You are members of The Shepards, a psuedo mercenary organization in the Kingdom of Fialam. The Shepards are sponsored by the royal family to protect the towns on the borders of the kingdom from roving bandits and invading forces in exchange for steady work and pay. The relationship both reassures the people that the royal family cares about even it’s most distant citizens, and gives The Shepards a local hero type reputation.
On an otherwise mundane day, a villager comes into town who looks exhausted. He comes straight for The Shepards barracks, telling a story of his entire village on fire and him being the lone survivor. Expecting it only to be an embellished story of a bandit attack from a fearful villager, the Leader of the Shepards, Dowel, sends a handful of Shepards to deal with them but not everything is as it seems…