Players/Characters
Brenda & Tony: Sigrid & Sigrun, Norskring Barbarian twins
Alexandre: Kevahn Silverquill, Magisterium Sorcerer
Marc: Garm Darkstone, Dvaerg Priest
JARLSPORT - EARLY SPRING
And so it came to pass that a motley group of adventurers - the
Norskring twins Sigur and Sigrid, the Magisterium sorcerer Keivan Soulsilver
and the dvearg priest Garm Darkstone - were hired by the Ulthane of the
Norskring, Thane Ivar Beornson, to rescue his daughter Saga who had been taken
by warriors of Clan Black Dog. While the Ulthan's wife had recently birthed a son, he was sickly and crippled, and was to be put to death, as per the customs of the Clan. Thus, the Ulthan's daughter Saga was Thanesdottir, the next in line for the High Seat.
The group set forth from Jarlsport, heading north into the tundra on the
heels of Helga Leifsdottir and her men from Clan Black Dog. Along the way, the
group began encountering evidence of a strange disease spreading throughout the
north, a disease that drove people mad, and made them hunger for the flesh of
the dead - the necrophage.
HRAFANAGIL
In Hrafnagil, they were forced to confront the old Jarl, Beorn
Koldstadt, who had desecrated the Clan Spirit by wearing the pelt of a dead
bear against the customs of the land. There, they also confronted a mad Frost
Giant. Both the Giant and the old Jarl seemed to have been driven to their
madness by a stone effigy of a dark, ancient horned god. The Orkan
master-merchant Heilwig Ostara, who travelled with the group, saw similarities
with the brutal god Ermunaz the Black Blood, once worshipped by all Orkans, but
now only revered among the barbaric Cragfolk Orkans.
ALFUR HEIMA
Travelling even further north, the group came across evidence of the
Black Dog pack having been ambushed and decimated, and Saga taken by a new
group of mysterious enemies. It seemed the Huldufolk - the Hidden Folk - were
more than just myths or spirits of the tundra. The group encountered them,
snow-white Eldren living hidden in the far northern mountains, in a place
called Alfur Heima.
Their Queen, Valdgerthur, told the group how the humans of the Black Dog
Clan had the Old Sickness, and she feared that killing them in her realm would
re-awaken it. Her people, she said, were descendant of another ancient culture
that long ago had come from the desrt in the east to live beneath the
mountains. They had brought with them the Old Sickness, and while they were
immune to it, they feared releasing it into the world, and so had buried
themselves with it, deep beneath the mountains.
Their children - those now called the Huldufolk - were allowed to leave
and settled on the face of the mountain. The Queen said she had allowed the humans
to leave with their captive, as she did not want to kill them for fear of
releasing the Old Sickness, but also did not wish to meddle in the affairs of
humans and draw too much attention to her people.
It was then that a figure struck from the shadows, murdering Queen
Valdgerthur before the group's very eyes. This shadow, the group would come to
know, was the Orkan assassin Clothgylda. As the Queen's people began arriving,
it was clear they would think the group of heroes had murdered their Queen. Against
their better judgement, the group entered the mountain, and headed deep within.
HEILAGTH
Deep below the mountain, the group found the lost city of Heilagth,
buried a thousand years before. After facing such horrors as Lamp Preys,
Listeners and a Gloom Fiend, the group found refuge in the city itself, where
they met the crone Aoshi Kiga, last surviving member of the Assyr race.
Aoshi Kiga had been waiting for the coming of a group of heroes,
foretold long ago - but was mighty disappointed to find out these were not that
group. Still, she told them how her people, the Assyr, had escaped the Old
Sickness, which she called 'necrophage', that had decimated their creators and
masters, the ancient, forgotten race of the Gurak. Her people had fled from the
desert, but soon realized the necrophage - which infected living hosts in order
to spread, and fed on necrotizing flesh - had followed them. They had buried themselves deep in the mountain to end it.
