The Wild hosts many strange and fabulous creatures, many of them dangerous. Strange beasts, inhuman wildlings, faeries from a wondrous realm and death from the shadows each call different parts of the Wild home. To journey beyond the bounds of civilization is either very brave or very foolish . . . which often depends upon the success of the journey.
As extraordinary and bizarre as some creatures of the wild may be, one of the most horrible is all too familiar and yet terrifyingly different . . .
The Reavers
For the last several generations journeys between the towns and villages of men has become more dangerous and less sure. As the Wild encroaches upon the civilized lands the terrors of goblins and wild beasts, giants and faeries have grown. A more recent and wholly more disturbing danger comes not from some monster from the other side or a demon from the deep but from men gone mad with bloodlust.
The grandfathers among men and any full grown elf or dwarf will tell of times when the Reavers didn't harry men's travels. Approximately seventy years ago, as the roads became more dangerous and people less traveled, a sudden terror struck from the Wild without warning. Caravans and rangers, families and soldiers all fell victim to the terror of the Reavers. Any who would travel the vast distances between Berador and Roth must travel in force or face the certain torture and eventual death at the hands of the almost human killers.
Over the years people have learned to avoid them . . . usually. The Reavers strike only in certain areas of the land, at times that can almost be predicted, and only against unarmed or small troops. Their crimes against their victims are beyond imaging. Rape, torture and cannibalism merely begin to catalog their atrocities.
No one knows where they come from or why. Their victims do not live to speak of them and no one escapes them once attacked. They never surrender in battle nor do they retreat. The few that have been taken unconscious from the battlefield soon kill themselves in captivity.
They are a real live bogeyman come to haunt the traces between the civilized lands of men . . . and they wait for the unwary travelers between the cities.
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