Hey, greetings from a Summerdale player (not a new one).
![Wink ;)](http://97.107.128.126/smf/Smileys/aaron/wink.gif)
We're really happy about the influx of new players and I was told this forum here was the reason for it. Welcome again to all of you! And yes, I have only just created this account, but not to promote anything, only to address some things that seem to cause confusion for the new players.
Heh, I'm wondering where all the Valkyrja love is coming from. Is it just because you all like the duchy's name or did you read something about this region in the game wiki that makes you want to play there? Which kind of background story for a new family would only work in Valkyrja? In any case, even if the home of your family is in a certain region, I have experienced your character's estate to be much more important in your gaming experience than the family home, so the place where your estate will be would actually matter more than the place where you "spawn". But estates are not for eternity either. If you aquire your own lordship one day, you might end up in an entirely different region yet again. So don't put too much focus onto your starting region.
Choosing Valkyrja as the duchy to start in will actually be quite troublesome for you since it will force you to do a lot of traveling (several RL days) to first get to the place where your estate will be (there aren't any empty ones in Valkyrja and it's a small duchy) and then get to the place where the action will be. So I don't really see it as anything to be jealous about, but maybe I'm missing something.
Anyway, I hope you'll all have lots of fun with BattleMaster, wherever your characters might end up.
![Smiley :)](http://97.107.128.126/smf/Smileys/aaron/smiley.gif)