Verndane’s inland shipping town, known now only as “Vist” in legend and the tales of bards, was originally designated as the shipping town of Crythia. From this town in the Forest of Verndane, logging goods were shipped both down river towards Greyn and the Plains of Shalannan, but also overland through the southern pass to a small port on the cost and then overseas.
As the Merchant’s Guild rose to power in The City of Shalannan about two ages past, the new chairs of the Merchant’s Guild sought to consolidate power, money and prestige for themselves by ensuring that all shipping would be channeled through Shalannan. The fortune of Crythia changed almost instantly from a profitable venture and expansion of Shalannan to a lamented thorn in the centralization of power.
The Merchant’s Guild knew that the pious of the Chapel of Shalannan would, through their virtue, attempt to suppress any of them who tried to implant a movement of power, and condemn such a consolidation. So the Guild Chairs created a rumor of a heathen uprising in the Forest of Verndane and enlisted many of the contentious clerics and officials from the Chapel of Shalannan on a crusade to eliminate the heathen threat. Only Tritus, a rising scholarly cleric, refused to accompany the party on the crusade, feeling that he was required to remain in Shalannan to keep holy counsel to the citizens of the city.
Upon reaching Crythia the party was separated into several teams to spread out and search for the uprising’s roots. They were led by Merchant’s Guild Representatives who directed each of the groups of clerics and official overseers on scouting parties into the woods of Verndane in different directions. As the parties wandered well out of any contact with Crythia into the woods, the Guild Representatives showed their true nature, as assassins. As the parties were unaware of this treachery, they were dispatched patiently over the course of several days, adding to the survivor’s fervor to find the “heathen” who were committed these atrocities.
One of the parties that went northward did stumble upon an uprising, but not anything they were expecting. Near the northern source waters of the river flowing out of Verndane was an old manor, which was lost to the shambles of time at that era. Upon reaching the manor the party was set upon by lycanthropes and a number of the undead; both corporeal and incorporeal.
The party was able to dispatch some, only to succumb to the venom of their wounds, so no message of this finding could ever make it back to the magistrates.
When none of the envoy to Crythia returned, and no tale could be told of the state of the settlement, The Elders of Shalannan stated travel into Verndane to be forbidden for all, and begun the construction of The Wall to block the Pass of Verndane and keep watch over the near forest.
The few left in Crythia, fearing for their lives as the parties failed to return, abandoned the weak, injured, or sick and went south towards the coast (putting as much distance between the river and their path) with the prayer that Shalannan would send rescue by sea.
They were gravely misled.
