Daniel came ashore at night, off the first ships from the Old Continent. The arrival was worse than the voyage’s storms. A lot of settlers took off alone inland and got killed by monsters in the woods. By the time Daniel and three others decided to group up, all the other survivors had scattered.

Old stories of this unexplored continent declared it at the edge of the world. Daniel and the others pushed inland. They needed what few advanced weapons had been lost with the first scouts. Everyone’s skills were raw. Daniel was good with a crossbow so he helped cover his companions as they hacked with axes and swords through the undead. They won ground. They bled through the darkness. They kept together.

Once they had better steel, they set to the good work of putting up an outpost. No one had ever been further from the old shores. Daniel and the others had themselves been born on the refugee ships. The storms had wiped out most knowledge of their old ways. They built from nothing, tilling lumber, farming, hunting and mining what they could find.

By the time their first huts were finished, they had fended off several waves of monsters and undead that came ceaselessly from inland.

The land was brutal. Aside from the undead they fought hunger, cold and decay. But they worked the land hard and their seaside village flourished into a city as more ships arrived from the old continent. New settlers looked up to Daniel and his first companions. As veterans, they were elected to guide growth and lead the blooming colony against the relentless darkness. One of Daniel's most able companions was Alex, a sage trader who had talent for negotiating and helping traders prosper.

Traders and miners had been bickering too much over prices, so she volunteered to guard the town's treasury and establish fair markets for merchants and smiths. It didn’t take long for refugees to arrive from the wild. Those who had landed in other points of the coast and had a trade, but had no luck defending their small land claims between fragmented settlements.

Although Alex led the city's council to accept more people thanks to a surplus of food, room was scarce inside the walls and settlements spread outside their protection. Those with no trade had formed bands to raid the vulnerable outposts. Rumor spread they were led by a clan which targeted weakened survivors from clashes with monsters.

Daniel and Alex knew the strength and prosperity of their city was founded in organization and their well-earned fairness. They declared a great draft of warriors throughout the conflicted coastal settlements. Those who wanted prosperity and not chaos. Some were even given incentives of land to work if they were pacified.

Soon, Daniel had a small but skilled group of fighters to defeat most of the war lords in the coastal territories. They ventured deep into the wild and gathered finer, rarer metals that less organized groups couldn’t find. They overcame, and their little coastal town became the capital of a blossoming kingdom, led and governed by a community of peers and able guilds. But that which the victorious celebrate is taken from the defeated. Many fledgling neighbor clans laid claim to spoils of war Daniel and his chiefs had taken as their right.

These treasures included magic items, and city sages used them to build a Temple with a shining altar that called the dead back to life. Their clan had a great advantage, as their fallen scouts and warriors could be recalled to the town for a second chance.

The neighboring clans took their chance at the war chest Alex had amassed from pacifying the territories. Just a few mornings after the Temple’s altar was finished, Daniel looked out from his city’s walls. Dust and war spears came up their eastern horizon. He sounded the alarm and prepared his generals for a siege…

- end, Part 1 -