The Notepad

This land is known for it’s mostly year round winter. This doesn’t stop the inhabitants from traveling about for their trade. Ironsnow mountains and the deep earth provide large resources of iron,  some mithral, rare adamantite veins, and even more rare glassteel. Most settlements in Ironsnow make their trade through mining or smithing, more commonly both.

There are few non monstroust humanoid tribes that live in the open tundras of Ironsnow, following the few animals that live here. Commonly these tribes sell many of the extra furs they get throughout the year and sell them for occasional weapons, or basic necessities made of metal. These tribes serve the good people of Ironsnow quite well due to their hatred for the orcs who roam from the mountains more and more frequently. The orcs commonly don’t respect the need to live off of the land and over hunt the already rare herds of animals and threatening the source of food for the local nomads. The larger cities pay fairly for the kills proven by the nomads further providing their tribes with trade needed to survive.

The areas underground settlements consist of dwarves or gnomes with an occasional mixture of other goodly races. Wild bands of orcs roam from the mountains. Due to the consistent cold weather organized war hasn’t ever been able to hold back the growing orc population. This has helped bring the wild nomad tribes and the city populations closer together than ever before. Over the past few decades the orcs have been growing stronger and making more and more trouble for the residents in Ironsnow.

Northtree Village – In the past decade, a group of evlish refugees from Aldaya travelled all the way to Ironsnow to make a new home. A vision seen by the eldest amoung them showed the elvish band that one day they would prosper here but it would take time.  Since they’ve settled, the elves haven’t faired greatly but they have adapted well and are growing used to their new home.  Northtree Village is located in the center of the “Coldsteel Forest” which is a dense coniferous forest. The elves have brought several Darkwood saplings with them and with their aid have taken root and are adapting very well in the cold ground with the help of the elvish hands tending them.

The walking Forge – Ironsnow is well known for it’s trade in fine metals, but residents also speak of Iron golems walking the frozenlands. They collect materials and often harm those who they find in their way. Occasionally a few of the golems attack civilized areas and leave with many odd and valuable pieces. It is rumored/believed that these golems come from a hidden location high in the northern edges of Ironsnow. Many years ago there was a stronghold of evil dwarves (duergar) who toiled away attempting to build something truly amazing that it took all of their focus of their people, as one day all of their clan vanished. No contact has been made since. It is rumored the dwarves created a giant sentient golem which turned on them immediately after it was finished.

Glassteel – Glassteel functions much like iron but is very light and transparent. It’s innate magic causes light spells that are cast onto it as the target are treated as +1 caster level.

Odeeste is a harsh desert nation.  The land has the usual hot days and freezing nights of most deserts.  The rolling sand dunes of Southern Odesste Hide and reveal many unique sites and treasures after every sandstorm. Most of the time this area is avoided though. Many old blue dragons lurk in the sand in Odeeste, and the oldest keep their lairs in the southern portion.  Several adventurers have discovered caves and buildings revealed from under the sands only to find a very angry blue dragon.  On rare occasions, great pyramids have been found, whether risen out of the sand or unburied by the wind, these tower structures are filled with countless treasures and mysteries (and the *occasional* monster ). Sometimes weeks, months, or years later, the pyramid will be buried again by the sands.

Odeeste is traversed by groups of nomads, commonly  ranging from 10 – 50 humanoids.  These nomads are known as the O’meer. They are travelers moving from oasis to oasis bringing trade of many small treasures and wondrous items found in the desert. The O’meer are a mostly peaceful group but will fight to the death to protect each other, and will avenge those who fall in time. The O’meer also trade in information but for high prices. They know the layout of the desert more than any other including the residents of Jadar. The O’meer almost always know of recent dangers or adventuring sites in the region which have been buried or uncovered by the shifting sands.

The O’meer do take in refugees or those wishing to find a new life on occasion. Life is hard for them in the desert and they do expect honest and hard work/assistance in order to be welcomed into their tribes.  Those who fail to hold their own in the tribe are cast out into the sands with what little they own as the rest of the tribe walks off.

Blue Sands – Blue Dragon infested territory of the south. This area of Odeeste doesn’t appear any different than the rest of the sand of this area.  The only primary difference in the location itself are the occasional spots of glassy texture on the surface of the sand. These glassy areas mark the area that is known as blue sands. Deep under the desert here, many blue dragons make their home and guard their treasure, only coming up to the surface to find food or other needs.

