Legends of Belariath

The Northern Clans

Oral Histories

The varied Clans of the North have differing details on a number of points, but the general consensus and story remains the same and as follows...This is what their children are taught and what they believe to the bottom of their souls.

"Before the Harrower came, we were no different than any of the other tribes that call the mountains home. We hunted the deer and the rabbit and fended off the great cats that would hunt them as well. We lived simply and without worry, for our Gods were strong and watched over us. We needed nothing else, we cared for nothing else. We squabbled amongst ourselves as children are wont to do, fighting over women and food and the more comfortable of valleys down at the base of the mountains. It had always been so, and we would believed it would always be thus. The crowning of the Great Chief changed that. A powerful warrior who had challenged and defeated every Chieftain within two weeks' walk, he strode amongst us as a demigod, the Chosen of the Gods himself. The squabblings ended, for he was wise and just. Our simple life became even greater still, a Peace settled across the Clans.

Then the elves came.

Wheedling creatures, pompous and reclusive, haughty and weak. They dared come to us, pleading for our help against a powerful enemy. 'Come!' they cried to us. 'Come before the enemy marches upon your own lands!' Our Great Chief heard their pleas, listened to their words and compassion came to him. Oh, such scheming creatures, they played upon our Great Chief's compassion and pity and he riled our peoples to war.

We marched.

Through the Grass Sea and to the east and away from the winter winds, down to the south and there we were betrayed.

Betrayed! By the very same cowardly elves who had begged our help, they fell upon our peoples while they slept, exhausted from the forced march. Slaughtered in the night, most died choking on their own blood and the few that lived fled back to the north with the elves riding them down with their mounted riders. Through it all, a small handful carried the body of their slain Great Chief with them.

The mountains succored them at first. Most of the men were dead or maimed, the women were fraught and desperate, the children were in shock or struck dumb with terror. They hid in the mountain caves, cold desolate holes in the rock with no fire for fear of attracting the merciless elves who 'still' sought to end them. Our people teetered upon the edge of extinction. Starvation stalked them, many huddled into their furs and simply went to sleep, never to awaken, snuffed out by despair. Each day, one of the few remaining warriors would stagger out into the howling winter snows to try and find 'something' to feed the starving children. Most returned empty-handed and frostbitten, some never returned at all.

A long winter, the Longest Winter. For the Gods did not answer our calls, our priestesses were numb with horror, for their magics did not come to them, they could not heal their injured, they could not conjure their foods to feed the pleading children. Even the Gods had abandoned them. The last light of hope flickered and died. We were Lost. The last of their men staggered out into the snow with a broken dagger and blind desperation. None of the remaining women or children expected him to return, and he did not, not for three days. When he returned, his hair had gone shock-white, as white as his now-blind eyes. His hands were black with frostbite, he would not last more than a day and he was laughing, no, crying with joy!

In the winter wind, he had been Visited and the truth had been told to him there in that wind. The Gods had not abandoned them.

The Gods were dead.

Killed, slain by the elven Gods, betrayed just as they had been betrayed! Their holy divinity and immortality had been stolen and stripped from them and gifted to their children, the elven races. Yes, the vaunted elven immortality is nothing more than stolen divinity, stripped from the flesh of the Gods that come to their aid!

The few that remained alive were hushed and silent as the man continued to explain. The Gods were dead, he said, but they had not died completely. Their rage and hatred and desire for revenge had 'not' died. It had been born with their deaths and it had followed them from that bloody field. 'It' would save them, 'It' would strengthen them, 'It' would raise them back up to a place of power and then 'It' would lead them to revenge their people and their Gods upon those vile elven races that had betrayed them.

'What is 'It'?', they cried as one. 'What is this thing that will save us?'

The blind prophet cried his name for the first time, 'The Harrower, the Winter Wolf, Cragtooth!'

They had joy and wonder, a sense of rage and hatred filled them. They had 'not' been abandoned, their Gods had been 'taken' from them! They were 'not' forsaken, they were merely orphaned, but no more! They 'would' survive and they 'would' follow the Wolf and bring that vengeance back to their enemies, one day. One day.

For now, they had to focus on survival and they needed food. One of the women picked up a sharp rock and strode to the entrance of the cold cave. She would find food or die trying. A proud woman, a woman of the Wolf, the very first. But, she merely had to step outside, for the Wolf had already provided. There, in the snow and whirling wind, was a slaughtered deer. She believed that the prophet had found it, until she saw the bite at the throat! Cragtooth had delivered them!

Those first meals were had as wolves do. Raw and feasting, warm blood and tender flesh, and it was Good.

Our people survived that Longest Winter, each day, a new deer was found at the cave entrance, each night, the children and women gave thanks.

