Forlorn Hope is the name given to a small asteroid settlement by the inhabitants. At one point the settlement was known as Lethorn's Hope, but events of the past 10 years have changed that, and often the inhabitants simply call the small town Forlorn.
The asteroid which is home to Forlorn is a small, overgrown ovoid of rock and earth. The asteroid lies near the centre of a sargasso close to the edge of <<insert sphere name here>>. The sargasso is irregularly shaped, and although most navigators who know of it assume that the entire area is magic-dead, they are wrong. In fact there are at least 2 safe routes in and out of the sargasso to the asteroid (which is itself not a magic-dead area).
Forlorn would never have been founded were it not for an unfortunate accident. During the height of the first unhuman war a cuttle command, the Protecteur, was hired to guard a convoy of tradesmen from goblinkin depredations. Unfortunately, the navigator for the convoy was unaware of the presence of a sargasso along the path he charted. Luckily all of the tradesmen were able to react to the sargasso in time to maneuver. The maneuvering was enough to allow the ships to drift out of the sargasso, but the more clumsy Protecteur was not so lucky. The large ship drifted with no power for weeks, while the crew slowly ran out of air, food, and water. By the time the Protecteur drifted to the asteroid, the vessel's air was foul, and most of the crew were succumbing to the effects.
Because of this, when they suddenly found that they could power and move the ship again, their reactions were hampered enough that the best they could do was to manage a controlled crash on the asteroid. During the crash several of the crew were killed, including the wizard captain, who was on the helm at the time. The Protecteur herself was too badly damaged to ever be used again, but more importantly the ship's helm had been cracked by the impact. All 83 survivors were forced to look towards the immediate problems of staying alive rather than worry about escape from the asteroid. The first mate of the Protecteur, a mage by the name of Lethorn, decisively took command, and organized the crew into parties to gather food, water, and create shelter. The wreckage of the Protecteur was scavenged to build huts, combined with materials gathered from the local flora. Those who went out to find food were pleasantly surprised by how bountiful the small asteroid was. The soil was rich, supporting many fruit trees, legumes, and root vegetables, while the short trees were home to many birds and small mammals. While there was little water on the surface of the asteroid, it was found that there was an extensive underground water network which could easily be tapped for drinking water. The asteroid supported no large creatures, with the biggest being a tree-dwelling predator about the size of a small monkey.
The small village built from the wreckage of the cuttle command was quickly dubbed Lethorn's Hope by the grateful survivors. Over the next few years the survivors worked to cultivate as much of the edible flora as possible, while domesticating the tree-dwelling predators (dubbed 'swifties' by the crew due to their speed) in order to protect the cultivated plants from pests. Eventually the crew was able to train the swifties to hunt for them, bringing back rodent-like creatures and even birds.
During this time Lethorn herself worked nearly nonstop on her magical abilities, hoping to expand her knowledge enough to find a way to fix the shattered helm. Although her dedication was an inspiration to the rest of the crew, it would ultimately prove counter-productive. Because of the long hours spent in solitude, working on her own experiments, she was unable to spend the time needed to train any apprentices, and so, after her eventual death, understanding of magic died out in Lethorn's Hope, and the inhabitants fully reconciled themselves with the idea that they would never leave the asteroid. The name Lethorn's Hope had once referred to the hope to escape, but it now referred to the hope to create a good life on the asteroid.
Many generations later, the population of Lethorn's Hope had swelled to include some 2500 individuals, and the original village had been greatly expanded, and the huts improved. The level of technology used was hampered by the fact that the asteroid had no usable metal resources. The few metal tools used by the inhabitants had been re-forged from metal scavenged from the wreck of the Protecteur, and most tools were made of stone or wood. The population no longer had any weapons, since they weren't needed for defense, and since all hunting was now performed by trained swifties.
One fateful day, the descendants of the crew of the Protecteur were startled to see a ship landing. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of Lethorn's Hope, the vessel landing (the mammoth Bloodthirst) was a pirate ship, whose captain had ties to the Chainmen. When the inhabitants flocked to investigate the ship, they were met by 65 heavily armed reavers. The captain, a grizzled half-orc warrior named Thaal (NE F7), demanded supplies from the surprised natives. The Bloodthirst had arrived at the asteroid in much the same fashion as the Protecteur so many years ago, but the Bloodthirst had not taken as long to arrive, and so her crew was still in fairly good shape, and more than a match for the unarmed natives, who had never fought a battle before. The inhabitants were forced to give the pirates the best of their supplies, and the pirates even took two score of young, healthy men and women to be sold as slaves.
