By Hildagard Upkik, “Eyes of the Council”, Wizened One
There haven’t always been people here, but the spirits of our people have made this place home forever. Since the times when only the spirits walked our lands, the north has been a cold, unforgiving, and harsh place. This kept most men from settling for countless centuries. This kept the land pure, and the spirits strong.
The earliest of our people, the First People, as our histories call them, came over the ice. They performed the first mauragaaqtuq, risking their lives by traversing the icy black depths on floating islands of broken glaciers. They brought their families, and they found a home with the spirits of our land. They were hunters and fishermen with names like Inuksuk, Amaruq, and Kallik. They brought with them a culture that venerated the land and its totems. They brought with them a social structure relying on families and tribes.
For generations, they hunted, fished and gathered on our lands, north of the Barrier Mountains. They built villages along the coast. They learned about the trolls of the bogs and hills and mastered fighting them with spears and arrows. They befriended the spirits and called them protectors.
After a time they received travelers from across the bogs to the southwest. These Visitors, as our histories refer to them, were large of stature, pale skinned, and strange in their speech. They came with names like Helga, Tor, and Harald. They sought refuge from dangers in their own lands, much as the First People had done when they made the first mauragaaqtuq so long before. The Visitors were embraced, and their leader, Elvo, was loved as a brother by the eldest of the First Peoples’ tribes. It only took a few years for Elvo and his followers to make the north their home, and to integrate with the tribes therein.
There was peace for many years as Elvo introduced the First People to the Visitors’ beliefs, laws, engineering, and crafts. Sometime soon thereafter, Elvo passed, but not before he was adopted into the Elk Tribe as a brother. After his passing, the Elk began building the first of the permanent villages that the nobles houses now call home. First among them was Elvoya, named for Elvo and built using their most advanced engineering and architectural principles. It remains the heart of the North to this day and has become a sturdy city of stone.
In the two centuries after Elvo’s passing, the First People and the Visitors intermingled their cultures creating a new religion that emphasized reliance on the animal spirits while integrating the Sun, Earth, Moon, and Darkness, all primary religious figures for the Visitors. It was during the first century after Elvo’s passing that the laws, mores, and beliefs came to be founded. Our great houses were established in large villages across the land. The Sun guided our decisions, and under its gaze, we began writing, creating artwork, and mastering advanced crafts. The Night proved its dire nature, stealing away many from our coastal villages to feed the monsters of the deep. Through all of it, the spirits of the land helped us endure.
The first Council of Elders was established almost seventy years after Elvo passed. Because the city of Elvoya existed on lands claimed by the Elk tribe, they decided to build a new home for the Council, just across the river, on lands contested by the Bear and Wolf tribes. For untold generations the place now called Castle Kaglee acted as the political hub of the lands while Elvoya was the mercantile and cultural hub. The two cities were just a few hours from one another, but across a great and dangerous river, keeping the two institutions separated but not disconnected.
Looking back with clear eyes and no biases, it was also this separation that eventually led to the crumbling of relations between the eastern and western provinces. Nearly five centuries after our great blending of cultures and the founding of Elvoya—after our noble houses waxed and waned in power many times over—the rise of the Sun House proved to be the final wedge in the splitting log.
The physical divide created by the great river also became a spiritual and cultural divide. Though the combined people of the eastern and western provinces were of the same blended stock, and though they adhered to similar versions of our religious and cultural beliefs, they began to think of themselves as distant relatives rather than brothers and sisters. It was during these times that a little regarded sect with the audacity to petition directly to the Sun began to attract less traditional followers in the east. It started with disaffected Salmon and members of less prominent noble houses, but within a single generation, even elder members of a few influential families had converted to the new way of thinking in the east.
Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps not, the House of Crow was rapidly falling out of favor in the east due to rumors of illicit spiritual practices, including reports of Crow priests appealing to the Darkness and Depths for knowledge. Though the Crow were always allowed, neigh, expected, to fly closer to the Sun, Moon, and Abyss than most, they had crossed a line in the minds of many, particularly those influenced by the Sun followers. The secrets of the Crow had become too strange and dangerous to most of the other noble houses, and before long they were forced to flee the east entirely. For a short time they took refuge among their brethren in the west, but as soon as the rumors had crossed the river they began to fear for their lives there as well.
