Only forward

The Jotun have returned to the Dour Fens, but the Bregas will not bend their knees to the orcs again.

Business Unusual

Bregasland rests fitfully. The Greywaters, and those who felt they had been hard done by, may have been mollified but there's still a dangerous undercurrent. Every time news comes from Anvil of this or that happening, there's a few who mutter “What would Shel do?” into their pints. Those who feel the hand of Imperial law was a little too quick to fall on them and their neighbours grumble in half-sentences, thick with allusion, about the injustices they clutch close to their breasts. To an outsider, it looks like business as usual in the Dour Fens, but to those who live there... they can see the ripples of Mathilda Fisher, what she set in motion, swirling and tugging and teasing just beneath the surface.

Business as usual... and then the Jotun invade. Not into the Fens, not into the shadow of Fisher's Rock nor into the lands claimed by the Greywaters. This time the armies march across the border from the south. From Liathaven, which the Jotun first named the Dead Forest but now, as they beat the wild forests back, they have taken to calling Ashvale. Two armies, the Fist of Ulven and the Southern Bear, crossing into the only area of solid ground in the whole territory, into Graven March.

Under the gaze of the king we come to the dour fens, to take back the lands of our ancestors. As the oldest tore open the mountain to find her answers in spite of the blizzard that sought to stop her, so we will tear open the Marches whatever force tries to deny us our prize.

Gjeirfund Haggarsdottir, General of the Fist of Ulven

Only forwards.

Bjorgthorn Hammerhand, General of the Southern Bear

The Only Dry Ground

Uncharacteristically, especially for an army that is usually a barely-contained whirlwind of joyful violence, the Fist of Ulven come with caution as their shield rather than with overwhelming force. There's an edge of uncertainty to their advance. All too often in the past, the Bregas marshes have been wound round with the warding echoes of Night magic, twisting and turning the paths and sowing confusion in their ranks.

The Southern Bear know no such reticence, moving with the confident surety that marks most of their maneuvers in Imperial territory. Sometimes they follow the lead of the Fist of Ulven, consolidating the gains they have made; other times they forge ahead eager to be first to the fray.

Not that there is much fighting, as the Jotun measure such things. There are no magical wards to slow their advance, and there are few defenders capable of putting up any serious resistance. A handful of levies, raised by the households of Graven March. Another handful of Strong Reeds soldiers, absent without leave from their Mitwold billet, snuck across the border to visit family or pursue an unwise assignation.

This is no reprise of the last invasion, when the Jotun sought to install Mathilda Fisher as steward of Bregasland. There are few yegarra among their ranks, and none march under the banner of the eels-on-the-water. Yanya Uranduln brings the Howling Bears to fight alongside the Fist, although there is no sign of the walrus banner of their habitual friend-and-rival Eisa Winterborn. Their place is taken by the Ice Fishers of Ldansk, that loose gathering of champions from minor clans across Kallsea who fight for the honour of Keirheim, and Tromsa, and other more distant lands.

A few wonder if the decision not to bring yegarra to Bregasland is intentional. Perhaps King Gudmunder Arasonn, under whose banners the Fist of Ulven fight, wishes to avoid comparison with the recent failed venture into Bregasland? To make it clear that this is about Jotun conquest and not the ambitions of a dead women and her clan. There's no easy way to know, but there is a rumour that for the first time in quite a while the Jarl of Jarls, the leader of the southern Jotun, does not lead the Fist of Ulven himself, entrusting their role in the conquest of Bregasland to his neice Gjeirfund Haggarsdottir.

Graven Fall

They may strike carefully, but Graven Rock falls to the Jotun almost immediately. The great grey-stone “pebble” quickly becomes a base of operations for the Jotun. Their caution about its twisting depths soon melts away, and the Howling Bears waste little time before beginning to explore its tunnels and passages, eager to prove their bravery. More practical Jotun among the Ice Fishers of Ldansk set the thralls they have brought with them the task of finding ways to fortify the four-mile-wide plateau. Perhaps Bjorgthorn Hammerhand, general of the Southern Bear, dreams of creating the largest fortification the Jotun have ever known using this ancient rock as a foundation. Such dreams will offer scant consolation to the Keeper of the Dour Fens, denied the bounty of that magical sinecure that lies beneath the rock for the second time in the space of a year.

From the rock, the armies advance on the town of Graven. In happier times, Navarr merchants and stridings would pass through here in their peregrinations north from Liathaven, or when returning to their home in the south. As well as trade goods, they would deliver and take people from Graven. Those who wanted to see the Empire would join an outward-bound striding, those who had nowhere else to welcome them would arrive with the inward-bound Navarr and perhaps choose to stay, seduced by the bleak beauty of Bregasland. Since the final fall of Liathaven, these stridings have become much rarer and it is perhaps only bad luck that sees two of them visiting Graven when the Jotun come.

They fight alongside their Marcher hosts, of course they do. But they pay a different price to the Bregas yeomen when the town falls. The orcs have not forgiven the Navarr for the indignities and the dishonour they have visited on them. Where they offer the Marchers the familiar Choice, they simply execute any Navarr that survives the initial fighting. Nothing cruel, nothing drawn out. A swift blow from axe or sword or spear and it is done. Each execution is accompanied by a few words, reminding the Navarr that this is what they reap for the dishonour, the indignity, the cruelty, that their people have visited on the Jotun. No mercy for the Imperial Druj.

If the Jotun had been more forceful, they would have pressed further into the unguarded marshes. As it is, their caution and their concern for obfuscating wards or hidden armies has slowed their invasion just enough. Gravenmarch is conquered, but the rest of Bregasland has time to react and to prepare. Time to realise what is happening and begin to make plans. The yeomen ready their bills and their bows, grimly eager for the moment when the Strong Reeds will come marching home and put the Jotun to flight again.

Game Information

The region of Gravenmarch has been captured by the Jotun. They have not made any inroads into the rest of the territory, and were mostly able to seize the land they have conquered thanks to the implacable advance of the Southern Bear. They are busy establishing defensive encampments around Graven Rock.

This means that the Keeper of the Dour Fens has again lost access to their bounty of mana, and cannot take advantage of the weeping menhirs until the region is back in Imperial hands.

Shadow of the Rock (Battle Opportunity)

• The Jotun are working to raise makeshift defences around Gravenrock and transform it into a ramshackle fortification

There is an opportunity for Imperial heroes to face the Jotun in Gravenmarch, and prevent them raising effective defenses around Gravenrock. Further details will be made available closer to the event.