Steinr, Vard, and Jotun
Introduction
During the Autumn Equinox385YE, the eternal Phaleron offered an opportunity to the Imperial Conclave to ask its librarians to perform Historical research on their behalf. With the support of the Conclave, Phaleron instructed its emissaries to scour its own shelves, and those of any Imperial library where it is welcome, to compose a report about the historical matter the Conclave was interested in. After some deliberation, a Declaration of Concord was raised by Eliza, on behalf of the Unfettered Mind, asking that the librarion Lioc to research the shared origination of the Vard, Steinr, and Jotun. A document was prepared for Eliza at the following Winter Solstice, and after that copies were made available to scholars across the Empire, as is now traditional with the historical research performed by the Civil Service department.
That document is presented here, verbatim.
Overview
Eliza, on behalf of the Unfettered Mind asked Lioc, the historian, to research the shared origination of the Vard, Steinr, and Jotun at the Celestial Library. This is the report the attendant has prepared.
Lioc cautions that there are very few documents in the library that relate to the earliest days of the Steinr and the Vard. Both peoples maintained a largely oral tradition with little written down. Likewise the Jotun histories live much more in songs and stories that they do in tomes or scrolls that might be shared with the Celestial Library. There are no primary sources written by the early people themselves, and it is only from people who wrote about them that we gain any real insight. Everything that the Celestial Library contains was written after the fact, sometimes generations afterward. Most of it comes from Imperial sources, with only a few references to these events in the scattered writing of the Jotun.
On the Origin of Steinr and Vard
The Steinr and the Vard fell together.
Steinr and Vard
Lioc chooses to present here a quotation from On the Vard and the Ushka, a piece of historical research compiled in 362YE by the Dawnish civil servant named Heléne de Coyne. It is also known as People of the North, and copies of the full document are held in several Imperial archives. Key parts and commentaries are presented by Lioc.
"The idea that the Steinr and the Vard are related is repeated again and again in both cultures. In Varushka particularly, the Vard are portrayed as the wise, realistic, and slightly cynical sibling while the Steinr are portrayed as young, impetuous, and impressed with their own foolhardy strength of arms. Wintermark tales by contrast characterise the younger brother as strong, courageous, and full of heroism while the elder Vard are pessimistic, old, and prone to procrastination."
The Steinr and the Vard are either one people, or two peoples brought together by shared experience and common origin. DeCoyne writes that "the Steinr... are the brothers and sisters of the Vard." They arrived together and they arrived in significant numbers. "According to the report of a past life vision experienced by Cecile Mantaign de Sarvos (referenced in Visions of the Past – Collected Visionary Experiences 284YE to 299YE compiled by Violan of Hart's Leap Chapter) the Vard were 'like a swarm; their campfires stretched across the horizon, they were not an army, but an army of armies.' The Vard were a nation on the move, but a nation almost entirely composed of warriors."
The Steinr, likewise, were an army or armies - because had they been significantly weaker than the Vard their cousins would certainly have consumed them.
Jotun
"One of the oldest references to what is clearly the Vard and the Steinr appears in Steinr oral history saying that they first encountered orcs in what is today northern Upwold. After some scattered engagements, the human force was rebuffed and chose to take a tactical retreat."
These orcs are the Jotun, although of course they are somewhat different to their modern descendants. Specifically, they would have been the northern faction of that nation, the orcs of Kallsea. Their lands stretched across much of what is today the western Empire; the Marches but also parts of Sermersuaq, Kallavesa, and especially Hahnmark.
From "On the Vard and the Ushka": "...there are scattered tales in which the two brothers have a third sibling, a middle brother, who is universally presented as foolish, headstrong, and overconfident – in these rare tales, the brother ignores the good advice of the older brother and refuses the aid of the younger brother, and is invariably devoured by a monster. Most scholars dismiss this as nothing more than a fictional motif, but I wonder if perhaps it is reference to a third force that arrived at the same time as the Vard and the Steinr, but came to some tragic end – perhaps at the hands of the orcs."
While this reading by Helene deCoyne is reasonable, it is also possible given the provenance of the quote that the Vard are speaking of the Jotun. Their concerns of Honour could easily be seen as "foolish" in the eyes of the Vard, their brashness evidently something they would have found especially distasteful. Yet of course the Jotun did not "arrive" with the Vard and Steinr; they already held their lands.
In the library is part of a poem written in the years after the creation of the Crown of Three Tears that parallels the Witan held between the Steinr, Kallavesi, and Suaq with an earlier Witan that would appear to have taken place between the Steinr, the Vard, and the "people of this place" - likely the Jotun ancestors. The poem mentions that this Witan leads to a binding that will last, and that will not be broken by treachery.
