Cnc Premise

The year is 1800E. It's been 10 years since The Great Downward defeated Orcus, 5 years since the Engineers returned, and 4 years since the Black Flag Company sailed to an island and then disappeared.
With the defeat of Orcus the Valley has changed, arguably for the better. Rappan Athuk has disappeared entirely, leaving the Valley much safer. The overall level of danger and menace has lowered, and people are looking to expand and explore.
One such person is Queen Illden Aerim of Skor. She looks to the west, to the Greenbelt. It's a wild, untamed land full of roving warbands and old places. She fears Skor (and the east coast of the Valley as a whole), weakened from the fight against the forces of Darkness, may fall prey to raiders from the west. Ironically, now that the east is safer than ever, it's an even more tempting target.
One of the solutions to this problem is to establish an outpost in the west. The Kingdom of Lycia once controlled much of the greenbelt, and if it could be restored it would be a good first line of defense. Lycia fell many centuries ago, but there's bound to be a few descendants of their nobility hanging around.
Queen Illden has contracted her old friends at the Great Downward to help her in this task. She'll find the nobles, and the Great Downward will train and equip a group of adventurers to support them.
Of course, since Lycia has no nobles any more, this part of the project has posters going up all around the Valley
"COULD YOU BE A NOBLE!?!" they proclaim. "Come to your nearest temple of Thyr and discover is you could be part of the Adventure of a Lifetime!!"
Some moderately-complicated divination magic can determine if a candidate is indeed a descendant of a noble line, and they are sent to Skor for an interview. Since it's been so long since Lycia fell, the remaining "nobles" are often commonfolk with little training or nobility.
Should their interview go well and they turn out to be a decent sort, they're turned over to the Great Downward for training. 
The next step is to partner each noble up with an adventurer. This may be a friend, a sibling, a lover, or just a particularly competent friend. The adventurer is admitted to the Great Downward Engineering company (if they're not already a member), and receives some basic instruction.
In some cases this may happen in reverse - an established member of The Great Downward, having heard of this Lycian venture may have recommended a friend go through the noble selection process. 
Now, it's the first day of 1800E, exactly 11 years since The Great Downward was restored by Lord Shades. The Adventurers are off to Lycia, to try and establish a foothold. While they do that, the nobles will undergo some intensive training with The Great Downward, along with Queen Illden's court to toughen them up a bit and teach them some basic diplomacy and civics.
Once there's a safe base of operations in Lycia, the nobles will join the adventurers, and the restoration project will really get rolling.
Mechanically, the adventurers will always be 2 levels ahead of the nobles. Everyone shares one big experience pool, with both nobles and adventurers contributing it. The game will switch back and forth between Adventurers exploring and securing the Greenbelt, while the nobles deal with things back home. Sometimes we'll swap to other groups as the game expands for little 1-shots to explore interesting characters and situations (some possibly even GMd by other players).
The overall aim is to restore Lycia to it's former glory - a Kingdom to rival Skor at the height of its power.
Please do not kill or make gods this time. Take it down a notch.