Blue Hills

In years past, the windswept moors of the Blue Hills were infested with roving banditry. These groups of brigands and dacoits used the fog-covered, uncultivated hills as shelter from the authorities of nearby Casper. Locals have always warned traders and travelers not to take passage through the Hills unless in heavily armed company, for the raiders are typically well-organized and fearless.

In recent months however, this has changed. Reports have made their way to nearby lowlands indicating the local banditry are engaged in a fierce struggle for survival with an unknown foe, a struggle which their increasingly prolific exodus to the nearby lowlands around Coconino Creek indicates they are losing, and losing badly. Tales have made their way back to Casper, retold in dingy taverns, of blank-faced men that tirelessly march the hills in statue-like formation, their weapons sorcerous devilry that holds the power to bring down an entire hillock.

In reality, the bandits of the Blue Hills are being forced out of their territory by travelers from another plane, whose arrival on Valucre deposited them squarely in the center of the Hills. The Comnenic Empire, though an unknown entity to most Valutians, has always maintained a clandestine interest in other realms and worlds.

While the events drawing Comnena's interest have passed on and concluded, the Empire maintains a contingent of close to one thousand soldiers in the Blue Hills, centered upon the fortress known as Niscotor. A civilization that eschews magic entirely, audacious merchants have begun trading with the Comnenii, some of whose technological advances are considered miraculous.

An industrious people, the Comnenii recognize the value of this trade, and have thusly gone to great lengths to secure the region -- thus, the sudden exodus of bandits and raiders intent on sparing their lives an abrupt and violent ending at the hands of the Empire's cannon. Still, some of the more die-hard groups remain, ekeing out a living in their hold-fasts, their survival owed more to the lack of Imperial manpower in Valucre rather than any lack of interest on Comnena's part. The boldest of them raid the convoys that snake through lowlands and heath plains on their way to Niscotor.

The largest of these bands is a group of sellswords and brigands that call themselves the 'Sons of Sorrow'. Rumored to be led by a sorceror of considerable power, whose name and appearance remain unknown, they wage a bloody, protracted war with their Imperial neighbors.