Ancient texts tell of a vast and powerful country known as Trulon — a peaceful and prosperous nation surrounded by ocean and mountains. History reports that the tinkers of Trulon built wonderful and terrible machines that make the Animae and gadgets of today seem primitive. Legend says that such magic and technology provided bounty and comfort of which we can only imagine.

Legend tells of huge zeppelins, ten times larger and more luxurious than what exists today, carrying hundreds of travelers from the glittering cities of the northern valley to white sand beach resorts in the warm south. These behemoths flew over the fertile lands of what is now Maelon, looking over green fields and verdant forests.

Of the high plateau that is now known as the Kingdom of Tripudia, all that is recorded are from fragments and snippets of reports about a lush and untamed wilderness, of deep forests full of wolves, deers and rabbits. Nowadays much of the forest remains, but the wildness is largely contained and farmland and castles parcel up the highlands.

The settlers who came there hundreds of years ago were mountain men and pioneers, solitary and grizzled. Now, the inhabitants of Tripudia are farmers and artisans, simple tradesmen and honest nobles - for the most part. High, nearly impassable mountains serve to isolate the Tripudians from the growing cancer that has taken over their neighbors in Maelon.

But the Maelonians are growing more and more desperate. Their land is withering, dying, losing its fertility. Therefore they are grasping for something, anything that might give them a few more years. The Northern Valley was long ago devastated by Kestral’s Folly and is a wasteland now. Not much grows there, and so the Devastated Valley as it is now called, is home to only the violent nomads known as Jaypsalans. Thus the Maelonians cannot look north for help to their malignant problems.