(I apologize for the formatting of this chapter. It would nice if you could leave spaces between sections, but if there is a way to do this, I haven't figured it out yet!)

PREFACE

This is a story based in one of my fantasy worlds, the Five Cities, which are five separate City-States surrounding a huge swamp called the Merecage. For this world, I have used Frankish and French for character and place names, which probably stems from my love of Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte D'Artur". A lot of the knights in those stories have French names, because Malory translated the text from French. I am also of French lineage (having LaPlante as a surname).

I am using the 1st edition rules of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which is the edition I played in my youth. I have tweaked a few things here and there with bits and pieces of other versions of the rule set, but have mostly tried to stay true to the 1st ed. rules.

My favorite race in D&D has always been the dwarfs, and my favorite characters clerics and paladins. I love the idea of noble knights traipsing across the lands in search of adventure. I have tried to portray my knights as compassionate warriors, not preachy, snobby, arrogant jerks.

I have tried to deviate from stereotypes as much as possible. None of my dwarfs come from mountains; humans and dwarfs all live together. Dwarfs are not miners and gold-hoarders, they are lovers of music. They don't all fight with battle axes and hammers. They don't speak in Scottish accents and guzzle down barrels of ale.

In this world, these are only two "character" races, humans and dwarfs. I don't use elfs, gnomes, halflings, etc. As for monsters, I only wanted to use a handful, and those are mostly creatures that are found within and around a marshland.

Magic-users are scarce, as are magic items. Clerics are more prevalent in this world, most belonging to the Most Holy Order of the Silver Staff.

I have tried to base this world on the Northeastern US (where I live) in the 1830's, right before the Industrial Revolution. Guns are rare in this world, but they exist, mostly flintlock rifles and older muskets. There are trains in this world, but they are extremely rare, and hardly what we would recognize as a train today. Trains in that area were more like boilers on wheels attached to a line of carriages for the passengers.