You're Never Going Home
New Caladain is the Westernmost holding of the Nine Kingdoms. This colony is just three years in age and is finally becoming self-sufficient. It is nestled in a river valley between rocky bluffs that rise up nearly one hundred feet in all directions save the sea. The white stone cliffs provide shelter for the city from the numerous winter storms and squalls. Sir Onhre Bastin the third who first glimpsed the crumbling white stone walls declared that the sheltered bay shall be the start of the Nine Kingdom’s foothold on this new continent and named the site New Caladain in honor of the finest city in all the Nine Kingdoms.
The seventh year in the rule of Besindge Aldo Cantenon Overking of the Nine Kingdoms
Soon after Sir Onhre Bastin’s declaration the first colony ships arrived carrying soldiers and laborers taken from the imprisoned, the indentured and the desperate. The city was constructed on the ruined foundations of a previous peoples settlement and large nearby forests supplied the needed wood and materials for the early stages of construction. Stone was quarried from the walls of the cliff and by the coming winter a modest settlement had been constructed.
Spirits were low during the first winter though, harsh storms, lack of variety in food and very little wine or ale, not to mention the superstitions of the common man made for a long and tedious winter. The fledgeling city was protected from the harsh winds of the storms by the surrounding bluffs but several naval ships and all hands were lost in the dangerous waters. Despite this the labor’s of the first year still met the goals of the King’s Council back home with the coming spring they were on track and ready for the next batch of colonists (and wine).
The eighth year in the rule of Besindge Aldo Cantenon Overking of the Nine Kingdoms
Spring brought dozens of new colony ships carrying more laborers as well as the first entrepreneurs, who saw the opening of a new continent as a golden opportunity to strike it rich. These men and women, of all races purchased properties in New Caladain location unseen while in the Nine Kingdoms for extremely good prices and had arrived to set up shop serving the the soldiers, laborers, homesteaders and frontiersmen. All manner of experts and craftsmen were among this wave of settlers. While the laborers continued to work on expanding and rebuilding the new arrivals breathed life into the budding colony making it into a city.
Renowned explorer Captain Hameline was among the recent arrivals. He had come bankrolled by wealthy nobles of the Nine Kingdoms to explore the new lands for rare and exotic bounties and resources. Soon after his arrival he hired a motley group of laborers and guardsmen for a trip up and down the coasts charting the features and landmarks along the coastal plains. Reports of his expedition to the north include notations of many ruins, though none the size of the city New Caladain was built upon. His band met exotic people and creatures during this trek, of note were clans of “degenerate hill men” (the Captains own words.) That hounded his men in the forested hills of the north and whom gave chase for several nights before leaving off. These hill men were savages, who were easily duped by the Captains superior tactics and their stone and wood weapons were no match for the Kingdom’s steel, despite these boasts seven men of the Captains twenty were killed in his “tactical” retreat.
The trip to the south fared better and the newly bolstered company discovered ruins of another city at the mouth of a distant wide river. This city was now a swampy morass as the river had long since jumped its banks and spread through the many streets creating an exotic urban delta. Accounts provided by the men tell tales of gigantic men twice and thrice the size of a civilized man with one single large red eye instead of two. These monstrous giants lived on the various elevated islands of the delta and used the ruins of the buildings as ammunition, hurling gigantic stones at the explorer’s when they were discovered.
The Captain returned to New Caladain as a harsh winter settled in and began work on a new map outlining his ventures.
The first year in the rule of Otois Aldo Cantenon Overking of the Nine Kingdoms
Throughout the spring and early summer a continual stream of colony ships brought newcomers to the city, homesteaders, merchants, laborers, noble representatives (usually estranged or banished) each of whom brought their own culture to this distant colony. As the spring rains eased into warm dry summer Captain Hameline set out with thirty men and a supply train of mules to find the headwaters of the Bastin river.
The good captain and his entire retinue were never heard from again. This was the first of many ill omens the settlements third year provided. Just after Captain Hameline’s departure into the unknown word arrived via colony ship that the Over-King had been assassinated and that the peace of the Nine Kingdoms had been shattered. The men and women of the colonies were helpless to do anything while their homeland some 2500 miles to the east was burning.
That was the last colony ship to bring word or supplies from the homeland until the plague ship arrived in the final weeks before winter. The words of that ships last survivors, the words of a fevered and deranged mind no doubt was that they were all dead, all dead…….all of them dead.
Locations in New Caladain