Dark, primeval forests infested with monstrous horrors. Impassable mountain ranges besieged by unending blizzards. Isolated villages encircled by feeble palisades. City streets overflowing with beggars, crooks, and dung. Everlasting frigid winters plagued by famine and disease. Ever shorter later-blossoming springs. The Imperial Northlands. Once the strong northern arm of Ildir’s great empire, now the scarred and mutilated stump of vestigial civilization. There was a time when the Northlands were thought to herald a brighter future for Runera. A premonition that has proven gravely and tragically erroneous. At the heart of the Northlands lies Andaris and the infamous Godspire, once the site of Balcorion’s betrayal, now the [[Hand of Alor|Hand]]’s seat of power. Within cities such as this, one can marvel at the advances beholden by “metropolitan sophistication.” Common to any back alley are the organized criminal gangs dealing in the murder of rivals, the smuggling of chattels, the prostituting of the destitute, and the trading of drugs such as [[Sannish|sannish]]. They are joined in their depravity by the corrupt and brutish city watch, who themselves enjoy a rigorous schedule of harassing and hanging the unmanish, beating and robbing the downtrodden, and of course conspiring with the very same criminals who they are tasked with bringing to justice. Yet these escutcheon-bearing bandits are wise enough to avoid the temples, sacraries, and bethels, which are of course the eternal territory of the golden and gleaming Templars, who busy themselves with the uprooting of heretics, the burning of witches, and the preaching of the [[Alor|Allfather]]’s good word. Lost amongst this lechery are the common folk, who – if they are fortunate enough to avoid the tragic fate of a beggar or [[Sannish|sannish]]-fiend – will find themselves in a cutthroat rivalry for ever-dwindling opportunities.  In the wild and untamed countryside, little is improved. Villages isolated by vast distances and rugged landscapes find themselves beset by the countless abominations left in [[Coalescence]]’s wake, defending themselves by raising meager barricades and paying outlandish sums for the services of disloyal mercenaries. In the direst of circumstances, they send missives to the [[Hand of Alor|Hand]] beseeching the aid of a Vigilant Brother, but to do so is considered a last desperate resort, for every Northerner knows that a black brother’s arrival rarely heralds the end of all troubles. For if a crow deems the crisis unable to be mended by silver or steel; if the curse of lycanthropy has spread through more than three households; if the heretical cult has infiltrated the local temple and its clergy; if too many [[Elves|elf]]-folk have become infected with ghoulism; then the village and all its people may yet need to be Cleansed. Yet in times when these foul creatures are at kept at bay, the many evils of [[Men|man]] begin to tighten their stranglehold. The earls of [[Andar]], the bhren of [[Wlendén]], and the thegn of [[Dunrith]] ride from village to village, dragging [[Men|men]] and boys from their cottages, thrusting rusty spears and broken blades into their hands. These misbegotten souls are then spirited to the manifold blood-soaked battlefields of the Northlands, where they are forced to lay down their lives for a lord whose name they can neither remember nor [[Spell List|spell]]. These [[Men]] die in legion conflicts, some drowning in the bracken and bloody swamps of the Rivelund, others scalped by [[Middyr|tidesmen]] shieldbearers on the crimson shores of the Westmark, and countless more collapsing in bloodied heaps on the fields of the Cyhrn March as their bellies are riven open by the shrieking [[sihyr|sihyrs]] of [[Tir-an-Eýr|An-Eýran]] caehernn. For the few supposedly lucky souls that remain at home in their hamlets, thorpes, and boroughs, an even grimmer fate awaits them. Famine fueled by the burning of crops and the outlandish tithes of greedy lords leads to the untimely deaths of both the young and the old, and in the darkest of circumstances, the forced consumption of the most repulsive form of sustenance imaginable. Then come the reavers, the raiders, and the defilers. Soldiers of the enemy, whomever that may be this winter, or deserters from the king’s army, who both unleash wanton destruction and bedlam as they set aflame the cottages of the destitute, steal meager wealth from the needy, and horrifically abuse the vulnerable. With such tragedy always at hand, there are many who would seek their fortunes in the wild and forgotten places of the Northlands, but these fools would be most glad and fortunate to find only ash and dust in these ancient recesses. For within [[Berwyn Forest]], Eldin’s Brake, and countless other shadowy thickets they will be met with the latent horrors of [[Coalescence]]: ravenous wyverns, sorcerous leshy, petrifying basilisks, and many others, which are usurped only in their treachery by the rarer, lost, and unnamed abominations that dwell in the darkest places of the world. Within the crumbling halls of ruined Ildirian strongholds, Eavrish barrows, and [[Elves|elvish]] temples, treasure hunters seek gold, gems, and [[weapons]] of [[Spell List|spell]] forged steel, but they discover only restless spectres, accursed wights, and deathly baenn sí who in their torturous undeath hide vile secrets that are better left buried amongst the bones of those whose lives were cut shot by Balcorion’s cataclysm. Even those few scavengers who return to civilization with meager treasures in hand will find themselves maimed in both body and spirit, forever unwilling to again venture into those sunless places in search of greater profit. But such is the nature of the Northlands. Paltry prosperity is bought only with grave tragedy, while hope is a scarce currency regularly stolen by cruel reality.  For many, these seemingly endless misfortunes are too much to bear, and all longings for a better future are extinguished by the unrelenting decay of civilization, benevolence, and stability. Some, however, claim to have glimpsed flickers of promise upon the darkening horizon. If they are to be joined in their optimism, however, is left to the reader’s determination.