(This is a brief story that ties in with the initial test map.)
People who have lived free for untold centuries speak in hushed tongues of rare glimpses of monsters.
Fields left untended are grazed by unknown creatures overnight. The sounds of startled animals at night become an all too common sound.
Gradually, people begin to cluster together for safety. The long-deserted red walls of K'nutsford, for centuries seen as the last remains of an ancient, oppressing and sombre fortress begin to hold a welcome safety to a folk unaccustomed to such life. Work even begins to replace the keep, even as rumor spreads rife that no normal event could have seen a keep there at all, with no ruins left amist the apparently ageless outer walls.
To the south-east of K'nutsford, the long renouned water-garden becomes a haven for aquatic monsters, while to the north an unnatural change warps the face of towering Torrenmoth.
It is a time when those who would be known as heros set forth valiantly to slay what might be slain; and others, who might survive to hear themselves sung of as heros, buy armour from blacksmiths.
(This is where the game begins.)
One such hero rises to the challenge. Braving the monsters of the water garden, that hero retrieves some magical blue steel - a metal with a fire-resistant aura. The metal is soon to feel the hammer of a blacksmith, forging the steel into a suit of full-plate mail armour.
He raids the lair of the Torrenmoth Wyrm, and recovers a quite unusual artifact - a gem of a stone not dissimilar to ruby, but nevertheless not a type known to the sages of the day. A gem with a eerie resemblance to the walls of K'nutsford.