This time of transition saw both the rise of House Sun, replacing House Crow as the seventh great house of the time, and the disappearance of the Crow altogether. Rumors persisted, of course, the Crow taking refuge in other houses, but most believed they had been hunted or forced to flee out of the land entirely. We now know that both were true. The deaths of Crow nobles were many; the fervor to rid the land of “darkness worshippers” turning into bloodlust, resulting in many Crow not making it to the light of the next day. Others saw the shadows being cast by the rising Sun House and managed to build a life away from the rest of the kingdom.
Upon the Council of Elders decision to promote the newly forming Sun House to the status of great house, there was a social and political rebellion. Leaders of the houses split with their family members over the issue, most often dividing across geographic east-west lines. This is when the two kingdoms, one of the Rising Sun and the other the Setting Sun, were formed.
It wasn’t a clean break from a single kingdom. It took months of failed politicking before the war was declared. The Council of Elders had come to be seen as a wholly eastern controlled body. For the most part, it was. Most of the elders of that time were from the east. Only Houses Owl and Fox had elders representing the west, and they fought hard to keep the kingdoms united. Eventually, they were forced to admit defeat, and they retreated back across the river, unsure of what was to come.
It was only a month later, in the depths of the winter five-hundred and eight years after the founding of the kingdom, that war came. There were numerous battles, most fought along the banks of the frozen river, in the first winter. It came to pass that summer, though still chilly, was too warm to allow for the crossing of the river. The ground was much too soft along the river to allow for maneuvering, and the water itself flowed too quickly. The pattern repeated for six more years. Winter battles, summer provisioning and training…
And thus the War of Seven Winters, as it has come to be called, claimed thousands of lives. Most were taken in the darkness of the long winter nights, further strengthening our belief in the Sun as a protector and the Darkness as a malignancy. It has come to be known that it was this time of war that solidified we northerners as stalwart warriors, which would eventually benefit us all. The Raveni say that stone sharpens steel. We say that bone strengthens fang because of the might displayed by the Elk, Wolf and Bear during many of the most hard-fought battles.
Though innumerable lives were lost, no ground was gained by either side of the kingdom. It was unlikely that either side would give any ground in the near future. This realization, in the winter of the seventh year, led to the Treaty on the River. The treaty officially split the kingdom into two self-governing entities and provided for all of the houses a bit of land in each. Furthermore, the houses were permitted to contact and travel on a small scale with their family members on either side of the river. Also provided for in the treaty were two neutral factions, the Wizened Ones and the Twilight Revelers. The former was to act as the purveyors and protectors of knowledge and learning across the kingdoms, while the latter was to be an officially-sanctioned go-between for the houses and the kingdoms. Furthermore, the island where the treaty was enacted would become neutral ground where parties form either kingdom could come to negotiate, trade and feel safe doing so.
Lastly, to ensure adherence to the treaty, a member of each kingdom’s ruling body would be required to surrender a hostage to the other kingdom every seven years. The transaction would take place on the river island during the winter. The hostage would be a seventh child from a noble house, and the hostage would be raised as a member of the hostage-taker’s house for the rest of their lives.
The plan worked for decades—six generations, to be precise. At every congress on the river, every seven years, the seventh child of a noble house was presented and accepted by each kingdom. After the first such congress, it became standard practice for the island and both sides of the river to become a hotbed of trade and communication between the kingdoms. For nearly a month at the end of each winter, the river was a place for festivities, parades, and military displays.
But every plan has its shortcomings. In the case of the Treaty on the River, it was an issue of fertility. Unforeseen was a time when no Noble Houses would have seven children. But this exact problem came to pass upon the first congress of the seventh generation. None of the houses of the Rising Sun managed to bare a seventh child in time for the congress. Thusly, the treaty was set to be broken, for the spirits would not abide by such an ill omen without providing a consequence.
By Hildagard Upkik, “Eyes of the Council”, Wizened One
On the morning that the nineteenth congress was set to begin, the parties met upon the island. The representatives of both ascendant houses, one from each side of the river, were present. It just so happened that both were of House Bear. Hans and Ingrid Bjorn from the Kingdom of the Setting Sun came carrying their youngest child, a girl, to be handed over to her counterparts. Alas, Halvard and Britta Bjorn came without a seventh child. And so the stage was set for upheaval the likes of which the kingdoms had not seen for more than one hundred years...
