The Northern Reach

[yxanthymir]

 

The bloody, hateful Troll Wars prepared the way for the area north of the Reach to become a blasted wasteland. The trolls, then masters of elemental magic, turned the land against the faerie, who answered with their own sorcery. Too much blood, death, and reckless magic on both sides transformed a great, vibrant jungle into a tortured landscape of shattered mountains, dusty plains, and twisted woods haunted by things cruel and wicked. Shunned by the faerie and abandoned by the trolls, the land was left to suffer from the evil the fighting spawned. 

The region might have recovered as the memory of the horror perpetrated there faded, but humanity sealed its fate. Migrating tribes of humans drifted into the the Autumn Lands over the years. Many made peace with the faerie living there, but the most warlike and savage among them refused to bend the knee to the Bright Folk. Instead they continued north and settled in the broken lands, where they would become the Men of Gog. 

The accursed place amplified the settlers’ violent tendencies. Where the First People lived alongside the faerie and showed great reverence for nature, the Men of Gog exulted in destruction. They built great cities in the dying lands, supplementing their meager crops by raiding south and feeding on the flesh of the changed and warped. All this caused them to lose some of their humanity and
become as monstrous as the land in which they lived.

Centuries later, the Men of Gog gathered up their armies under the Witch-King’s banner and marched south, bolstered by demons, undead, and other monsters. The horde shattered Edene and put the civilized lands in chains, precipitating the darkest time in Rûl’s history. 

The Kalasans ended the Witch-King’s hegemony, casting down the tyrant and sending his servants into the depths of the earth and to the Empire’s edges. Their corruption slowly transformed these remnants into the monstrous humanoids at large in the world today: beastmen, troglodytes, arachne, deep ones, and others. But those who fled for their ancestral homes simply disappeared into the dunes, presumably destroyed by the very lands they had helped to destroy. 

But those Men of Gog did not vanish. They transformed themselves, shedding their mortality and embracing an undead existence that let them survive long enough to visit vengeance against the descendants of those Kalasans who ended their rule. A century ago, the first Men of Gog returned, with tattered strips of leathery flesh stubbornly clinging to brown, brittle bones, clad in rotting armor of antiquated design. What started as a trickle soon became a flood of undead horrors whose ranks only grew when their victims rose from the dead.

Disturbing reports of the invasion soon reached Sixton, capital of the Northern Reach. The provincial governor hastily assembled an army of humans and orcs on loan from the Empire to stanch the flood. At the same time, the Matriarch of the New God’s cult called for a crusade against the undead threat, urging men and women from all across the Empire to shield the innocent. Thousands answered the call and traveled north, bringing with them ideas and advances from the south. Swelling the beleaguered ranks of 
the defenders, the crusaders soon outnumbered the Reach’s army and eventually took charge of protecting the Empire against the armies of the dead.

Now, decades later, a string of mighty fortresses stand fast against the undead, garrisoned by devoted defenders of the Empire, the New God, and all living things. These crusaders watch the desert for the hordes emerging from the dust clouds and give their lives to send the monsters back to the hell that spawned them.

Edited March 21, 2023 by yxanthymir (see edit history)