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Just a few thoughts on the world prior to the founding of the Empire of Stars. I would think most settlements would be small villages or towns with just the beginnings of palisades. Maybe a town wall that is being constructed of stone but still mostly of wood. If there where a castle or major church in the town it would still be under construction as up until this time there had been very little open warfare since the settlements and the various tribes where still small enough to not cross paths in anger often. Raiding between tribes and others that lived in the land for things like live stock would occur from time to time and would have to be dealt with but for the most part things would be peaceful.
The trade routes would be safe from monsters because they would be protected with magic wards set up by the trading partners treaties. Only routes outside the specific ones established by treaty would be infested with evil creatures. There would also not be monsters located in a town for the same reason.
Now on the other hand bandits and pirates could be found in various locations even if the trade route between towns where protected by magic. However there would be mercenary troops that could be hired to protect a party moving over the trade routes. These troups would not be members of your party but would operate like the town guards that will help you attack things if you bring them within range of the battle. Or like the people at winstone fortress that you have to rescue, and bring to their commanding officer. Now if one did not pay the fee to hire them either because of lack of funds or being cheap, the guards might just revert to their other guise of bandits and attack you as soon as you where out of the range of the city archers.
The “hero” of the tale would be the cause of the creation of the empire of stars as you said Iryan.
I am not exactly sure how the tribes would teleport between locations as they had not met the utraeans formally yet. Most likely via magic. Now I would put a restriction on what could be transported so that the teleport was used only in a dire emergency. No trade goods or personal property only the actual person. Kind of the way it happens when your party is killed and has to resurrect. You have to pay some wizard to get your things back. This would have two benefits the first being that most players would not wish to spend the money on this when they could walk on relatively safe roads from town to town, exploring the nooks and crannies of the map and venturing on side quests. It would also open the story to things like “I wonder who built these buildings, I thought we where the first people to live in this area.”

Benefit 1: more exploring
Benefit 2: merchants would make more money (not something the average player would care about really)
Now stuff put in the storage trunk in one town would be there in all towns just as it would be in DS2. So you could stock duplicates of special weapons, spells and armor for use after transport. I do that in any case just because I like to have a backup plan if I need it.