500 years ago, our ancestors left the old lands to settle in the new lands. For 400 years, they existed on both sides of the seas, two worlds bound by the many cultures and tiny ships blown between the lands.
Then, 100 years ago, the old lands vanished. Did the ocean swallow them? Or did the sea grow too wide? Or did the old lands stay in place and it was us in the new lands who had drifted away?
Acts of gods, dark magic, or a collective dream — all are equally plausible, it seems.
We moved on, slowly, recovering from the shock of their vanishing. We rebuilt our economy and looked towards our own future as lands apart.
Then, a year ago, the old lands returned. Changed, unfamiliar — but there again.
So we built the town of Beacon, a town of adventurers seeking answers. But as we slowly map the New-Old Lands, one mystery grows louder: where are all the people?
It’s not that no one has been seen. Rumors of folks underground, or further inland, or huddled in the ruins we can see on mountain tops on clear days, these are all tales told in the tavern of Beacon.
But the Old Lands, once choked with people, teemed with industry, and shook with their schemes and politics. Now we have no official contact. No real rival, and we are told by tipsy adventurers that the few they do meet seem... changed. Different.
And none can recall our New Lands.
None can account for the vanishing.
So we are left wondering and wandering.
This is some simple Lore I wrote for my Hexplore24. I do not have answers to these questions — I hope that over the course of this year, I will learn, along with my adventurers, more about what happened.