Little House on the Borderlands: Intro

Basic intro: 
There's an empire, and the empire borders a titanic forest.  Things come out of the forest, horrific and monstrous things.  The PCs are one of the teams of gifted warriors known as WitchHammers that patrol the border with the forest, protecting villages and towns, hunting down monsters, and hunting down the Witches (basically anti-PCs) who create and guide these monsters. 

 
 WitchHammers: 
 A varied and hard bitten lot.  The job consists of long period of boredom broken by occasional bursts of extreme danger and terror, so most people usually put their talents to work else where.  People become WitchHammers because:
 - A monster ate my family!
 - I don't get along with city folk
 - If you manage to claim the bounty on five Witches, the Emperor will give you a nugget of gold the size of your head.  I want that nugget
 - My one true love was lost in the Forest and I want to find out where she is and get her back
 - A Monster ate my dog!
 - I crave the excitment of nearly dying. Every other part of my life is a gray blur compared to the thrill of hunting and being hunted.
 - I am a hero and I protect people
 - A monster ate my niece!
 - My family thinks I am a wastrel and a good-for-nothing, and they sent me to the border to toughen up and prove I am worth taking over the family business
 - I am a cultist of Davkul, and I observe and undermine the WitchHammers from within.  Doom is at hand.  The Forest will drown the World.
 - The world belongs to the Empire, and we must burn and drive back the Forest in order to claim our destiny.
 - A monster infected my dog with corrupting spores, and then my dog ate my niece!
 - I could learn much by studying Witches and their monsters.
 - All WitchHammers are given a basic stipend to support them on their patrols.  I need that stipend for alcohol
 - Slaying Witches will make me famous, and will win me the affections of my true Love/many people one of whom might turn out to be my true Love/my family/the Army commander who I hope to impress
 
 
 
 WitchHammer PCs: 
 
 
 WitchHammer Stipend: 
 The WitchHammer's are one loose branch of the Empire's government, and are provided with a stipend that covers daily expenses, inns, reasonable food & travel gear, etc.  The organization keeps offices in large towns, so every few months a WitchHammer troupe will circle by to pick up their stipend, claim bounties, etc.  Larger costs (e.g. replacing a lost donkey or wagon) can usually be reimbursed to, so long as their is a reasonable excuse and the team is in good standing.
 
 
 
 WitchHammer Bounties: 
 Proof of killing a monster is worth 100G, though sometimes for truly fearsome abominations the bounty goes much higher.
 Killing a witch is worth 1000G.  The bounty is usually claimed through a "Witch Heart" a gray and jagged stone that is invariably found within the body of a Witch.
 
 
 WitchHammer Advancement: 
 Successfully killing a Witch is worth somewhere between half a level gain to a full level gain.  (depending on what level your players are, and what rate you want to advance things)
 Defending a town/fighting Monsters, but not killing the Witch who is behind it all, is worth 0.25 to 0.5 of a level gain.  (again, according to taste, at the moment I'm going for a shorter and faster campaign)
 
 
 Retreat:
 Sometimes WitchHammers meet foes that are too difficult for them.  Sometimes WitchHammers meet foes that are far, far, far too difficult for them.  In these situations it is understood that they will retreat, save what people they can, and spread the news so that a larger and more powerful forces can be marshalled to meet the threat.
 
 
 The Frontier: 
 A large and nebulous area where the Empire borders the Forest.  The irregular border between Empire and Forest stretches from SouthWest to NorthEast for ~five hundred miles.  The depth of the Frontier varies depending on who you ask, but the area is generally characterized by 
   A) the newness of the settlements, 
   B) much lower population density and less development compared to the civilized heartlands of the Empire, and 
   C) the danger of attacks by monsters and Witches.
 
 The actual development of any area on the frontier depends on any number of factors, from the fertility of the land and the value of the resources, to the number of attacks, to the vagaries of population movement and settlement.  The population on the Frontier is varied, and like the WitchHammers it tends to consist of people who had some reason for leaving the more civilized lands to the West.  You have transported criminals, migrants looking for new farm land, communities of people that had religious, ethnic, or clan-based feuds that they are hoping to leave behind, individuals who had some sort of history they are looking to leave behind, merchants looking for new trading opportunities, researchers who hope to study the unique properties of the Forest, and people who don't like people and don't want to live close to them.
 
 Villages are usually about half a day away from each other, and have 100-200 people.  Towns are usually about 2 days away from each other, and have ~1000 people.  Large towns are usually about 4 days away from each other, and have ~4000 people.  Most bureaucracy takes place in large towns, ditto with with where the large garrisons, religious orders, etc. are located.  Further west and away from the border there are larger and more civilized towns.
 
 
 The Forest: 
 The Forest is dangerous.  Really really dangerous.  You might not die if you go in there, but if stay there long enough or go there enough times you will die.  The Forest contains wonders and horrors, and it is likely that the greatest of these leave no witnesses.  Sometimes the Empire gathers the the force to take a chunk out of the forest, and sends in an army of woodsmen protected by an army of soldiers to rapidly clear out an area.  Once the trees in an area have been cut down, the hostile aura of the place seems to dissipate.
 
 
 
 
 WitchHammer Hunting Rituals: 
 - Calcination - This Ritual reveals an essential aspect of a creature.  Fresh blood or bone is best for this ritual, but hair, nails, spit, spore, or other bits can also be made to work.  These bits are mixed with certain rare and enchanted powders. The resulting dust is then inhaled, leading to a brief, estatic vision in which one or more aspects of the creature are revealed.  WitchHammers usually do this to get a better idea of their quarrie's powers and weaknesses. Better materal components give a signifcant bonus to the Ritual roll.  This is useful to the PCs since it lets them identify powers and weaknesses of monsters before facing them directly.  A strong success will reveal 1-2 powers/weaknesses of the target.
 
 
 - Sympathy - Forge a mystical link between a part of a creature and the creature itself.  Fresh blood or bone is best for creating this link, but hair, nails, spit, spore, or other bits can also be made to work.  While this magical connection is usually not strong enough to channel hostile magics through, it can be used to help track the parent creature.  The ritual takes 5 minutes & uses up the material ingredient.  Depending on the success of the ritual, the resulting charm will last from 3-72 hours, and will indicate the direction and approximate distance to the parent creature.  Better materal components give a signifcant bonus to the Ritual roll.  This is useful to the PCs as an additional method of hunting down Monsters/Witches.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Religion and Bureaucracy 
- The official state religion is the worship of Sai-ias, the immortal god-emperor.  Many people follow to this religion, to a lesser or greater degree.  The primary values of the religion are rationality, peace, forgiveness, and the careful development of one's own potential in the service of the Empire.  Full priests of Sai-ias are relatively rare, but they have miraculous powers and even been know to raise the dead.  When needed these priests can also command immense temporal resources.  Even in civlized areas they will have 20+ guards traveling with them.

- The Army - In charge of forts and garrisons along the Frontier.  The Army can summon large numbers of troops to deal with major threats.  This happens slowly though, and is often not sufficient to deal with quick incursions by monsters or Witches.  Another difficulty for the Army is that it is difficult to train people to be heroes.  So they often have problems with motivation, where squaddies are reluctant to venture out into the night in order to hunt/be hunted by uncanny abominations.  Many a village has been devastated while its protectors huddle behind stone walls.

- Merchant Houses - Major economic and political players in the more civilized and densely settled West.  They do not have major interests on the Frontier, but occasionally they do become involved because of  overseeing their investment in some new project or simply travel and sight-seeing.  Major Houses include House Buspar, House Forteo, and House Toradol.