The story of Austmer the Renegade:
At the time of the Last War, as the Imperial armies marched from Nidaros, those who kept to the ways of the Old Gods sought the counsel of Austmer the Hierophant, and he assured them that their faith would be rewarded. The druid petitioned the Green Mother and the Ancient One for protection, and from their Grove arose a great beast of the dark forest; this terrifying monster broke the ranks of the Winter Court as they marched on Steinbjorn, helped the Resistance turn the tide in the woods and mountains of Biarmia, and gave the Skarans and Halogans enough time to muster their forces to harry the Eladrin all the way back to the Alabaster Gate. Austmer became a hero, and the Winter Court was wiped from the face of the North.
This is the story that everyone knows… but it is only part of the truth.
The Hierophant did petition the Green Mother and the Ancient One in their Grove… and he was refused. The wars of mortals are trifles to such beings, and they would not intervene. As Austmer left the audience, his despondency turned to desperation… and then to anger. How dare they refuse to help their people, how dare they refuse HIM, their faithful servant?
His anger turned to purpose – he would MAKE them see reason, MAKE them help… but how?
In the shadows of the Hierophant’s circle, darkness stirred. The broken old woman, the Crone, offered a way for the Hierophant to bend the Ancient One to his will… all that was needed was a child. One child, and the Crone would deliver to the druid the aid he sought from the ancient fey.
In the chaos of the days that followed, no one was quite sure when the little halfling girl disappeared. Austmer, Freythor, and Fredegar organized a small group to search, but their efforts could not be spared for long as the Imperial armies approached.
No one knew the suffering of the girl…
No one save the Crone, who relished in it.
No one save the Green Mother, whose heart-tree died around the girl as her suffering corrupted the wood.
No one save the Ancient One, whose woody limbs twisted and grew as the girl breathed her last, whose boughs broke into a mangled snarl of brambles, and whose blackened heart now knew only hate and hunger.
No one… save Austmer, who handed the frightened girl to the Crone on the night she disappeared.
The beast of the dark forest that arose from the Grove, the Blackroot, the remnants of the Ancient One, did as Austmer commanded; it tore into the Imperial Army, and with the guerilla tactics of Freythor’s men and the coordination of the Mist, the Winter Court were stalled and stymied at every turn.
The Eladrin paid a terrible price at the gnarled claws of the Blackroot, and once the Skarans and the Halogans joined the war in force, the rest… is history. However, whatever price the Eladrin paid was not the full sum due for the terrible rite performed.
In the rare cases when the heart-tree of a great Fey has died, she usually passes from this world into the Great Wilds or simply quietly into oblivion, but for the Green Mother this was not so; her tree had not simply died, and the stain of the slow murder of that young halfling girl starving in hollow of the Green Mother’s tree had corrupted not only it but the whole of the Grove to its roots. Even though the war was over, the corruption remained. Tied to the Grove, to the Blackroot, and unable to pass quietly, she fell to that corruption, forever tainted into the Spriggan Mother.
As the Grove mutated and the blights arose from the roots of her dead tree, as the Blackroot roamed the forest for Imperial stragglers, the Primal Sisters, her sister dryads, sought to quell the raving Mother, but she repelled them, locked them from her Grove, and set about to plan her dark vengeance on all mortals not of four legs, not of the air, the waves, or the field, on all those who had once revered her as Mother.
Unable to calm her madness, the Primal Sisters sought out the Hierophant for aid. No one knew his part in this atrocity save the Crone and the druid himself, and while he still controlled the Blackroot, this new horror was beyond his ken.
Austmer summoned the Crone, but she did not come – she had what she wanted already – but someone did answer. Resplendent in black feathers and as pale as moonlight, She appeared. She would show the Hierophant how to seal away the Mother, the Blackroot, and the Grove… for a price… a price this time only Austmer would pay.
Take the worldroot heart of the Mother, cage it in cold iron, and forge it into a blade. Drive the blade through the Blackroot into the hollow of the dead heart-tree. Only then will the Sisters be able to quell the Grove and seal it all away behind their Vale.
And so it was and as each day passes, the memories of the Hierophant become cloudier… all except this memory, the memory of his shame. Her price, his memories, sealed the pact and forged the blade, weakened the Mother so she could be sealed away. The Blackroot and the blade rest pinned to the heart-tree near the center of the twisted Grove… but can even such powerful seals withstand the growing rage of the Spriggan Mother, coiled in the heart of her black blade?
The story of Master Freythor, commander of the garrison at Steinbjorn:
When the rebellion began, Master Freythor brought together those he knew were loyal to the cause and drove the provincial overseer from the keep. He sent word to the fledgling councilors in Skara that Steinbjorn would stand to the last man against the Imperials... and if Skaran aid had not come quickly enough, Freythor's bravado might have been prophecy. Still, had the Blackroot not turned brave Eladrin corsairs into crimson stains to feed the elder trees of the forests, even the initial battalion from Skara would not have been enough. While the monster harried the Imperials, Freythor himself rode out to beseech Alrek (who would be Jarl) in Haloga to put his men in the field.., and the words of the old dwarf moved the mountain of a man to action. Freythor, Alrek, and the bravest Halogans rode north, gathering Skaran regulars as they headed east on the Imperial roads, but it was Freythor who led the combined forces east past Steinbjorn, past Framenturn, and down into the heart of Nidaros itself. He was at the Alabaster Gate the day the Winter Court razed their own city to the ground, as they spat on his victory.
Only when the time came to sign the peace could Freythor not be found.
The story of Ylva, leader of Brœðralag Ulfveiðr:
Many know the story of how Ylva bartered with the fledgling Council for ownership of the Eladrin keep that served as the Imperial College of Sorcery in Hrim at the end of the Last War, but today’s story is not of that bargain… but of another, more personal bargain…
Raven-haired Ylva, wild, rebellious child of the forests and fields of Skara – she who would not be tamed by any man or beast. Her family was wealthy, prominent – well-to-do nobles, but still under the Imperial boot, as were all in the provinces. Proud sons and daughters of Hrim, her family had always adhered to the Old Ways, so when the Eladrin infantry marched through the cities, towns, and villages to burn the Groves and wipe away the Old Gods – they stood firm… and paid the price.
Scarlet-haired Ylva, weak, weary, choked with smoke as her darkening lifeblood wept from her gut, boiling on the paving stones in the burning hall of her family’s estate, the corpses of her brothers and sisters already blackening beside her in the flames – she who would not be tamed, even by Death itself. She offered an oath to the fires that night… and was heard.
White-haired Ylva, wolf-eyed, hungry, ravenous… for vengeance. She made the Pact, swore the oath, and arose from the ashes of her home changed, renewed, anointed. She who would not be tamed, not by Skara, or Einmanudr, or whatever else might lurk in the shadows of the forests, the mountains, or the deep places of the world. She took up the sword… and was feared.
The story of Shadow and Whispers:
Songs are often sung for those who took up arms to break the yoke of Imperial oppression and defend the Old Ways, but rarely about those who worked in the shadows, wielding words against the Eladrin. Moving like Mist – quietly, nearly unseen, all-encompassing – this became their name: Thoka, and although less gleaming, their weapons proved no less sharp. Espionage, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation – these were their tools, their craft, their Art, and none were as skillful as Shadow and Whispers. For months, as the Eladrin beat the brush in vain, Whispers plucked timely, valuable information from behind their lines as Shadow covered their tracks, often in the bodies of unwary, unfortunate corsairs. All would have been for naught without the tireless work of those hidden in the Mists.
But this is only part of the story… for where do such men go when there is no war left to fight?