Fortunata . . . once a land of prosperity and progress; now a place of peril, where factions feud, monstrous creatures roam unchecked, and dark magic lures the brave to the broken heart of chaos.

No one really knows what Fortunata was like five or so thousand years ago, when the world was young. (No one who is willing to share, that is; I am sure my Elven kindred could provide illumination, if they could wrest their attention from their selfish games for a single moment . . .) The only known documents from this period are Lestian, and it is almost impossible to discern fact from propaganda or sheer fantasy. Perhaps the Kallendai have more information in their archives; but, like the Elves, they seem unwilling to contribute their knowledge to outsiders.

The Rise and Fall of the Nameless Kingdom

This young world was only sparsely populated. Wars were mere skirmishes or raids. Famine was known, but not common. Within the mountain-ringed desert basin of what is now Fortunata lay the Nameless Kingdom: a wondrous, highly advanced civilization. This landlocked realm quickly achieved great progress in writing, art, societal infrastructure, and a scientific approach to magic. Every year, the Nameless Kingdom announced another breakthrough in the craft — yes, craft, not art — of magic. They are even reputed to have set up a network of permanent portals.

Then, one day, something went badly wrong.

The mystics’ pursuit of arcane powers unleashed great evil upon the world. No one — even those like me, who were alive at the time — can say what exactly happened. Of course, over the centuries, theories have multiplied faster than drak’makati; here are a few of the more plausible:

Whatever occurred, it obliterated the Nameless Kingdom — not just from all documents and inscriptions, but also from oral traditions; even from memory.

And, where the Nameless Kingdom used to be, a giant crater appeared: a jagged gash in the landscape of reality — a dark, upside-down world ripped five hundred miles across the center of Fortunata’s belly . . . THE SCAR.

Madlands and the Shuffle

The Scar is treacherous, filled with ever-shifting madlands: individual pockets of reality, with only one entrance or exit, each operating under its own dangerous geography of confounding logic. A madland could contain a glacier pouring into a volcano . . . floating castles . . . buildings sticking out of cliffsides . . . a network of cracked canyons spilling into a whirlpool from which there is no return.

The Scar is an unholy crater of improbability — and out of it, spreading inexorably and randomly in all directions, came a tide of cosmic Chaos.

But the Scar did not just erupt and remain, static and predictable; that would have been too easy. The whole region continued shifting, rearranging geography and displacing all forms of life. Folk took to calling these spurts of reality-bending Chaos “the Shuffle”. Powerful wizards called Sharps (like Quentin Martelle's friend Madhu) are able to harness the Shuffle and navigate the Scar, even setting up portal points or brewing potions that allow for swift travel. But for all others — including (and, perhaps, especially) adventurers like you, the Shuffle is a large part of what makes the Scar so dangerous; one never knows when a Shuffle will erupt and where it might take you — or what it might bring through TO you.

There have been entire generations (for mortals, that is) when the Shuffle has raged with such frequency and violence that the Scar was completely inaccessible, even to the bravest and boldest. Most “normal” folk go around it, using the Northern or Southern Branch of the Silver Road, where trade goes on caravan between Iron Gate to Grenadyne — and beyond. Perhaps a bold few would venture into the Outer Scar — an uncanny, haunted region of rocky desert and badlands, scattered with the ruins of the lost civilization. Though space warps here, it does so consistently enough that exploration is merely hazardous. (It's here you find the Family Seats of "old families" who can trace their lineage back to the Nameless Kingdom.)

But every few hundred years, the Shuffle dies down enough to usher in an era of exploration and adventure into the Scar itself.

This is one such era.

Adventuring in the Scar