Background

For forty years, the good and honorable king Castus has ruled the Heorots, supported by his knights and vassals. In the two decades since he turned back the armies of the Guth and their allies in the Battle of Bruna, his lands have been peaceful, and his people have prospered. A marriage to a Princess of the Aels, Jenevra, united the land beneath his rule, and he has descended into old age a wise and respected man.

That is, until the Moor Stepper began its unholy reign. From the outskirts of the kingdom came rumors of a vile monster, who strikes in the middle of the night, feasting upon the bowels of its victims. Little thought was given to this threat, until the Moor Stepper came to Castus’ fortress, and started attacking the women and children of Lloegyr, and dragging them off to their deaths in the moor. Castus sent his knights to slay the beast, but the Moor Stepper is both cunning and powerful, and has ambushed a dozen of his knights individually, brutally slaying them all.

His court in shambles, and his greatest champion unable to face the Moor Stepper, the desperate king turns to a foreign power, the Rolf, Lord of the Kraki, to bring his great champion Odvar to the fight. Odvar’s might is the last hope of the Heorots, and so Rolf hopes to exact some sort of tribute from the aging king. In the custom of both peoples, they agree to meet on a scuttled ship, to negotiate the terms of Odvar’s service...