A comfortable world - perhaps a bit on the cool and damp side in much of its livable environs.... but as long as you have access to a warm cloak with a bit of weatherproofing of some sort, you should be fine! [Note the linked, dotted-underlined terms on this page and others; hovering your mouse over one will display a tooltip with a bit more data, while clicking the actual link will open new pages with further information. Some knowledge will never be displayed publicly, however.]
In the beginning, the main thrust of information will pertain mostly to Desertwind and its environs since that will be the "motive" area (that is, the "starting point" for adventures and adventurers). More specifically, the Inn of the Seventh Son and the MoonSilver Serai will be the most detailed, "alive" places encountered immediately. Other areas will be expanded as the adventurers "discover" them.
The major continent of Ketrinne, encompasses everything from the highest mountains to the largest desert of the world. By and large, not a bad place to adventure (disregarding the baddies of course.... but you'd better think twice before you do!)
A walled town on the edge of the Great Psammar Desert (also known locally as the Sandsea). The desert here crawls up against the feet of a range of jagged, broken mountains, the Serpentspine; the constant action of the desert-born winds known as the Hyades produces more desert and less mountain fairly quickly. Corollary to this: the plate underlying the Serpentspine range is volcanically quite active, making more mountains at a fairly rapid pace.
Current Dwar, Sanjar Emaleddin, twenty-fifth Gulkoth in direct line of male descent; he has no sons, and the local "aristocracy" are shocked and seriously distressed over the fact that when he dies, the new Dwar will be Sanjar's eldest daughter (of thirteen, an ill omen in itself), Valeddi Windsong. (Since no one apparently believed there might come a time when a Dwar would have no sons, no one thought to plan for the contingency - therefore the Right of Rule simply states "eldest legitimate descendant".)
The building itself has been here since about the time of the first expansion beyond the old walls, making it in the neighborhood of 1500 cycles in age. It has been changed, expanded, burned, rebuilt, and reconfigured innumerable times in those cycles, but has had only two families as owners/proprietors. Originally built by Ailsah Enderian and passed to her children and their descendants for the next 800 cycles, the last of her line went adventuring instead and never returned; the serai was sold at auction (to recoup the taxes for the Dwar of that time of course) to Hovesh Gospaellon - his descendants have owned and operated it ever since, culminating in the present scion of the line, Aravan Gospaellon, who is aided in the business by his wife, Eluesha (and however many of their ten children they can corral at any given moment).
Aravan employs as well a barkeep, Tserisa Greeneyes, a half-elven woman from "nowhere" and "neverwhen" (she says); and various barmaids, cleaning maids, kitchen help, stable help, and bouncers; and Johunish Elswing the tailor keeps a tiny shop in a corner of the main yard.
The kitchen is Eluesha's province: the food here is superior to anything the Dwar's kitchen can produce, and word of its excellence has gone far - on any given night, people from all over the world can be found eating, drinking, and enjoying the provender in the common room. If you ask for something that the kitchen cannot provide, you will be fed your second choice at no cost to you.... It's by way of being a nightly contest!
The wines, beers, ales, and other liquors encompass a list of a length to put any cellar in the world to shame. Ask - if it's not available, then you have just won a small fortune; there is a nightly betting pool on when the next "impossible request" will happen.... (know you, it's been a hundred years since last that occurred....)
© 2006 - 2008 and ƒƒ, Vicki C. Frei, All Rights Reserved
Dragonbar and Dungeon Perspective graphics from Lord Kyl