The World

In common, the world in which you live is named Wylde. The ground you walk on is the earth, ground, land, or firmament. Everything above including the air you breath, the clouds, winds, and storms is the sky. The heavens lie above the sky and can only be seen when Pelor's fiery face drives the darkness back and paints the sky blue. From the sky down into the depths of the earth is Wylde, including everything that lives upon it, and the least tamed portions of the world are themselves called wilds. None of you have ever seen an ocean, though you have heard tales. The largest city any of you have laid eyes upon housed less than two thousand souls (Dwarves from Hammerfell may claim otherwise.) The roads that thread their way through the wilds are mostly ancient, broken, and frequently indistinguishable from the ground over which they run. The wilds encroach upon every work of man, and strive slowly and inexorably to erase all traces his upstart attempts at civilization.

The region from which the PCs hail and in which the campaign begins is collectively known as the North, and specifically the Nentir Vale, after the Nentir river which flows through it. It was once the Northern edge of the Nerath Empire, though that entity has long faded into mere memory nearly a century past. See The Nentir Vale section below for details.

EDIT: The Nentir Vale, as described in the DMG and hinted at in the H1 and H2 modules, is somewhat more settled and recovered than the world I initially envisioned. I plan to use it as a rough outline, but will be making significant changes, including shifting the fall of the old empire back by at least a hundred years. Maybe more. The populations of Fallcrest and Hammerfell will be reduced and Hammerfell is far more isolationist than depicted in the DMG, for reasons unknown to the outside world. The Barbarian tribes to the North and the Elven clan to the South are both far less numerous than they are depicted. Very few venture beyond the edge of the Vale except heavily defended trade caravans, which are few and far between. It is known that there is a larger society to the South, but what lies West beyond Hammerfell is completely unknown except to the dwarves, who aren't talking. The barbarian clan does not travel beyond the edge of their forests to the North, as they are hard pressed on that border by orcs, giants, and worse things. To the NE, the same orc and giant menace lurks, while a ferocious tribe of ogres makes travel to the SW dicey at best. Few of the fortified farmsteads that sparsely dot the Vale exist to the South, and a vast wild runs for nearly two hundred miles before the next settlement of any size, the lake town of Terenloch.

Note: Please do not take from previous discussions that this is a post-apocalyptic (PA) world. It is indeed a relatively undeveloped land which rests on the ruins of a much greater society. It will have elements of a PA type game, in that civilization will generally be on a smaller scale than in my past games and ruins of a fallen society will be relatively common, but it has little to suggest such a setting beyond that.