Now to go micro, and focus on the setting the PCs will be in:
The PCs are members of the Barreeve clan, a small clan that roams the northern plains. It is composed of around 10 sects, each with about 40 members, with about 5% elves (mostly women), 20% half-elves, and the rest humans. It mainly raises cattle and trades with its neighbours for sheep, goats and horses. Its banner is a black herringbone pattern woven into bleached fabric. Members also tend to wear kerchiefs, scarves, or kaffiyehs with this pattern to mark them out from other clans.
The summer pasturage for the Barreeves is Starwell Lake, and the winter pasturage is Butcher Hill.
Butcher Hill:
Butcher Hill is about three days on horseback south-east of where the Birth River emerges from the mountains, the traditional southern boundary of Kaddish. It is a large hill on the northern bank of the Slaughter River near several easy fords. Long before the nomads came, someone built a small stone watchtower at the top of the hill which can be spotted miles away. This is the only permanent structure in Butcher Hill, and is used as a meeting hall between the clans and for defense against hobgoblin and hill elf raids.
Butcher Hill during the winter is very nearly a town. The Barreeves share it with the Fosgard and Valtyrs, and when all three clans are near it, it has nearly 1,500 people. Traders from Dwer Tor and the Orthocracy are uncommon, but the easy water access means that a few will brave it. The place stinks of blood and the sounds of dying animals from the winter slaughter, which is where it gets its name from. When the clans are there, it is a lawless, wild town as men drink and compete with one another in tests of skill and courage. There is an uneasy peace, but conflict rarely rises above the level of inter-sept violence.
About a day on horseback north-east of Butcher Hill are a series of gorges, ravines and wadis that run between hills covered in scrub brush. At least one tribe of hostile hill elves live there, and children are warned not to wander too far from camp lest the hill elves get them.
Two days on horseback south of Butcher Hill, there are a series of rapid cuts and ridges where the earth has shifted and exposed its underbelly. Known as the Broken Lands, it is full of wild beasts and monsters, but the soil exposed by the shifting has stayed, and it is one of the few places that trees grow plentifully. Daring bands of loggers collect wood for the clans, but they have not penetrated more than a hundred yards into it, and loggers do not always return.
From the westerly edge of the Broken Lands edging north to approximately west of Butcher Hill there are a series of hot springs and geysers. During the summer they make for excellent pasturage (used by the Fosgards), but in winter the fog becomes so intense that travelers south of the river can wander around in circles for days, even stumbling into the Broken Lands without realising it.