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"The country of Adrasteia is barren, wild and without the dignities of civilisation. It is a country full of hills and populated by wild hillfolk who live by raiding, shepherding and brigandry in the surrounding countries. Almost every hillside and valley has its own aghar, a petty king, who rules by right of giantish blood and his success in winning plunder for his warriors."
- Onataor of Beck, The Chronicon of All Lands, AE 521
Your father, Torh Menehadh, called heavy-hand for the weight of his blows in life, is dead. His great body is impaled upon three great spikes, waelstangs, and hangs before you dripping with the red ochre of the funeral rite. He was Aghar of Brenmawr, a rough patch of hill-land deep in the Adrasteian highlands, and spent his short life surrounded by blood, wine and fire.
His royal blood shows clearly in you. You stand twice the height of the Gohren, the low-men, your head adorned by tresses of red-gold hair, never to be shorn. You were born to royalty, though in these latter days only your strength, crown of golden hair and the title of aghar remain to prove it. The cunning men beyond the mountains have swindled your people of their riches for generations, and the constant battles between royal cousins have broken your finery underfoot for far longer.
Yet aghar, King, you remain as your father's blood drips onto your forehead. The hall of Brenh Bear-Father, your ancestor, remains to you - a cyclopean monument of stone carved into the windswept hillside. You wander it almost alone - a handful of highblooded cousins and kinsfolk dwell in collapsing towers and cellars, living on the meagre tribute offered by your Gohren subjects of the local villages.
The throne of your grandfather does not even remain to you, at the head of your empty, smoke-filled hall. As a hungry child you recall the glittering stones that adorned it - pawned in ransom for your father in his own youth, now lost forever to the foul pig-men, those-who-eat-filth, the foreigners. You sit on a high seat of wood, shoulder draped in a woolen cloak dyed a poor red, all that marks you from the bare-chested men and cloaked women of your once-regal hall, eating gruel and roast mutton like peasants.
All except
>>You bear one great heirloom, one last marker of your ancient nobility. What is it?
>The Maul of Brenh Bear-Father, a heavy iron warhammer, hafted with beautiful strips of red leather and gleaming with bronze adornment.
>The Star of the Red Moon, a heavy gold chain, adorned with a pair of beautifully carved rubies hanging as amulets from its front. The only gold left in your kingdom. A fortune beyond imagining, much coveted.
>The Horn of Anaraut Black-Eye, supposedly a hollowed drake's horn, bound in silver and brass, won in battle by your ancestor. An object of glory and honour to your lineage, fit to summon armies and shatter the will of your foes.
- Onataor of Beck, The Chronicon of All Lands, AE 521
Your father, Torh Menehadh, called heavy-hand for the weight of his blows in life, is dead. His great body is impaled upon three great spikes, waelstangs, and hangs before you dripping with the red ochre of the funeral rite. He was Aghar of Brenmawr, a rough patch of hill-land deep in the Adrasteian highlands, and spent his short life surrounded by blood, wine and fire.
His royal blood shows clearly in you. You stand twice the height of the Gohren, the low-men, your head adorned by tresses of red-gold hair, never to be shorn. You were born to royalty, though in these latter days only your strength, crown of golden hair and the title of aghar remain to prove it. The cunning men beyond the mountains have swindled your people of their riches for generations, and the constant battles between royal cousins have broken your finery underfoot for far longer.
Yet aghar, King, you remain as your father's blood drips onto your forehead. The hall of Brenh Bear-Father, your ancestor, remains to you - a cyclopean monument of stone carved into the windswept hillside. You wander it almost alone - a handful of highblooded cousins and kinsfolk dwell in collapsing towers and cellars, living on the meagre tribute offered by your Gohren subjects of the local villages.
The throne of your grandfather does not even remain to you, at the head of your empty, smoke-filled hall. As a hungry child you recall the glittering stones that adorned it - pawned in ransom for your father in his own youth, now lost forever to the foul pig-men, those-who-eat-filth, the foreigners. You sit on a high seat of wood, shoulder draped in a woolen cloak dyed a poor red, all that marks you from the bare-chested men and cloaked women of your once-regal hall, eating gruel and roast mutton like peasants.
All except
>>You bear one great heirloom, one last marker of your ancient nobility. What is it?
>The Maul of Brenh Bear-Father, a heavy iron warhammer, hafted with beautiful strips of red leather and gleaming with bronze adornment.
>The Star of the Red Moon, a heavy gold chain, adorned with a pair of beautifully carved rubies hanging as amulets from its front. The only gold left in your kingdom. A fortune beyond imagining, much coveted.
>The Horn of Anaraut Black-Eye, supposedly a hollowed drake's horn, bound in silver and brass, won in battle by your ancestor. An object of glory and honour to your lineage, fit to summon armies and shatter the will of your foes.