Within the congregation, however, were two brothers of House Raev. Gunter Raev, a physician and member of the Wizened Ones was house doctor for the Bjorns of the Setting Sun, while his brother, Jorgen Raev, was the Twilight Reveler assigned to attend the congress. Through the intervention of the spirits, it must be concluded, the two brothers assisted the Bjorns at the nineteenth congress in coming to a grand compromise. It seemed, unbeknownst to nearly everyone present, that Britta Bjorn was pregnant with her seventh child. Gunter was aware of this, and having shared this information with his brother, the two assisted in persuading both parties to accept an exchange not only of seventh children, one yet unborn, but also of the women that bore and reared them. Thusly, it came to pass, that Britta Bjorn made her way to the lands of the Setting Sun while Ingrid landed in the lands of the Rising Sun.
This exchange altered the course of the north in unexpected ways. While it preserved the treaty, it opened the door to new ways of looking at the politics of the region. Britta Bjorn quickly came to rule the lands west of the river, bringing many of her ways to the people there. And although the cultures had not diverged much in one hundred years, the more liberal approach to spiritual practices and political maneuvering that had become normal in the east were now being put to good use by Britta in the west.
Sometime soon after the Nineteenth Congress on the river, there was an outbreak of severe illness in many of the less affluent wards of Elvoya. This was initially thought, by the more suspicious of the Wizened Ones, that the outbreak was a punishment from the spirits for circumventing the Treaty of the River in such a way. Fortunately, Gunter Raev and his newly forming influential coterie managed to uncover that the illness seemed to be tied strongly to people returning with relics from an archaeological dig in the Barrier Mountains. With some haste and very little forethought it seems, the Raevs ventured south to investigate, hoping to end any more undue suffering on the part of the Salmon.
The Raevs came to find that a small excursion of Sun House historians had uncovered a previously undiscovered tomb, from which they had excavated several artifacts. A small landslide had exposed the outer edges of the ruined tomb. After a heated nighttime encounter with the Sun House priest and her excavating team, the Raevs assumed control over the site, despite it being on the wrong side of the river. The violence of that encounter would color interactions to come, influencing the course of future events.
Within the tomb, the Raevs found previously untold riches, encountering Orichalcum for the first time. They stumbled upon the resting places of several ancient, stout warriors, each encased in suits of Orichalcum with numerous weapons, trinkets, and baubles besides. Feeling unprepared to continue deeper into the tombs, and likely overwhelmed by the discovery of such a fortune, the Raevs and their entourage returned to Elvoya, bypassing the proper channels of law and leadership in the Kingdom of the Rising Sun in so doing.
After a brief respite and a resupplying effort, the Raevs and their party, this time bolstered by more members of their house, returned to the excavation. It was upon nearing the site that the fateful first encounter with a new race of creatures, those we now call Roden, occurred. A group of the rat-men had scurried out of their warrens soon after the landslide that opened the tombs. It became apparent that their home was very near to the ruins, and that the Roden intended to take control of the site.
Unbeknownst to the Raevs at the time, some of these Roden were members of a violent sect whose aim was to rid the area of men. Despite this, and with very little resulting violence, the groups managed to come to an accord whereby the Raevs gained access to the ruins and the Roden gained an alliance with the men of the North. Among the returning party was Girot Lox, a Salmon with strong ties to Gunter Raev, and a long-suspected nighttime operator. Girot took the Roden situation as an opportunity to develop influence over what he believed to be a naive group of outside operators.
As the Raevs proceeded deeper into the ruins, they fended off attacks from rogue Roden and gargantuan arachnids. They discovered feats of engineering beyond any previously devised by the Wizened Ones or any other northerners. They also found that the ruins and their attached caverns were a huge warren of carved and natural tunnels and that those tunnels must have once comprised a large underground town. It appeared to have been abandoned many generations prior, and had been overrun by numerous creatures of unnatural origin.
Within the tunnels was a small group of new inhabitants, a barbaric but largely unthreatening race dubbed the Pekko. They had been living in a hovel, growing fungus in their own refuse for food. Though the Raevs were initially unable to speak with the Pekko, they did manage to navigate forming a tenuous alliance to help them rid the tunnels of giant spiders in exchange for safe passage deeper into the ruins. It w as then that the Raevs managed to discover the source of the illness that they had come seeking to cure so many weeks prior.
