The Bushlands

The Bushlands are over five hundered miles across, a vast plain of tundra.In the winter it is covered by deep snow and an unprotected person will die quickly. In the summer it is baking hot and dusty and the rivers become shallow creeks. But in the spring and autumm it is full of wild game, of buffalo,deer,unicorns,lions,and, within the rivers wild wrappers and crocodiles .

It is thinly settled by nomads who live on berries and wild fruits and the cattle and sheep which they take with them.The nomads have almost no use for gold or silver, except as the occasional bangle or armlet, and hold their land in common. They dress in long loose robes against the heat of the summer days and the cold of the winter months. Whilst they have bows and swords to catch game or for self defence, they rarely fight with each other as there is enougth water and land for everyone.In the winter they huddle together for warmth.

The Mayor and Council of the beautiful and rich city of Walkabout Creek in the eastern mountains decided to send their army out to claim the Bushlands for their own, as they wished to expand the city onto the plain. Those nomads that they found were slaughtered whilst the rest fled into the interior. What the Walkabout Creek people did not know was that for centuries the nomads had been feeding a Brass Dragon with a tenth of their flocks.

A young nomad girl named Marina risked her life and entered the Dragon's Hills to the west where humans were forbidden. When the dragon saw her it was about to snap her up in one bite when she dropped to her knees and told it what was going on. It was furious that an army had entered it's territory and was killing the people who had given it food for so long.

It could not take on the army directly, nor could it burn down the quartz houses of Walkabout Creek, so it burnt ships and ate traders who tried to get near Walkabout Creek, cutting off the city's supplies. The Mayor begged the dragon to stop before his people starved. The dragon retorted that since he had cut the dragon's food off, he could find out for himself what it was like to be hungry.

The Mayor withdrew his army, apoligised publicly to the nomads and the dragon, and promised not to send troops into the plains again.He was voted out in the next election for provoking a dragon and therefore bringing trade to a standstill.

Plot Hooks-The PC's are hired by Walkabout Creek to find a way to kill the "evil dragon." Getting close to it won't be easy, as the nomads worship it as a god.

-The PC's are grabbed by the nomads for some crime they may or may not have committed, and sent into the Dragon's Hill's unarmed as a sacrafice. There are abandoned tombs and towns and all kinds of things within the Hills as nobody dares enter to loot the area

-The PC's must cross the Bushlands for some reason in the bitter chill of winter-more a "struggle with the elements" type of game.