But, Aoshi Kiga said, one came a few hundred years earlier, a human with
a group of dvaergur guides. This human, a wizard dressed in green and purple, with a four-headed snake staff that dripped poison, had uncovered an ancient cache of necrophage and had taken it with him, using
it to become the Necro-King who ruled over the southern Empire for hundreds of
years. She identified the statue and symbol of the Horned God - a long
forgotten evil that died long before even the Gurak, who had created the Assyr
to serve as their slaves, were born.
In the Glorious Chapel, the group fought an ancient horror infected with
the necrophage, recovering one of only a few artifacts said to possess the
power to destroy necrophage - the Sun Spear of Jaedwyn, the ancient god of the
Assyr. They also freed another Assyr, once a paladin, now a plague knight,
called Faine, who helped them kill the beast and joined the group.
ANJARTHAR
With Faine guiding them, the group emerged in Anjarthar, the home of the
dvaergur. There, the group encountered the enterprising Red Beryl, chief of the
Black Opal Cartel - a group of thieves and gem traders. They were told how the
gates of Anjarthar had been closed for hundreds of years because King Skuld
Isbjord felt shame at having sanctioned the expedition that had led to the
empowerment of the Necro-King, and he feared retaliation from the people of
Eld.
Now, the dvaergur were being petitioned by the Jotun of Kettilheim, the
Giants who tend to the World Tree, for help. It seems some of their people had
become infected by a deadly sickness that turned them into dead flesh-eating
mosntrosities. The Jotunbairn Skadi was in Anjarthar, reminding Kind Isbjord of
the ancient pact between Jotun and dvaerg. Yet the King was hesitating,
considering closing the doors to Anjarthar once more, and waiting for
everything to blow over.
The group agreed to help Red Beryl in exchange for the means
to convince the King to help the Jotun. A group of Imperium engineers, under
the guise of a trade mission, appeared on the verge of claiming rich. newfound
mines. The heroes, along with Red Beryl's mysterious agent Stovepipe and the dvaergur adventurer Laeknir, helped Master Engineer Vorena Arcadia and the disgraced Centurion Quintus Antius
of the Seventh Legion defeat a family of Ice Ogres infected with necrophage,
collapsing the mine in the process, effectively cutting off the Imperium from
it.
Armed with Red Beryl's information - the contract signed by King Isbjord
giving the human help in acquiring the necrophage - the heroes forced a
confrontation with the King, eventually having him replaced by his daughter,
the priest Thekla, first Queen of Anjarthar, who quickly agreed to help the
Jotun as a way of making amends for her peoples' past actions.
Before setting off for Kettilheim, the group encountered a strange
dvaergur named Grimnir who told them A Story of Life and Death. The group now
understood that a horned creature had appeared in Kettilheim, bringing with it
a sickness that turned the giantkin Titans against their parent. This horned
creature's ultimate goal was the destruction of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life
protected by the Jotun. They also understood why Saga was taken - as a
descendent of the first Human King, her blood was a potent weapon against the
necrophage, and if it were to be corrupted by the horned creature, it could be
sued to poison Yggdrasil, and spread necrophage throughout the whole of
creation.
KETTILHEIM & MIRK DEDANFJOR
Deep below Kettilheim, the heroes confronted the Horned God reborn, a wicked and base creature of disease and corruption, and felled him, saving Saga - but seeing the Sun Spear destroyed in the process.
But now the Titans, corrupted by the necrophage, were moving against
their Jotun kin, ready to destroy them and burn the World Tree.
The heroes emerged from the dread mirk to help the Jotun protect the
tree. Clothgylda, the Orkan assassin, appeared again to try and assassinate
Saga but was foiled by the heroes. Loffey and the Titans were defeated, and the
Jotun - and Yggdrasil - saved.
But as the celebrations began, the heroes heard of a new threat - a
young woman carrying rotten apples, gathering about her an army of Norskring
warriors infected with necrophage…
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