The Climate Around Travance

((This post has been locked. It is an out-of-game description of daily life around your characters in Travance. Every day or two, an extension of this description will be made here. Check back daily for possible updates.))

The Climate Around Travance
Many months ago, you began hearing stories from afar about extreme hardships the world is undergoing. For the most part you have not seen these hardships because you live in Travance. Travance is filled with heroes and the capability to seemingly handle most anything fate throws at them. Most if not all chaos portals have been closed (In Travance), except for “The Master Portal” which no amount of effort can seem to effect.

One month ago delegates from around the world slowly trickled in to report the atrocities happening to their people asking for sanctuary for refugees. Even still, living in Travance these atrocities have only been told to you and have not been seen or experienced personally. Between the people of Travance and the rest of the world, there has been a very serious and realistic disconnect.

At the Winterdark Ball, the Count and others expressed disconcerting facts including verification that the capital of Kormyre had fallen and the King now resided under the Black Keep, deemed the safest place in the Barony. Some of you who may have stayed till the next day of the ball and did not immediately return through the reaching room, may have seen from the battlements of the Black Keep, a sea of demons scattered along the icy fields of Winterdark, surrounding the keep, though unable to come near its walls. For those of you who may have stayed and seen this, this might have been your first view at the effects of the Choas Portals outside of Travance.

The days immediately following the Ball some facts began to become clear to all, even the people of Travance, who have until recently been mostly unaffected. Roads and other methods of travel are dangerous; too dangerous for most except the most stalwart of adventurer. Some people have caught onto this danger in time and have canceled traveling plans, while others had already departed and their status at the moment remain unknown…

Three days ago without much notice, a single shipment failed to come in on time, after a few days it and many other shipments as well, simply never came at all. The sudden realization has hit everyone that trade routes and shipments of any kind have grinded to an abrupt halt. If this has only now happened in Travance, than this must have been happening for some time now in other parts of the world, meaning that supplies are running low, and rationing has reached various stages of severity all over the world. With each passing day now Travance is feeling these effects too. Food, alcohol, medical supplies, medicinal herbs, goods and supplies in general all are dwindling without being restocked as every day passes. The only blessing in all of this is that with winter upon us, crops had already been prepared and stored for the next many months. Starvation is not imminent in Travance, but those who understand the lay of the land, know that if things do not change, the risk will soon become all too real. Local leaders have begun instituting emergency rationing systems. Nervous eyes have cautiously begun falling on the food silos and storage rooms…

Eighteen volunteers have been chosen. Early this morning, eighteen members of Travance left the Barony, saying farewell to their loved ones and packing with them what supplies they could carry. At the Reaching Room they activated the start of thier Gatestones, and now all over the world they have scattered to begin thier search. To several it is a morbid event, knowing how bad things might be out there. Uncomfortably in the minds of many, thier safe return is silently in question...

Over the last many days, demons have been spotted on the outskirts of Travance. Sporadically they have been appearing within the five provinces, but not the proper. These demons are coming not from within, but rather from beyond the Barony’s boarders, indicating that there must be chaos portals out in the wilds surrounding Travance… The attacks are sparse at the moment and only in small groups. They are not organized or attacking constantly, but the skirmishes are lethal to common folk and all who are not known adventurers.

Every few days a neighbor’s house might be found burnt to the ground, while another neighbors house might have been seemingly ransacked; sometimes blood and missing persons are involved with the scenes. Every few days, the attacks become bolder and more frequent, forcing the lands to call in volunteer militia to create watches for all towns and villages. The presence of Demons is nothing new to the people of Travance; but there is something unsettling about how the frequency of their activity is slowly, methodically escalating…

Within the Barony of Travance, ravens are now used almost exclusively to transport letters from town to town. It is deemed safer at the moment, then risking the life of a single letter carrier trying to navigate the long and dangerous roads. From afar, letters also come in from the mainland through the use of the reaching room. These letters always carry unwelcome news.

Every few days you might hear a knock at your door in the middle of the night as a neighbor crumples to your floor or falls into your arms, sobbing tears, clutching a scroll reporting the death of their loved ones. As the days go on, this type of scenario looses it surprise. The once joyful anticipation of correspondence has turned to a bitter dread. It has become a most unsettling and unwelcome sight to see a flock of ravens overhead. In the back of your mind you might start to fear that the next letter will find its way to your doorstep…

In the surrounding lands, the local lords have instituted a curfew. All those who are unarmed and not trained to defend themselves are to stay behind locked doors, from sundown to sunrise. Night watches have been recruiting and have been aggressively patrolling areas. Every night there is a battle, every night a few guardsmen die and need to be replaced.

Then there is The Master Portal, which stands not more than a mile from the Dragon’s Claw inn, in Travance proper. On rare occasion a beastly noise erupts from its shimmering depths and the occasional pulse that is felt from it, each day increases in frequency. A full battalion of Elite Baronial Guardsmen surrounds the thing, watching it closely, but The Master Portal just stands there silently taunting them.

The Baroness has sent a call for the Heroes of Travance to gather in the proper (oog-This next event is not a “Baronial Feast”) due to the increased frequency of the Master Portals silent pulses. Whatever is happening… will happen soon, and the Barony had better gather and be prepared...

In lieu of the call for the Heroes of Travance to come to the proper for a potential inevitable encounter with Xualla. All provinces have begun aggressively evacuating the common folk out of their homes and towns and are moving them to the fortifications of the Lords Keeps, or other similar well defensible areas.

Yesterday Jonas Kane started charging quadruple price for all of his goods and services. As a response the Barony tossed him in the dungeons, sentencing him to reflect upon his actions there for the next two weeks. The Barony also seized the Dragons Claw Inn and has announced that until further notice its main hall will be used as a war council chamber to gather and disseminate information that they need in the days ahead. Books from the various libraries are being relocated there as well as other preparatory materials…

This morning, the guards standing outside the portal dropped dead without injury upon their body. Lieutenant of the Baronial Guard, Moirya Arkanian was the only survivor and has reported back to the captain that “pulses” of some kind are now emanating from within and killing everything near or around the portal. At the moment, one cannot even get close enough to it to see it.

For the people of Travance, this is clearly the moment. Whatever is happening is happening now. The Barony calls you with all great speed to hurry to the proper to prepare for the oncoming storm…