To the Gates of Hell

Long ago Unklar, the Horned God, ruled the world of Aihrde from the dread towers of Aufstrag. For a thousand years, called the Long Centuries, he sat upon the Mirrored Throne and lorded over man, dwarf and elf. But at last heroes arose and overthrew his tyranny, such that they banished him to the Everlasting Void. His servants, scattered, dead and likewise banished faded into the background. Those that lived fought amongst themselves. Of those, one stood out. Clever, malicious and vile of temperament. In his youth Coburg betrayed his rightful lord, slaying him in the service of Unklar, and was thus cursed with everlasting life. 

Called the Undying he rose slowly through the ranks of Unklar's armies, until the Horned God awarded him the Captaincy of the Guard over the lower gates of Aufstrag. The wars found him there, commanding a body of troops. So that in the end when Unkar fell, driven from Aihrde and Aufstrag, Coburg rose in arms to seize the throne and styled himself Lord of Aufstrag . . . fearful as always, he would not call himself by any title that might offend his grave lord.

So he sits near the Mirrored Throne, ruling a few levels of Aufstrag, always at war with the devil lords and undead entities that dwell in the tall towers of that place. It occurred to him that he could end the strife in Aufstrag by extending his hand across the plains of men and reclaiming the Empire and to this end he has sent agents out into the surrounding kingdoms, even to the borders of New Aenoch, all this to wage what men will call, the Undying War.

The Undying War begins with a group of 1st level characters on the road to adventure. They meander through the wilds of The Rising Knight and to the Blacktooth Ridge, where they encounter trolls, kobolds and other monsters commonly found in the ruins of the forgotten lands. But eventually their adventure takes them across the Blighted Screed to the swamps of the Gausumland where they become enmeshed with agents of Coburg the Undying and drawn into the war that the Undying Lord of Aufstrag seeks to bring to the world. 

By now, 5th or 6th level, they take up the road to high adventure, where they must fight increasingly difficult enemies to bring them at last, to the gates of hell and Coburg's domain!