Eupherea awaits!

   Most of the story of Tortured Hearts™ takes place in Eupherea, a large mortal world which is but one of many in a complex planar universe. The mundane world of Eupherea has a familiar geography of seas, forests, plains and deserts, with an additional extensive Underworld of perpetual darkness. Climate ranges from icy polar areas to warm tropics, but all within the normal range of everyday worlds, fantasy and otherwise.

   The action starts in a secluded corner of a fallen kingdom, Raven Fall Shire, which lies on the northern coast of a Mediterranean-sized sea. The city and shire of Raven Fall had recently been mostly destroyed by a mysterious firestorm and invasion of monsters. This includes the beginning area of Caer Maed, where civilization is regrouping, thanks to the concentration of professional adventurers drawn from around Eupherea to loot the ruins of the Shire and particularly the fortress of Caer Maed. Running south from Caer Maed is the road to Ayr Marsh, which had been a backwater village but is now blossoming as a seaport. Between and around the two towns are wild and dangerous woods.

   From Caer Maed, the PC can freely visit 39 areas. When he has acquired a sailing ship, he can move on to other parts of Eupherea and cross the ocean to visit scattered islands and many new areas on both coasts of the sea.

   The rest of Eupherea did not suffer from the devastation that befell Raven Fall Shire, and there are two large cities, Tornbarrow and Sylfeung, which are very influential. Sylfeung is often mentioned but never seen in this game. Most activity takes place in the large city of Tornbarrow and its environs. Tornbarrow is much more sophisticated than either Caer Maed or Ayr Marsh, with such civilized features as a bakery, an athletic club, and a home for retired adventurers.

         Other noteworthy areas of Eupherea are:

• Carrum Heads, a desert settlement which had once been a popular adventuring center, but is now played out and languishing economically. The few remaining citizens are reluctant hosts to a large group of refugees from Raven Fall.
• Hanakala Island, somewhere in the ocean, is a tropical paradise inhabited by a tribe of jolly surfer dudes with some quaint customs like barbecuing their enemies.
• The city of Pikedale, on the south coast, now a sorry pile of ruins inhabited by ghosts and monsters. Pikedale was sacked years earlier by an invasion of barbarians from Cape Crest, a nearby island which later sank into the sea.

• Eventually the PC will be able to leave the normal parts of Eupherea altogether and go to stranger places.

• The Underworld, though still a part of Eupherea, is alien and inaccessible to normal travel.
• Hix is an elemental fiery landscape and an adventurer paradise which spoofs some elements of MMOs. Hix is the home of a very important plot character who is the only obligatory companion.
• Aengr, the elemental plane of cold, has a few inhabitants with connections to areas in Eupherea, and a potential companion frozen in a block of ice.
• Tracus, a plane of elemental evil, is dominated by the city of Hafrartum which is notorious for its groping statues, gambling den, and hard-core adventurer school.
• Several pocket universes are the constructions and habitats of powerful beings just trying to get away from it all.

   Once an area is open to the PC, it can always be revisited up to the very end and in fact many areas must be revisited because quests require visiting several areas. New characters and new dialogs spawn in old areas as quests advance in other places, this keeps the old areas from becoming stale and dried up. There are transportation shortcuts to keep the "walking" from being tiresome.