Early Clashes
For all their size, the Vard and the Steinr were in a desperate position. They had little in the way of logistical support, few farmers, and none of the supplies an army - especially an army-of-armies - would take for granted. They could match the Kallsean orcs blow for blow, but they could not match the prosperity of their thralls. After the initial engagements in what the Empire now calls "Upwold" the orcs brought their full might to bear against the "invaders" and it was clear that they were outnumbered if not necessarily outmatched. A Steinr named Iodane Krimnersbairn and a Vard named Vordak Aldrevich lead the diplomatic overtures to the Jotun, answering riddles to prove their wisdom, facing challengers to prove their strength, and impressing the Kallsean Jarls with their people's spirit and might.
Hospitality
Almost every culture in the world sets some store by the concept of hospitality. To quote Vadamar Tzimetovar Tzimetovitch's "The Road and the Glass": "Offering and sharing food, drink, and shelter creates a bond between people as powerful as any made with magical means. Honestly sharing what you have with a guest provides a powerful protection for the host; not only the guest is bound by hospitality - those who offer it are equally bound to keep the sacred trust. Yet there is one well-known limitation on hospitality; only creatures capable of offering hospitality can be bound by it."
At the grand Witan, the Jotun met the Steinr and the Vard as equals. They offered hospitality, and the Steinr accepted readily while the Vard accepted more grudgingly. Traditions of hospitality were exchanged, and the Jarls and Thanes and Boyars reached a concord.
Danger of Names
According to the Jarls of the North by the Jotun Mundr Skoli, when the Steinr came to Kallsea the Jarl of Jarls was named Sigurd Magnusdottir. The text speaks of people "like the marshfolk and the plainsfolk, but different, bound in armour and Honour, strong and fierce, warriors to match Jotun". An agreement was made allowing these people to settle in eastern lands, and talk of a people of whom, were they to be offered the Choice, "none would be thralls".
The tale takes up again in the time of Magnusdottir's grandson, themselves Jarl of Jarls, named Hordal Sigurdsson who is named "Wyrmslayer". At this point the Steinr and the Vard must have been in eastern Kallsea for as much as a decade. A feast was thrown where Sigudsson met with the "Jarl of Jarls" of the Steinr, Utred, and the Jarl of Jarls of the Vard, who they call "the Traitor" but which Echoes of the Labyrinth, vol. 5" mentions as being named "Katerina".
The text concerning the vision of Hengest Dun must be treated with caution, obviously. These visions of prior events are not reliable; they do not satisfy the test of rigour required to classify them as true accounting, for obvious reasons. However the events described in "Echoes of the Labyrinth" superficially match those Skoli describes in their work.
"Then the iron sword struck the breast of the wise, and blood was spilled in the sacred banquet hall. Let a curse fall on all those who raised blade that day against their neighbours, against the laws of host-right and guest-right. Let a curse fall on those who brought war to the hall of the Wyrmslayer, and let their ancestors turn away from them."
The Vard leader Katrina (or Katerina) assassinated the Kallsea Jarl of Jarls in the midst of the celebrations. The Vard rose up and butchered the Kallsean Jotun guests, and called for the Steinr to join them. They would take what the Jotun had, and build their own Empire. The Steinr, however, refused to join the Vard and according to Skoli "the iron sword and the hawk's horn raised banners, and blood was spilled, for the hawks were aghast at the slaughter of the guest-right their cousins had committed and the siblings turned their backs upon one another and their fraternity ended that day on the floor of Hordal's Hall."
Separation
"In all the stories, the Vard are depicted as much more violent than the Steinr, and more dedicated to conquest" writed Helene deCoyne. The Jotun texts paint the Vard as cowardly traitors, but there is nothing craven about these people. They fought the Navarr, and only the fact of the vallorn prevented them from subjugating those people. They ultimately conquered the Ushka, and helped found the nation of Varushka, but were themselves conquered in the process as modern scholars know.
In his essay "Conquest and Cooperation - the divergent destinies of the Starborn", Abacar I Riqueza of Atalaya theorises that the violent conquest of the Vard and the swift assimilation of the Steinr into their tripartite union with Suaq and Kallavesa "had their roots in the same phenomenon. Regardless of where they came from originally, the Steinr and the Vard were clearly cut off from their homes – homes they could not or would not return to." Simplistically, the Steinr sort to build new homes, the Vard sought to take them. This view obviously lacks nuance; but those Vard who were tired of the path of conquest were subsumed by the Steinr, and those Steinr for whom the thirst for battle still raged departed with the Vard.
Conclusion
The Jotun do not share an origin with the Vard and the Steinr.