Rustic Vale: In The Shadow of Adventure

If you leave Soma Village when the sun is high, and follow its path as it sets to the West, you will find yourself reaching two tall hills at sunset, each one adorned with a small shrine to Jade Irinka. Make camp between the hills, and in the morning turn north, and you will find an old horse-trail, too overgrown for cars or motorcycles, but just right for a horse, bicycle, or footpath. Follow it north, skirting the edge of the Dark Woods until you can smell just a hint of fresh sea air, and you will find yourself in the town of Rustic Vale.

It’s a quaint place, two hundred years behind the times in some ways (although they are proud to say that there is a radio in the mayor’s office and plenty of plumbing.) The folk are pleasant, though, and always ready to welcome strange travellers. Things aren’t always peaceful, of course. Sometimes, the loggers who work the Dark Woods come out warning of witches and goblins taking up residence, and lately it seems that the old mine on the western edge of town gets overrun by bats and mushroom folk every other week. And of course there’s the ancient Gothic castle to the north, from which the Dark Lord Zerak plots to conquer all the lands of the world, but that’s been there as long as the town itself. Zerak doesn’t bother them, and they don’t bother him. 

Well, aside from all the travelling heroes. They bother him quite a bit. But that’s just the way of things. You see, Rustic Vale is a town of adventurers; they seem to flock here, training at the local Guild, venturing into the mostly-real Five Dread Realms, and fighting all manner of monsters. The adventurers uncover treasure and magical trinkets, and sell them to the townsfolk in exchange for food, equipment, and a leisurely life. The townsfolk take those treasures and trinkets and sell them to travelling merchants, or just go about their daily lives and deal with the real problems. Sure, there might be a manticore lurking on the mountain paths, but killing it isn’t going to get you a date to the Harvest Dance...

Rustic Vale: In The Shadow of Adventure is a 285-page setting and campaign for Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, published under the Apocynum Press license. This is a beta release; some of the characters are making use of Arcs that have since been adjusted, and this release does not contain artwork. But it is a tale that I hope you will enjoy, and an adventure worth sharing.