The city of Stonehill is mostly a border town, a quiet way-station on the Mataren road. Merchants stop here to change their currency from Kylian crowns to Bartanthian ducats and purchase a merchant's license before heading to Calis, the capitol of Bartanthis. The fishing boats pull in a fresh haul of salmon each morning, and the loggers provide plenty of lumber to keep the city growing.
However, something strange has been happening recently. Fortune-tellers have been getting near-constant readings of doom an tragedy. The town medium has been having nightmares and hearing ever-present voices. Even the kobolds have closed up their tinkerer's shop to focus on fortifying their tunnels, claiming the rocks keep shifting causing cave-ins.
Magic has been absent from the world, in all but children's stories... Clockwork servitors assist the wealthy and military forces have started to train in experimental black powder weapons. Rumors of even stranger things have been heard recently: Overnight, an innkeeper set her own inn ablaze from fire streaming forth from her fingertips. A little girl who was nursing her injured little brother watched as he miraculously healed in her arms. A young man was just shaking the hand of his fiancée’s father when the older man started to sputter and convulse, his flesh cooking before his future son-in-law’s eyes.
Something is about to happen... something world shattering.
