The Barren Lands

The wilds were sparse and brown, the majority of the vegetation having dried up in the last few years as the salt seized the fecundity of the world. Little puffs of dust rolled up into the air as the wind, sweeping low and strong from the mountains in the east, rolled over the land toward the west, carrying the drying decay along for the ride. With it went the smell of dried plants and parch meat rotting from the bones of the creatures that had once roamed in innumerable quantity over a land that had been prosperous and full of life.

The hero stops, wipes a brow across their forehead, and then continues on.

The whole world isn't like this. There are still spots as fertile as they once were, with enough crops and trees growing to support grazing animals, feed villages, and shade the inhabitants. Some of the fields are still full of wild flowers and rabbits and unicorn's and all manner of wonder, but they're shrink, fading, dying.

Turning to brown.

The Tower is far away, oh so far away, it's back to the coast, it's vile magic radiating inland against the wind, somehow. It is the source of the decay, and whoever, whatever resides there, the alleged sorcerer from another world, makes plans to take the world for them self.

Our heroes cannot let that happen.

The village of Southmarch, to the south, obviously, have reported that Goblins and Sexlings alike have been raiding the homes on their outskirts, taking prisoners and supplies and burning homes. The men, more often than not, are left to die, but the women...

As the land dries up, so do the fertile beings who were to keep it all populated. Now the women are the currency, traded for goods, for pleasure... Those who are fertile are traded as breeding stock. And it's not just the Goblins or the Sexlings. The corruption has changed all things, until species are interchangeable. A womb now doesn't house the usual offspring; sometimes it could be human. Or creature, animal. Monster. Anything.

And vice versa.

A wizard, Excellor, in the north, says he knows what the tower is doing, and knows who controls it. He knows what they're doing, what they want, and how to stop them...

It is also said he holds the cure for the Barren Lands, and the Barren Wombs...

To the west, toward the tower, there are Bandits and Slavers, and at least one Beholder that controls a dragon who is looking to add more 'currency' to his already infathomable horde. Word in the taverns is that the dragon has been taking females of all races and returning them to his master. They say, too, that to the north west of that is the Gray , a disease that withers the people worse than the lands. They fear that it may be the next step in the elimination of the world.

Further west, beyond the disease and the Beholder, the Bandits and the Slavers, there is an army, but no one has gone far enough west to know their allegiance. No one that has returned, at least.