I’ve been thinking some more about my Out West idea, and I think I’m starting to fill in the world a bit.
The expansion westwards takes place not long after the end of the Lich Wars.
A council of mages ruled a coalition of city-states justly until they were corrupted and turn to liches. They fought each other for power and territory – the beginning of the Lich Wars – but then had to fight against a growing resistance – the end of the Lich Wars – until they were vanquished (presumably).
During the wars, all kinds of nastiness went on.
‘Dosing’ various different races with alchemical agents to turn them into rampaging monsters or placid workers. The most affected race are the Dragonborn, who still get called ‘drudges’ by some of the less polite folk, as they were enslaved by many of the liches.
Dosing will also be the source of an abundance of shadar-kai, making them the mainstay of Elves in the setting.
Towards the end of the Wars and with the discovery of what I’m still calling ghostrock, the combined engineering of Dwarven and Goblin rebels created the Warforged race. Now left without much of a purpose, but utterly hostile to the idea of being ‘deactivated’, the Warforged are among those heading westwards in search of more ghostrock.
The Wastes, which the game focuses on, aren’t exactly uninhabited, or exactly Wastes.
I’m thinking Orcs, Ogres, and Ogre Mages will be a major force, a sort of nation of outsiders that the Liches could never conquer and who the newcomers think are all savages (but obviously aren’t).
There’s also probably some monstrous dosed things still wandering the Wastes.
That’s all I have at the moment.
jot jot ïota 
I like the words, Lich Wars. Feuding liches…delicious.
“One of their number was technically a mummy but the term Lich Wars took hold and much to historians’ chagrin that phrase is how those dark days are remembered.”
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