With its vast tracts of unclaimed grasslands, the Constonian Frontier is a natural target for enterprising corporate prospectors and desperate debtors looking to raise livestock. And with raising livestock comes protecting that investment: wolves, bandits, and nomadic raiders take what they will from those unable to bear arms. And while small families often crumble into the dust of the Frontier, to the largest of these ranchers, the wolves and vandals are annoyances at worst.

But when thousand-head herds graze the miles of fertile green, sharper teeth are enticed to follow from the treeline. 50-foot thunder lizards from the southern swamps that nothing short a firing squad will slow down. Basilisks and wendigos that emerge from their hidden dens, starved in the middle of the cold Frontier winters. Rocs swoop down and snatch four steers at a time without warning.

Cowboys driving their herds into the few cities of the Frontier regale stories of walking, blood-thirsty trees pulling entire cows down into the earth with their ensnaring roots, towering demons pulling the poor beasts apart with just their hands, and ethereal specters causing them to wither and rot where they stood as the passed near. No one dares dispute their claims, and for those crowding the taverns the night after a long drive, they drink those who didn't make it.