Among piles of bones, both of the ancient denizens from before as well as more recent carcasses, was a giant insectoid creature resembling a carrion worm. It was easily the size of a wagon, according to the Raevs’ own accounts, and possessed a powerful toxin that paralyzed those that touched it. After a hard-fought battle, the Raevs and their companions managed to destroy it. After some investigation, it was determined that the collection of rotting carcasses within a fetid pool of water was contaminating the underground river nearby, which flowed into the highland lake, which fed the river that passed near the city. As with many problems attributed to unnatural causes, the issue was one of mundane origin, dealt with by mundane means.
Perhaps the greatest discovery made during Jorgen and Gunter Raevs’ ill-advised explorations, and likely the most glacier-shattering made in several generations, was that of the “rifts.” Without diving too deeply into the depths of the story, it seems as though the tunnels housed a sort of unnatural gateway between our land and a very strange and distant land. It is also understood that this land is the one from which the Pekko originated, and where the ancient metalworking race could most recently be found, many hundreds of years after having evacuated the tunnels in the Barrier Mountains.
An initial foray into the rift left the Raevs, and anyone they told about it, confused and disbelieving. They spoke of an enormous, temperate inland lake surrounded by a low wall made entirely of oricalchum. They told stories of leviathan-like monsters capable of capsizing a whaling boat. They told of flora reminiscent of fungi rather than the coniferous trees of our lands. Most alarming, however, were the stories of the great destructive machines powered by lightning and as large as several horses.
With a sensible degree of fear, the Raevs and their entourage fled from the rift and back to the safety of home. What was utterly fantastic coming out of the Raevs’ explorations was the wealth of resources and knowledge. They had discovered not only the source of a crippling disease, but also untold material riches, and the existence of three previously unknown civilizations. The first were the Roden, who would become a major player in events to come. The second were the Pekko, who had direct connections to lands beyond that of our understanding. The third were the ancient people who left behind the tunnels and riches, who we now know to be the Dvergar—sorcerous metalworkers with a penchant for enslaving other races.
Upon their return to Elvoya, the Raevs brought with them enough material wealth to elevate their standing among the noble houses significantly. They immediately began liquidating portions of their find, eventually setting up a number of funds with the stated intention of “improving the kingdoms.” Though much of the funding was used for public works projects, including rebuilding roads, building an outpost in the southern mountains, and improving kingdom defense, it could be argued that much of it was also used to peddle influence toward a much larger goal—uniting the two kingdoms, with Jorgen Raev as the presupposed “unifier.” It remains to be seen how this will be executed in its entirety, not to mention the repercussions, but it is without a doubt a feather in the helms of the Raevs to have pushed for such change.
Within a few weeks of having returned to Elvoya, the Raevs set off again, this time to blaze a trail southward, starting from the outpost they co-founded with the House of Seal. It was during their efforts to plow southward in order to learn about more about the rifts that the Raevs first encountered Beck Redcrest, a ranger from the lands south of the mountains. Beck would eventually become embroiled in the increasingly bizarre events that swirled around Jorgen and Gunter Raev, playing an outsized role for a southerner in our northern history. With Beck as a guide, the team of Gunter, Jorgen, and Girot Lox made their way southward, braving encounters with trolls, orcs and more Roden in the process.
Over the course of weeks, the Raevs made connections in the south, befriending Beck’s militia, the Burning Inquiry, as well as a handful of nobles and dignitaries. During their first few days in Ravencliff, the center of southern trade and culture, there was an uprising led by a noble house, called “clans” by the southerners, to overthrow the extant ruling Merchant Council. Little is known about the reason for the timing of the coup, but Raevs were quick to capitalize by befriending the new rulers, Stonehall Clan. Jorgen Raev’s growing expansionist agenda found an ally in Nia Stonehall, the clan matron, and upon only their second meeting Jorgen made a showy proposal, which was accepted by Nia. This single seemingly impetuous maneuver may have been the most significant in the series that led to the eventual combining of the Northern and Southern regions.
At the same time that the efforts were underway in Ravencliff, Jorgen, Gunter, and Girot were literally building a new vision for the divided kingdom of the North. They had funded efforts to build a literal bridge between the Kingdoms of the Rising and Setting Suns while simultaneously inviting conversations to occur between powerful entities on both sides of the river. A massive road and bridgework project, funded entirely by the Raev family, became the symbol for spiritual and political bridge-building that was just beginning.
