I have quite a serious hole in the lore - and as my group is heading towards Plainsworth from the Western Front I think it is time I need to talk about it. Aldermark has been a battlefield for four years after the Cinder King approached, and Plainsworth has survived that (not to mention further locations). It seems either these four years they were occupied - so the undead are not killing everyone they meet - or they have left the cities and even smaller villages, intact. How did you approach it in your campaigns, or am I missing something here?
Not exactly: the forces of the Cinder King passed the Tigeria River in 844 or about (4 years ago), but they were repelled a first time, at high price, thanks to the discovery of the power of Black Shot.
So most of the fight before the crossing, and after they were repelled, happened in the half of Aldermark which is WEST of the Tigeria.
Probably, Plainsworth was not conquered during the first invasion east of the Tigeria.
At that time, the Cinder King had only a handful of Broken, and none from the Eastern Kingdom. So probably the undead armies were less powerful, and/or the Cinder King had not enough time/resources to “convert” many people at the same time, so he did not waste too much time conquering non-important villages/towns.
If you take a look at the timeline, most of the Chosen were not Broken yet. So most of the “special” units you see (like Horrors or Heartless) didn’t exist at the time. Yes there were some (see the First Broken and the Twins) but it wasn’t until the Breaking and the pause after that a lot of the terrible stuff hit the battlefield. Basically the Cinder King was winning by replenishing units from the dead, and black-shot put a bit of a stop to that. It took a hot minute before they could regroup and make some of their new monstrosities, and were ready to march.