The Fallen Kingdom

## ***Fallen Kingdoms of the North***

At one time, the North was the home of culture and wisdom. It held the Rainbow Bridge Bifrost, a road to the Godshall of Valhalla, the battleground of the Plane of Spears, the Storm Court of Perun, and other far-flung realms of great magic and strong warriors. Those gateways were first stolen by the elves and moved—some say Bifrost once opened on Valera or near it—and then shut entirely. The greatness of the North remains because her people are stout and true—but many of her kings and cities are no more. The most famous are Aurvang, Issedon, and Nordheim.

* ***Aurvang:***On the shores of the Tearstain River stands the remains of Aurvang, once a dwarfhold of deep ring magic and a site of pilgrimage, for the eye of St. Ohdinn and the holy shield of the dwarf maiden Grajvar were both kept there. As a kingdom, Aurvang was famous for hard work, bitter strength of arms, and a ruthless streak in merchant dealings. Its last king, Regni Othinson, attempted to bargain with a fire dragon and was incinerated where he stood along with two brothers and a host of guardians for failing to budge from an offer that the dragon found insulting. Various fiery wyrmlings and linnorms still hunt reindeer, elk, and humans in the river valley; no settlement there has thrived since dwarven days, but their halls of treasure are still rumored to stand intact somewhere behind a stony door. Travellers often leave for the Ruins, perhaps one day a few will come back.
* ***Issedon and the Fallen Vanguard Kingdoms:*** Long ago the dwarf citadels of Aurvang and Nordheim allied with the humans of Issedon, a stronghold populated by warriors and powerful wizards from the legendary polar realm of Hyperborea (Outer Plane). Known as the Vanguard Kingdoms, these three sites guarded the world from the rage of Valin Locke. The alliance’s greatest creation was the Wall, a line of fortified bulwarks that sealed off the passes from the Bleak Expanse. For centuries, Valin Locke sent Giants and ice elementals through the valleys, but thanks to the Wall—strengthened by Hyperborean magic and dwarven stonemasonry—the Vanguard Kingdoms held his worst excesses back.

* + Tired of defeat, Valin Locke unleashed a new weapon on the North: living glaciers. Unstoppable masses of ice larger than the small kingdoms, these rivers of living ice moved slowly but inexorably south from the Bleak Expanse, crushing everything in their path. They destroyed Aurvang and swallowed Issedon, sundering both the Wall and the alliance that defended it. Although collapsed in many places, the stones and sorcery of the Falling Wall (as it is now known) still hold against the onslaught of Valin Locke and his creatures, but every year the glaciers topple another section and allow Valin Locke’s chilling power into the wider world. The pass is not entirely undefended, however. The undead remnants of Issedon’s defenders, ghosts and wraiths, still stand in defiance. A small lance of Death Knights command the defenders in their eternal war, and they do not suffer interference or suggestions that their troops should move on to their rightful rest.
* ***Nordheim:***The greatest of the Fallen Kingdoms was the first to fall, the shame compounded by the dwarves not knowing exactly how it came to pass. Not from siege, they say with a fierce certainty. During a terrible winter in which the overland routes to Nordheim were blocked, something crept up from the depths of the earth to extinguish its hearths and forge fires, destroying the dwarven capital from within. Dwarves variously blame frost giants and their masters, Valin Locke or freezing winds, fey conspiracies and elven ghosts, and even alien demons from the far side of the endless void. Whatever the truth, Nordheim was beaten first, and far worse, than any other fallen hall.