Jadar – Medium City. This city is populated almost entirely by kobolds. It is a well built and maintained city built in adobe fasion.  The city’s outter walls are constructed of reinforced adobe, standing over 20 feet in height. The city Palace is well furnished and very large.  The city itself is governed by a council of 3 spellcasters (mixed arcane/divine), 3 captains who maintain a militia and guard, and 3 merchants who control the trade guilds.  The council works together to ensure the future of Jadar and it’s people. The peoples of this city have worked hard to form this city and work even harder to keep it safe and thriving. Most trade that comes through the desert comes through Jadar at some point. The only trade that doesn’t are those with items that they wish for noone to see but their intended buyers.

Shomonille – Population 27, 549 – undead
Shomonille is a land locked country. It was once a very strong nation with heavy assortment of spell casters, and a standing army. It is surrounded on all sides by high mountains. These mountains create a natural barrier around this country. This is a good thing for the surrounding nations as it hinders the undead hordes from escaping their natural prison. The only thing moving in this nation are the living dead, and the occasional rare group of adventurers which are soon likely to join them. Due to the severely hostile nature of this area, few dare ever to explore this landscape and little information is directly known to the outside populace.

The weather here is usually cool at the highest and cold on average with short seasons of any warmth, leaving the country cold or freezing the rest of the year.  This is mostly due to the cold winds which flow down from the mountains down into the cities and the lack of sunlight during the early and late hours.

Most of the ruins of Shomonille are unexplored and ready to be plundered, the only problem being the inability to escape with what you find. Magic in the area isn’t guaranteed to function as expected, sometimes helping or hindering the caster in unexpected ways.  Lothrun and any smaller surrounding cities aren’t near the outter rim of mountains and towards the center, all other locations were destroyed when the land was sundered.  This leaves quite a long run to and from the previous sites of civilization.

Lothrun – The largest city in the nation & the ruins of which are the constant source of undead. Lothrun was once a giant city ruled by spellcasters of many types forming a Magocracy. Most residents of this metropolis lived pampered lives until the day the land under the city sank deep into the earth and the surrounding lands rose up to create a future natural barrier. Little is known about the history of Lothrun and what happened to cause such a terrible disaster. (The fall of Lothrun occurred around 300 years previously and the only living residents were traveling away from Shomonille at the time and are not aware of what occurred to cause the devasation.)

Gassn Mohler – An old Lich who lives in the ruins of Lothrun. He organizes the undead to rebuild the city as he desires. None know of the liches intentions or desires, and very very few even know of the lich at all. Most sentient beings in Shomonille worship Riseth if any god at all.

Gus the Johnson hired us to get some secret information from a Shiawase Nanotech factory. I can’t help but feel we are in a little over our heads on this mission, which usually means we are. The faster this job is completed the more of a bonus we acquire so we immediately started scoping the place out. One of the first things we noticed was an abandoned warehouse a short ways away from the Shiawase factory. We broke in and began watching the factory from afar. After camping out for a day I noticed a pattern, ever 6 hours a car arrives to swap out the front gate security. Our mage developed a plan to read the minds of the guards. Not long after the next shift leaves the compound our mage waits by himself on a street corner not too far from the factory. Our technomancer hacks the stop light at the intersection to provide our shaman with ample time to reach the security vehicle. He successfully bent the will of the security staffers to his own and got inside the vehicle, from there he probed the guards for several minutes until he removed their short term memories and exited from the vehicle a few blocks down the road leaving the guards unaware of what happened. The interrogation provided a decent amount of information. It turns out that there’s a combat mage and a few decent riggers inside the factory. We picked up our shaman and continued back to the abandoned factory where we began planning our assault.

We realized this is definitely gonna be hard. After going through several possible options from sewer entry to high explosives, we realized that due to the setup that’s it’s very unlikely we’re going to be able to get in without a decent bit of brute force. The overall plan decided is that I would be providing sniper cover from the abandoned factory while the rest of our crew assaulted the front door. Looks like I’ll be bringing in the big guns for this. I setup my position in the warehouse with 2 sniper rifles and 2 rocket launchers if things got real hairy. I figure this is a lot of work for some building plans to the nanotech factory, but we are dealing with the original Megacorp.