A Gazetteer of the Valley of Broken Idols
Erland is a long valley walled by mountains and threaded by a single ancient road. Once it belonged to the Ffolk, the People, who raised standing stones on its hilltops and kept faith with the Powers of the Earth. Then the Northmen came down out of the north, conquered the scattered Ffolk, threw down their stones, and named the ruined land the Valley of Broken Idols. The Northmen rule it now, loosely, through a patchwork of local lords both Ffolk and Northman, while the elder races, the Elves and the Dwarves, keep to the wild and high places and remember when neither human people had yet arrived.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VALLEY
Long before either human people set foot here, the Dwarves raised a kingdom that spanned the mountains, and they cut the great road, with its bridges and cisterns, that crosses the valley to this day. That realm fell more than two thousand years ago, but its works endure, used by folk who never wonder who built them.
After the Dwarves withdrew, the valley belonged to the Ffolk, the druidic folk who raised standing stones and stone circles on the hilltops and worshipped the spirits of the land. In time they built towns along the Dwarf-road, and a kingdom rose among them, securing the roads and growing wealthy on the trade that passed through. In the last age of that kingdom, the Ffolk fought a long and terrible war against the giants, and it ended in ruin for both: their heart-city, Lindwater, was sunk beneath the waters of the Lind, and the Druids, in their last great working, cursed the giants into the stupid lumbering brutes their descendants remain. The kingdom never recovered, and the realm broke apart, never to be rejoined.
Into that weakened and divided land came the Northmen. They conquered the Ffolk town by town, threw down the standing stones, toppled the carved Idols, and imposed the worship of their New Gods, the Futurus. No single Northman realm rose to replace the kingdom that fell; the conquerors hold the valley as scattered jarls and warlords layered over the surviving Ffolk towns. Many local lords still bear titles inherited from the old kingdom, and the towns largely look after themselves.
Now goblinoid tribes are once more massing in the Wyrmsmokes, united under a single warlord, and the valley that could not hold together against the last horde must somehow find a way to hold against this one.
Weather
Humid Continental Climate: A humid continental climate is characterized by four distinct seasons and significant temperature differences between summer and winter. It features warm, often humid summers and freezing cold winters, with consistent precipitation distributed throughout the year.
Köppen Code: Dfa