It was also in these months that Gunter Raev first learned of his spiritual affinity. According to Jorgen’s recounting, Gunter had always been a believer in the power and majesty of the spirits, but sometime after seeing the effects of the illness on the city, the degrading of the traditional ways of the Northerners, and the darkness through the rift, Gunter discovered his gift for communing with the spirits. Thusly, he began the transition from scholar to priest—a process that would take months to complete. During which time he would perform a number of minor blessings, and at least one historically significant miracle.
It was during these months, before Gunter and his team ventured back into the rift in the tunnels, that all of the groundwork for a future Kingdom consisting of three separate provinces, was lain. Girot had spread his influence via an underground criminal network southward while simultaneously inviting the shiftier elements of the Roden to participate. This led to a few attacks in Elvoya on the House of the Sun, for whom the Raevs and Girot had no love, by Girot’s criminal and Roden underlings. It also led to a spread of the group into Ravencliff itself, where Girot encountered similar organizations with which to associate.
These functional associations, and the political ones being formed by Jorgen Raev and Nia Stonehall, though not applauded by all, were generally accepted and formed the basis for expanding cultural and material trade. The potential for trade was amplified significantly when a second rift was mysteriously opened in Ravencliff, just inside the castle from which the Stonehall Clan had begun operating the government. The rift spilled molten Oricalchum forth, onto the ground inside the keep. Once cooled, the Stonehalls were able to harvest it, and efforts were made to begin sending it North for the craftsmen there to apply their new skills in forging with it. It was the Wizened One Grigor Lox, afterall, who made the keen observation that “the backbone of all great relationships is the free flow of resources.”
Approximately a year after the initial discovery of the illness affecting Elvoya and other areas of the North, and several months after its cause was stopped, the Raevs had established a strong foothold in the Barrier Mountains from which to mount excursions back into the ruins. Most of the wealth had been pillaged either by the Raevs or Roden over the intervening months, but the tunnels were cleared of threats, opening the original rift for further exploration. After fortifying the Barrier Mountain outpost, Gunter Raev, Beck Redcrest, Girot Lox, and a newly hired “expert” on the rifts ventured back to the homeland of the Pekko on the other side of the cave rift.
Inuk, claiming to be a member of the House Upkik, helped the group traverse the rift through the use of sorcery never before seen. The sorcery turned out to be exceptionally useful in making progress from the rift entrance over the lake, but it was dangerous for those nearby. Reports indicate that more than one member of the excursion party was killed not by the dangers of the rift, but by the forbidden sorcerous arts practiced by Inuk. In fact, the sorcery would eventually claim Inuk’s own life, but not before a number of revelations about the rifts, the Dvergar, and Inuk’s own background.
Under Gunter’s leadership, the campaign into the rift yielded many discoveries. Among them was the realization that the Dvergar practiced a malign sorcery that seemed to rely on the flesh and life force of the Pekko to power their machines, which Gunter termed “automata” because they seemed to be self propelled and at least somewhat intelligent. The Raevs explored a vast but uninhabited settlement built by the Dvergar and protected by the automata. There they discovered the nature of the Dvergar sorcery. They also tracked down a small village of the Pekko, who seemed to be freedom fighters against the Dvergar who had enslaved their brethren. From these Pekko Gunter, Beck, Girot, and Beck learned that the Dvergar had left that place, and were apparently on the move, possibly in the mountains to the north. At this point, the adventurers decided it would be a good idea to return to their homeland, recuperate, restock, and assess the dangers they had discovered.
Meanwhile, Jorgen split his time between the North and Ravencliff, drumming up support for his continuing effort to unite the Rising Sun, Setting Sun, and more recently, Ravencliff populaces into a single nation. He managed to secure a great deal of support among some Nobles and commoners alike, both from the Elvoya and Ravencliff. Britta Bjorn’s power maneuvers in the North, coupled with an increasing open-mindedness among the younger Nobles, had led to a slow but steady eroding of tensions between the East and West. The toppling of the Merchant Council and the trade the Stonehalls had begun to send northward lent to the burgeoning openness as well. And with Jorgen and Nia Stonehall acting as symbols of the possibility of unity among the two nations, the bold idea of a single nation was beginning to take root.