The terrified natives had no choice but to comply, and it was with mixed relief and sadness for the loss of their kin, that they watched the pirates leave. The natives had retained knowledge of the treacherous sargasso which virtually surrounded their asteroid, and they fully expected that the pirates would end up trapped, and that they would never hear from them again. Unfortunately, the pirates had a very skilled navigator at the helm, a human wizard named Callandro (NE M6), who devised a way to find the edges of the sargasso. Callandro had the pirates mount their backup helm (a furnace) on the blade which was kept lashed to the Bloodthirst as a ship's boat. The blade was tethered to the front of the mammoth by massive hawsers, and was used to tow the vessel from a distance. If the blade's helm failed, then Callandro, who was at the major helm aboard the Bloodthirst, would pull the ships back, and he would thus have found an edge of the sargasso. In this way the Bloodthirst slowly found her way out of this deadly area of space.
Thaal and Callandro decided that this isolated settlement could net them a lot of money, and once they had sold off the slaves they took, they resolved to make a return trip. The first time they returned to the asteroid, the residents were surprised to see them, and were again easily cowed. The third visit of the pirates to the settlement, however, was met with resistance. The population had spent the time since their last raid fashioning crude weapons, and attempting to learn their use. When the Bloodthirst landed, the pirates were attacked with stone weapons and sharpened sticks. Although vastly outnumbered, the pirates had much better weapons and armour, as well as a great deal of experience, and the ability to gain the high ground by hovering above the helpless natives. Some 200 natives were slaughtered before the rest desperately threw down their weapons in surrender. The enraged reavers rounded up all of the individuals who they believed to be the ringleaders, and crammed them into their holds to be sold through the chainmen.
In the years since, the pirates have returned to the settlement, now known as Forlorn Hope by the beleaguered residents, many times for easy plunder. The Bloodthirst usually takes foodstuffs from Forlorn Hope, but has been taking slaves as well on a less frequent basis. Since their disastrous attempt to throw off the yoke of these cruel raiders, the residents of Forlorn Hope have meekly succumbed to the depredations of the pirates. The population has dropped to under 2,000 due to the pirates, and those that remain must struggle greatly to produce enough food to survive, since the lion's share of what they grow is stolen by Thaal's brigands.
While the hapless inhabitants of Forlorn Hope have been forced to bow down before these pirates, a small group of them have been fashioning weapons, and training themselves. This group numbers about 40 strong, and is led by a young man named Pubale (LG F2) who spends every waking hour either sparring (he is one of the best warriors Forlorn Hope has to offer, none of them are above 2nd level, and there are only 4 who reach that level of expertise), or overseeing the construction and testing of crude catapults hidden on the opposite side of the asteroid from the settlement. Yollark (LG normal woman), the Mate of the settlement (Mate is the title which roughly corresponds to mayor, and is given in remembrance of Lethorn's rank), and the entire population, support Pubale and his men completely, and their ranks would have swollen greatly, were it not for the fact that Forlorn Hope can spare no more men from the fields. Once enough working catapults have been built (lacking a proper understanding of engineering, over half of the catapults which have been built have proved faulty, and those which work are equivalent to light catapults), the inhabitants of Forlorn plan to move them to the settlement itself, and disguise them so that when the Bloodthirst next arrives they will launch all of the catapults at once in a massive volley which they hope will cause the pirate vessel to crash. In order to insure that there is no repeat of the slaughter which occurred the last time they fought the pirates, Pubale has decided that the attack will not be launched until they have no less than 20 catapults. Pubale believes (incorrectly) that this will be enough to destroy the Bloodthirst in a single volley. Pubale's men currently have 8 working catapults hidden far away from Forlorn Hope.
In recent trips the pirates of the Bloodthirst have begun taking trained swifties from the settlement, and these swifties have quickly become an expensive and fashionable pet amongst the wealthy in wildspace. Speculation about the source of the swifties has become rampant, and rumors have been flying that the Bloodthirst has conquered a remote world (these rumors are fueled by drunken tavern talk from some of the crew, although they are sworn to secrecy by Thaal on pain of death).
Ideas for using Forlorn Hope in a game include simply having the PCs stranded by the sargasso and drifting towards the settlement; having the PCs encounter an escaped slave (or perhaps they freed the slave) who is from Forlorn Hope, and he tries to get them to help his home; having the PCs attempt to find the source of the swifties (perhaps hired by a merchant house that wants a piece of the lucrative trade); or any number of other set-ups. Ideally, once they arrive at Forlorn Hope, the PCs should become involved in trying to free the natives from the yoke of the pirates, perhaps helping to train them, or helping them to build more effective weapons, and hopefully leading the attack themselves (although they will find that Pubale is quite arrogant, and will not share leadership easily).
