Skjolnir & HaarnThe Wolf Knight

Skjolnir & Haarn – The Wolf Knight

A pair bonded from youth, raised as siblings. Skjolnir riding atop his brother Haarn is a fearsome sight that can leave even the sturdiest warriors fleeing for their lives. Whilst they are usually far from the fringes of civilization, the pair have become caught in the web of Dragonblight in Limlight, having briefly visited the town to trade furs for supplies.

The Ulvar clan of Karkanoth’s wilds is infamous among merchants, travellers and villagers in the vast plains of the north. Men and dire wolves live side by side, treating each other as kin. Yet the men are not savages, nor are the wolves mindless beasts. Intelligence between the two, utilizing each other’s strengths, gives them a keen edge in the harsh lands they roam. None exemplify this more than Skjolnir & Haarn, a brotherly pair who had left their home, after Skjolnir crafted a saddle for Haarn. This act was seen as something abhorrent to the clan however, an implication that Skjolnir was greater than his wolfly brother, and detracted from his brother’s natural instinct. Though neither saw it this way, and Haarn followed his brother into exile.

Now the two are outlaws, wandering the wilds of Formen and Draksborne, becoming known outlaws who pillage caravans and poach forests. Even still, they find a living in trading hides to villages where they can, whilst Haarn remains in the woods nearby, awaiting his brother’s return. Such is their story now in Limlight, though the pair have become trapped in the quarantine that now surrounds the town, as a plague tears through it. Their only hope of escape is to help the other survivors break down the plague, and flee far from Draksborne thereafter.

A barbarian raised among the Ulvar clan of Karkanoth, a group of wildlings who live side by side with direwolves. They hunt, eat and rest as the wolves do, creating a strange cross-species family that have been long pursued for the havoc they wreak upon the lands they visit. Skjolnir left the inner-embrace of the clan a year past, along with his wolf-brother Haarn. They have since wandered the wilderness, mostly free from pursuit.

In the empty plains of Karkanoth’s east, clans of freefolk roam that terrorize trade routes moving north and south between Greypeak and Draksborne. Whilst the kingdom has erected military outposts to try prevent this, clans like the Ulvar have easily outwitted these vain attempts. Skjolnir was raised among this life; bloodshed and pillaging. Even as a pup, he was no stranger to death and gore. Such was life among the Ulvar, the Wolf Men of the Plains. Wildlings who are seen as little more than a superstitious tale and rumour by those who have not watched as Men and Dire Wolf assault a caravan in tandem, tearing its occupants limb from limb and feasting upon their flesh, before scrounging what they can from its stores.

Skjolnir had formed a bond with his wolf-brother Haarn from when Skjolnir was still a boy, and Haarn was just a pup. Haarn was rejected by his mother, and Skjolnir, against his own father’s behest, saw it as his duty to take the pup and tend to it. He taught Haarn to hunt, to fight and to stand up for himself within the pack, even if they saw him as a runt. This in turn lowered Skjolnir’s own standing within the clan, bringing shame to his father. Skjolnir was resourceful, more than most of his kin. Whilst they knew of metalworking, tanning and carpentry, none had ever aimed to use this knowledge in a way to benefit the Dire Wolves they called their kin, who saw such tools as an insult to their perfect primal abilities. When Skojlnir created an armour set and saddle for Haarn, so that he might ride the runt without difficult, it was the final straw within the clan.

The two were exiled, and quickly became outlaws in the lands of Formen and the north of Draksborne instead. Though Draksborne has become their favoured place, for the vast emptiness of the land in the wake of the recent Blight has meant there are few who hunt them, and fewer to spread word of them. Their journey in the past year has led them further south, slowly discovering more of the vast world beyond the plains they once called home. In the village of Limlight, Skjolnir aimed for the pair to rest temporarily, while he traded hides for supplies and made adjustments and fixes to the pair’s armour. Yet it seems the pair are an ill omen, for the village has now become engulfed in resurgence of the Blight, and the wolf brothers are trapped in quarantine until the disease is no more.