Upon their return to the Barrier Mountain outpost, Gunter and his party learned that Inuk was actually a member of House Crow, widely believed to have been exterminated generations ago. They had simply vanished, at least those that had not been outright murdered by other Nobles and Lox alike. According to Inuk, the Crow had been living in seclusion in the Barrier Mountains, just east of the boglands. From their small village, they had been conducting sorcerous experiments, no longer under the reign of the Council of Elders. This freed them up to learn new and powerful magics, among other things…
Inuk convinced Gunter, Beck, and Girot to travel with him to the home of the Crow, where he thought they might be welcomed. They were not. According to Gunter and Inuk’s own reports, they were kept as prisoners as much as guests. While there, Girot managed to offend the Crow, and Gunter was visited by horrible visions of atrocities. Between Girot’s untrustworthiness, and Gunter’s reflections on the visions provided by the spirits, the outsiders left the home of the Crow under bad terms. This seemed to cause a bit of a strain between Inuk and his companions, but he left with them, focused on unraveling the mysteries of the rifts.
Reinvigorated, and outfitted with new enchantments from the Crow, Inuk traveled with the group back into the rift, under the leadership of Gunter. This foray resulted in the mapping of several areas within the rift. Tragically, however, it also resulted in the death of Inuk, who taxed his body beyond its breaking point while trying to fend off an automata that was attacking a group of Pekko. While a full accounting of the Crow’s sorcery is not the purpose of this document, it is worth noting that special attention has been paid to the unnatural fire that Inuk called from the sky to smite the metal behemoth. This sorcery, in addition to previous observations of transformative and transmutative magic gives credence to the fears espoused by many when reflecting on the expulsion of the Crow from the ranks of the Noble Houses.
Upon Inuk’s death, Gunter and Beck determined that further explorations were too dangerous without a significant invading force. Being that a single automata forced the group to flee, an encounter with the Dvergar seemed like a risk not worth taking without much greater assistance. With that in mind, the group made their way back through the rift, and down to Ravencliff to rejoin Jorgen in his efforts to raise a fighting force to defend the kingdom(s). During the return trip, an undisclosed treachery related to the Burning Inquiry by Girot forced the group to expel him from their ranks. Despite years as Gunter’s friend and blood brother, Girot left to pursue more power and influence among the brigands and thieves of the group known as Argot’s Lot.
As if by divine decree in summation of recent events, another tragedy soon befell the group. Mere days after Girot’s removal from Gunter and Jorgen’s inner circle and his subsequent enfolding into Argot’s Lot, a group of bandits under the employ of Argot’s Lot assaulted the Beck and the Raevs on the roadway into Ravencliff. In a failed attempt to extort the Raev’s while traveling, members of the Lot loosed a deadly volley of arrows that struck Beck down just outside of the city’s gate. He was surely dead, by all accounts, an arrow having lodged in his heart. With little regard for his own safety and no regard for religious tradition, Gunter called upon all of the spirits of our land for divine intervention. Herein is an account recalled by a witness to the event. “Ranger” refers to Beck Redcrest. “Unifier” refers to Jorgen Raev, while “Zealot” refers to Gunter Raev.
It was this moment that seems to have solidified Beck as an equal with the Raevs. They saw him as blessed by the Sun, a status relegated to legend until that moment. Jorgen would always swear that it was Gunter who had been blessed by the spirits, but Gunter claimed the blessing was for Beck and Beck alone. Regardless, Beck’s status was cemented as a member of the coterie that was changing history.
Over the next few weeks, revelations came as to the activities of the previously secluded orcs of Boarwood, their potential connection to the Dvergar, Roden moving in and around Ravencliff, and Argot’s Lot staging more criminal actions in the South. While Jorgen and his betrothed planned a wedding and the merger of two kingdoms, chaos seemed to reign around them. It came to a point that the Raevs could no longer focus on their own endeavors while waiting on others to lead, and so after only a brief respite, they waded back into the chaotic world they had ushered in.
With much momentum behind the formation of a united kingdom of the northlands, the Raevs began to refocus their efforts on the problems at their doorstep. Argot’s Lot, along with some subset of the Roden had taken to violence and thievery on the roadways, and having so recently nearly killed Beck Redcrest, Jorgen was not about to let it go unpunished. Working with more level-headed local members of the Lot, as well as a local merchant named Jens, they secured the men responsible for the attack on Beck. With Beck’s blessing, they were pressed into service with the Burning Inquiry. This would become a trend in the coming weeks.
