Vandore is a world recovering from total devastation. The Guild Armies were able to defeat High Warlord Scourge and foil his attempt to dominate the civilized world, but it was a victory with great cost: All the heroes of an age gave their lives in a titanic battle to seal his fate. This leaves the Guilds bursting with students but scarce few masters to show them the way as they struggle to pick up the pieces.

The Scourge War, as it has become known, tore the world apart in more ways than just physically. The sentient races were isolated, and many choices were made that will neither soon be forgiven nor forgotten. Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes etc. still consort with humans, but in much smaller and less official ways than in the past. Many realms have broken off diplomatic relations altogether while others remain cautiously open to foreign ambassadors. Suspicion is rampant.

Nevertheless, individuals of nonhuman descent remain welcome in most of the Guilds, those great houses of learning and worship that cross political borders and have helped civilization limp along through the long War. To a much lesser extent, humans are welcome in some of the Guilds’ counterparts in nonhuman lands. Notable exceptions include the Verge Dominion, which largely comprises elves and fey. Only the Cloister openly takes in humans and other nonelves – and only those who follow the path of the druid and the ranger.

Minotaurs, of which Vandore once hosted a mighty and sophisticated ancient empire, are now all but extinct due to the infamy of one of their own, none other than Scourge himself. Most people believe the High Warlord dead, but there are those who insist he survived the final onslaught of the Guilds and even that one of the less scrupulous houses may be harboring him. Many still suspect Scourge was but the agent of a higher power who remains in the wings. But such dark thoughts are easily drowned out amid the din of victory celebrations.

With the War apparently over, nationalism is on the rise again, and the Guilds find themselves at a crossroads. Will their fate be to remain the shepherds they served as during the War, or will they become irrelevant and aloof as old rivalries flare up again in the complacency of peace?