Prologue

*This is the backstory of the campaign which was developed by both the GM's and the players both before and after the start of the game. This article is unfinished and will remain so as long as the game continues to be played and there exists potential for more information to be revealed and more characters to be introduced. As an initial rule of thumb this article will not concern itself with any event preceding the birth of King Skallagrim "the Tall" of Rogaland in AD 770. Any event occurring at or after the start of the game in AD 900 should be detailed in its relevant session article.*

## The First Generation (770-845)

The story begins in the petty kingdom of Rogaland, in Norway, in AD 770, where reigned King Halfur Hjorliefsson and Queen Gierlaug Halfdansdottir (daughter of King Halfdan "the Mild" Eysteinsson of the famed Yngling dynasty said to descend from the god Freyr). That year a son was born to them called Skallagrim, later to be known as King Skallagrim "the Tall" of Rogaland. The boy grew to be a strong and mighty warrior by his seventeenth winter and spent the first bloom of his manhood exploring, adventuring, and pillaging many lands, including participating in the sack of Lindisfarne in AD 793, a deed which the Christians held in infamy for many generations.

In AD 805 Skallagrim succeeded to the throne of Rogaland and a few years later wed Rannveig Olvirsdottir, a noblewoman of Telemark. They had three sons:

* Hoskuld (815-875), later called Fjandi-Hoskuld
* Sulke (820-875)
* Frodi (825-875)

In the early part of his reign, as had been the case before it, Skallagrim was seldom to be found in his own hall except in winter, and even then he may have been as likely to be wintering as the guest of any other hall than as the master of his own. He was largely content to leave the governance of his lands in the capable hands of his wife Queen Rannveig while he voyaged across the seas pillaging many lands. In AD 835 Queen Rannveig died, which at long last obliged Skallagrim to retire from the Viking life at the age of sixty winters.

Not one much for mourning, he decided to procure for himself a new pretty young wife to comfort him in his old age. The next year he dispatched messengers across the sea to the king's halls of many lands in search of a fair young beauty, promising to pay generous bride price (the greater part of a lifetime of plunder) for any maiden who he found to his liking. The search concluded after four years when all the messengers had returned and agreed that one called Ingrid "the Fair", daughter of King Horik of Denmark, was the most beautiful maiden in that part of the world.

In AD 840 King Skallagrim dispatched his son Prince Hoskuld to Denmark bearing a great fortune with which to retrieve Princess Ingrid. On the voyage back, however, the two fell in love. On their return to Rogaland Ingrid was promptly married to King Skallagrim, but the love between her and Hoskuld had not abated. They carried on an affair four four years. During that time, In AD 843, Hoskuld sired a son on her, called Skallagrim, though King Skallagrim supposed the child to be his own.

After four years of being unknowingly cuckolded by his own son, in AD 844 Skallagrim and his two other sons (Sulke and Frodi) at last discovered Hoskuld and Ingrid *in flagrante delicto* in his own bed. In a jealous rage, Olaf at once drew his sword, split open Ingrid's skull, and castrated Hoskuld before Sulke and Frodi restrained him from dealing the final death blow. Once his murderous ire abated, Skallagrim summoned Ingrid's maid Thorkatla to demand, on pain of death, what she knew of the affair. The maid confessed that she hade known of the affair and knew the true parentage of Ingrid's son. King Skallagrim then pronounced his son Fjandi-Hoskuld (literally "Hoskuld the Fiend").

Hoskuld was then stripped of his princely possessions and forced to sleep in a shack that had once been a kennel, sleeping on straw not often changed and subsisting on gruel barely thicker than rainwater in a mud puddle. He was confined there for the winter, tended to by Thorkatla, who had also become like a mother to his son. They remained there for the winter while Hoskuld healed from his grievous injury. The following spring Hoskuld, Thorkatla, and the infant Skallagrim were escorted to the border of the kingdom and sent on their way.

The exiles went to the court of King Halfdan the Black of Agder, Hoskuld's second cousin by virtue of their mutual ancestor King Halfdan "the Mild" Eysteinsson of Vestfold and Romerike, and Hoskuld was accepted into the king's service as a huskarl.

After the exile of Hoskuld, Skallagrim settled the inheritance of his lands and fortune between his two remaining sons, making Sulke heir to the greater Kingdom of Rogaland, and partitioning off the Earldom of Haugaland for Frodi.

One day in AD 845 Skallagrim was riding a marvelous white horse called Hvitefrax near some cliffs overlooking the fjord. The animal had been part of his wife's dowry and had been brought all the way from King Horik's own herd in Denmark. Suddenly starting for no apparent reason, the horse bolted, Skallagrim lost control of the reins, and both rider and horse went plummeting off the cliff to their deaths.