Soon thereafter, Jorgen and Beck led a small group of Burning Inquiry members into the wilderness to confront the orcs nearest Ravencliff. There is little to tell of the battle except that the orcs, despite the ferocity for which they and their worgs are known, were bested easily in a daytime raid on one of their cave complexes. A couple of dozen orcs were killed, with no casualties among the Burning Inquiry. This is also when Gunter discovered sorcerous runes painted on the cave walls of the orc den, which was the first indication that they may be allied with the Dvergar.
Over the next several days, the Raevs, Beck, and Jens the Merchant negotiated with Argot’s Lot to have them act as a mercenary militia under the command of the Burning Inquiry, charged with protecting the edges of the realm from the orcs. This endeavor was led by the Raevs, but it was a combination of Clan Nobles and their resources that would ultimately pay for the increased security, an arrangement that was promoted by Jorgen and Nia Stonehall.
While awaiting the formalities of the arrangement with the Burning Inquiry and Argot’s Lot to take shape, the Raevs, Jens, and Beck ventured back into the orc lands. The discovery of Dvergar technology by Clan Stonehall miners on the southern edge of the Barrier Mountains brought new information to light about the possible relationship between orcs and the Dvergar. In order to investigate further, Jorgen, Gunter, Beck, and Jens explored a small tunnel system, carved by orcs using the Dvergar technology. They encountered heavy resistance, which they violently dispatched, deep in the caves. They discovered further evidence of sorcerous influence before deciding to return to Ravencliff for matters of state.
During a formal gathering organized by Nia and Jorgen, the purpose of which was to gather nobles, merchants, and concerned citizens to discuss recent political upheaval, members of the Stonehall Clan attempted a coup against their matron. The goal of the coup seemed to be to kill, or at least depose, Nia and Jorgen. The reason seems to have been that the joining of Ravencliff with the North was seen as overt annexation. While a plan for annexation has been vehemently denied by the Raevs, the appearance of such impropriety cannot be denied. And the carvings in the ice indicated that with the North being so much more populous and militarily strong, the joining was likely to be the functional equivalent to annexation, regardless of the stated purpose. Regardless, the coup attempt was thwarted with minimal violence, and Nia’s station remained secure.
With the stage set for a relatively stable transition to a joint government, the Raevs set about increasing the flow of trade between the two lands. Jens the Merchant, who was known to have ties to both legal and illegal trade up and down the river south of Ravencliff, garnered the support of the Raevs to be the primary caravan operator on the road to the North. He was given first preference on dealings with the outpost in the Barrier Mountains, which was slowly turning into something more than a small military encampment. He was also introduced to traders in the North and South that could provide him goods important to each nation.
While at the outpost setting up trading relationships, Gunter and Jorgen met with eldest of the Raev siblings, Thori. He was moving an advance force from the North to the South in order to begin setting up a military presence. From Thori, the party learned the extent to which the Dvergar tunnels had once again become dangerous, several soldiers having gone missing over a few weeks. Thori was able to rescue many of them, but this brought back into focus the importance of dealing with the rifts and their denizens. This renewed sense of danger led the Raevs, Beck, and Jens to initiate two new efforts.
First, they made a short trip back to the secluded home of the Crow, hoping to solicit their assistance in confronting the Dvergar. Little is known about the trip to visit the Crow, except that the Crow did in fact commit to assist, and in so doing decided to make their presence known to the wider world. The full ramifications of this decision remain to be seen, but early indications from other nobles houses are of disbelief, mistrust, and a bit of outrage.
The second maneuver by the Raevs was to gain the backing of Britta Bjorn and the Council of Elders in the north for a more structured and forceful resistance to the orcs and Dvergar. It is not known precisely what the Raevs used as leverage or bribes to gain Britta’s support, but the result is likely to be a force unlike any mounted by the North in generations moving into the mountains—this in addition to the defense force already being mobilized to support Ravecliff.
As a final note, it has been observed that Gunter Raev and Beck Redcrest have both become intimately involved with the Sun House since returning to the North. This is thought to be related to their efforts to explain the Miracle at Ravencliff, as Beck’s resurrection has come to be called. Regardless of the purpose, the connection to Sun House creates further complexities in the ongoing saga of Gunter’s loyalty. In a matter of less than two years, Gunter has been a member of or sought wisdom from House Raev, House Bjorn, the Wizened Ones, the Raev priesthood, and the House of the Sun. For Beck’s part, it seems that his shunning of his own people’s ways is to be further aggravated by an embrace of ours, even if through the misguided teachings of the Sun House.