Nysera guards the ruined observatory of Vael Tiris, where an ancient eclipse hangs frozen above the mountains. Her crescent glaive, Night’s Mercy, can sever a creature’s shadow from its body—though every shadow claimed darkens one of the stars woven into her cloak.
She seeks adventurers brave enough to enter the observatory and destroy the imprisoned god within, before the eternal eclipse finally breaks.
Last guardian of the jungle-city Xotlan, Teyác wears obsidian gauntlets carved from the heart of a fallen star. Each blow traps a fragment of his enemy’s courage, making him stronger—but slowly filling his dreams with their final fears.
When the Drowned Sun Temple rises from the flooded canopy once every century, Teyác must defend its sealed gate. The priests claim a sleeping jaguar god lies beneath. Teyác knows the truth: it is awake, and lately it has begun whispering his name.
Adventure hook: Teyác hires the party to recover a stolen turquoise seal before the next eclipse. Secretly, he hopes they can also free him from his cursed gauntlets.
Long before the skalds knew his name, the North knew only the silence he left behind.
He was called Eirik Frostbane, the last son of a forgotten jarl whose hall was burned by oathbreakers while winter hid the blood beneath fresh snow. He survived not because the gods spared him—but because something older than the gods refused to let him die.
Three days he wandered the frozen mountains, wounded and delirious.
On the third night, he found a wolf cub beside the body of its slain mother. The cub growled despite barely having the strength to stand.
Eirik laughed through bloodied lips.
"Too stubborn to die... just like me."
Instead of taking the pelt, he shared the last of his food.
That single choice forged a bond that no magic, no king, and no death itself could sever.
The wolf became known as Sköll, though Eirik never truly gave him a name.
"He is not my pet," Eirik would tell anyone foolish enough to ask.
"He is my brother who chose another shape."
They hunted together.
Bled together.
Starved together.
Neither walked ahead.
Neither followed behind.
They moved as one soul divided into two bodies.
Villages whispered that Sköll understood every word Eirik spoke. Others claimed it was Eirik who had learned the language of wolves.
Neither denied it.
As years passed, legends grew darker.
Raiders who challenged Eirik rarely died by his axe alone.
If a man raised steel against the wolf...
Sköll vanished into the snow.
Then, before dawn, the screams began.
Bodies were found torn apart—not eaten, but destroyed with terrifying purpose.
Not one survivor ever admitted seeing the wolf.
Only glowing eyes in the blizzard.
But those stories misunderstood the truth.
The wolf was never the monster.
Eirik was.
Once, a foreign king ordered Sköll poisoned during a feast, believing the beast made the Viking weak.
The poison worked.
For exactly twelve minutes.
Sköll collapsed.
Eirik caught him before he hit the floor.
He did not shout.
He did not cry.
He simply whispered,
"Sleep, brother. I'll finish supper."
By sunrise...
The king's palace no longer stood.
Its gates were ripped from their hinges.
Its banners burned.
Its guards lay exactly where they had chosen loyalty over mercy.
The king was found upon his own throne.
Untouched by blade.
His crown rested at Sköll's feet.
No one ever discovered how he died.
Another time, Eirik was struck through the chest by a spear during battle.
He fell.
The enemy celebrated.
Then Sköll stood over his body.
The wolf did not retreat.
He did not howl.
He simply waited.
Every warrior who stepped forward disappeared into a storm of fur, teeth, and blood.
When the snow settled...
Twelve men lay dead around a single living wolf.
Eirik awoke hours later.
Sköll had not moved an inch.
The wolf had guarded him until his breathing steadied.
People often asked which of them was more dangerous.
Those who truly knew them answered the same way.
"Neither."
"The danger begins when one is harmed."
Because hurting Eirik meant facing a wolf that never stopped hunting.
Hurting Sköll meant awakening a man who no longer remembered mercy.
Together, they were disciplined.
Apart, they became vengeance itself.
Their loyalty was absolute.
No chain bound them.
No command controlled them.
No treasure tempted them.
If Eirik crossed the sea, Sköll swam beside the ship until exhaustion forced him aboard.
If Sköll vanished into the mountains for days, Eirik waited without complaint, knowing his brother would return.
Neither questioned.
Neither doubted.
Trust was as natural as breathing.