From publisher blurb:
On Open Wings
It is hard to find. Sometimes you might take a right just off by forty degrees, maybe you ford the river a little further north than planned, or perhaps, just perhaps, the road leads off the beaten route. No matter how you find it, there are stories of it scattered across the multiverse: a magical valley that stretches for thousands of miles surrounded by a mysterious ring of high mountains where dragons live and a great school of dragonriders grows. And it shows the heart of a true rider if you stumble across it. The origins of it are unknown, but anyone who has returned tells the same story. In ancient times, dragons and mortals walked two different paths. But, over time, across many worlds, fate seemed to draw the two peoples together: whether through conflict, art, comradery, or survival, scale and skin bound. And so, somehow, the first dragon riders found their way to what would become Draighold Valley, and built the Wing Campus, where any who felt the call of the wind and the hum of fire in their hearts could find their way to discover what it truly meant to be bound blood and fiber to your deepest life-partner.
It is believed that almost eight thousand years have passed since the first eight riders and their dragons arrived in the valley, and since then the valley has changed, containing wild environments to train in and explore, the eight colleges of the Wing Campus, and even several towns and outposts that have sprung up over the millennia. While you can stumble across Draighold Valley, it sometimes needs a little pushing, a little coaxing. This job often is handed off to advisors, meteorite dragons disguised as common storytellers or peddlers or wanderers will explore the world, keeping their eyes and ears peeled for the telltale signs of a rider, and, when needed, offer a teensy itsy bitsy nudge. And from there, their road will bring them onward.
Draighold Valley at a Glance
Draighold Valley is pretty self explanatory: it is for all those of us who grew up wishing that we might find a dragon egg in the forest, that a dragon might fly over and bond with us, or that somewhere, there might be a place where dragons are real. Unlike our other draconic themed settings - where they are in set locked worlds - Draighold Valley is a location where it could pop up anywhere in your various homebrew worlds, or one of our published ones you picked up.
Draighold is designed at its core to leave it open to Alders and Wanderers as to how it appears in the world you are all playing in, but also so that your entire arc could take place within the valley itself! Each region of the valley is designed to support different kinds of play, so you could have survival horror up in Frostpillar Tundra, or cozycore slice-of-life in Goldenwheat. Rather than building clunky mechanics for how dragon riding would work, we leave that open to you all and how your tables prefer to play.
So, grab your school bag, hop on your winged friend, and head to class!