavn, and those who ruled raised no alarms. The esoteric religious beleifs were a curiosity of the most scholarly and the secret cults remained hidden among the populace.
The Red Morning
The attack was sudden and unexpected. The bells rang, beating a brazen clamor of alarm across the city only moments before the wooden buildings of the inner keep exploded in bloody red flame. The pair of scarlet dragons, long and lithe as they soared through the air, breathed gouts of flame down the length of Worldtree Plaza, the Avenue of the All-Father. The watchtowers were already burning like torches, signaling to all in the city that the battle was already lost, no hope would come. Armed and armored squadrons of reptilians and human fanatics bearing the sigil of a red flame appeared in the streets without warning, coming from inside the city. The walls are useless. Slaughter and screams seem indiscriminate and everywhere.
You had only a moment. You grabbed that which you could, which most precious to you, and have only moments to try and escape through the bloody streets before you will surely be overwhelmed and the next victims of the attack or burned alive in your homes...