We were born from hatred and hunger, a lust for revenge and an appreciation for the Wolf. Forsake any of these things and may the Harrower feast upon you."

The Truth

Much of the above is true in a way. The barbarians 'were' approached by Elven tribes that were being assaulted by the encroaching Spirettes to the south and east. And their King did ally with the Elven nations to help stem this evil before it became unstoppable. They marched upon the Spirette lands, and once within range of those evil things, the Spirettes began enslaving them, barbarian and elf alike. Barbarians awoke to find themselves being slaughtered by their own and by elves. They broke and fled to the North, being followed by the enslaved ranks. That great King died on the field, throttled by his own brother who had been enslaved. That winter, they huddled in caverns, no fires and no food, terrified of being found by their enemies, though those enemies had long since returned to the south.

In the winter wind, one of the men 'did' make contact with something, but it was not of the Gods. It was a spirit, a violent vengeful spirit, newly born and very weak, but with great passion and a lust for blood and revenge. It 'heard' the despair of the huddling children and women and it came to them to listen. Their despair spoke to it, woke something in him. A need to lead again.

The insane man that it came to, its first prophet, he gave the spirit its name. That gave it focus and a manifestation. That of the Wolf, the Winter Wolf. With form came purpose and it hunted. It feasted upon the deer's spirit and grew stronger. It gave the meat to the starving women and children. It felt a kinship that it could not explain.

It knew a lust for revenge and a hunger to destroy those that had wronged these people, and it grew 'stronger' still with each kill that it made. In truth, in reality, the Wolf Cragtooth is, or was, the spirit of the slain great King that had led them to the south against the Spirettes.

Carried back to their mountains, a dead man already, his spirit was tormented by his failure, his utter desolation at seeing his people scattered and destroyed...He could not rest. So, howling on the wind, his spirit wandered for months and months in that cold winter, so angry, so hating, its memory was weak and it forgot 'why' it hated and and 'why' it was so angry. By chance, it was seen, so dimly by a near-dead madman with a broken dagger, and it was 'named'. A name gives strength, it gives purpose. He 'was' a wolf, and he knew what a 'wolf' looked like and what it did. Wolves 'hunt'. That purpose and form gave him strength and he got even more from feasting upon the deer's spirit. The first step.

War of the Harrower

The expected animosity toward the southern Illifiran Empire came only a year or so after those clans came to realize how racially diverse that Empire was at its heart. The clans were mobilized, energized and stoked to a white-hot heat of fury and need to destroy this abomination of a nation.

That year, spring arrived and then vanished again, winter rose again and smashed down upon the Empire, delaying crops and straining supplies. The Winter Wolf had come to the south and He had brought howling storms, blizzards and spirit beasts in the woods.

Under cover of that unnatural weather, ten thousand Clanmen descended through the northern wilderness, the Northern Marches, burning all settlements and outposts as they came. While they came, the Empire marshaled its own forces and fought a series of diversionary battles, delaying the enemy while a small team of Shamans and Priests and other spiritually oriented allies of the Empire traveled north and around the invading army, led and accompanied by the Empire's strongest blades and magics.

Their lands were deserted save for their slaves in the Lowlands, the Holds emptied of all men and their Shaman leaders, no one expecting that any Imperials would either dare, nor have reason to come to the heart of their enemy's land. Without the Harrower there to watch, it was relatively easy to find their way down into the depths of the Holds, finding a forgotten place where the bones of their forgotten Chief lay unburied and gnawed upon.

A small shard of the Harrower remained there and they fought and eventually made that dead Chief realize what had become of him and his people. That realization brought him regret and sorrow and a need to rest, something granted to him by those Shaman.

Miles away, the unnatural winter ended, the Harrower disappearing from the skies overhead without reason or rhyme. Disheartened and demoralized, the Clanmen scattered, broke on the field and fled back to the North.

Post-War Status

The inexplicable departure of the Harrower from the field of battle shattered the Clansmen's will to fight on. Most died on the field or from the long trek back to the North, harried and harassed by counter attacks by Imperial forces to ensure they stayed far to the North. The few that survived returned to their Holds only to find their Shamans unable to contact the Harrower. They had been abandoned again.

Most turned back to worship of the old Gods, a few still cling to cults of the Wolf. Their numbers have been drastically reduced compared to what they had been before the war. Today, fewer than six thousand men women and children are numbered amongst the Clans and they find themselves in a period of chaos and disarray, seeking spiritual guidance from any and all sources. With the loss of most of their men, the Lowlands are in disrepair from a lack of fresh thralls and slaves and hunger is a problem for the first time in decades.

More and more of their youth are leaving and heading South to learn from this Empire that defeated them right on the verge of ultimate victory.