Selltiriand

The Brown Frontiers many years ago

The Brown Frontiers, which occupied many leagues to the north and slid eastward along the desert highlands, were notorious. The borders were scarcely guarded, for the local garrisons preferred to keep watch in the roadside taverns scattered along the way, zealously watching out for the observance of order by local drunks and regulating all questionable situations with a heavy fist in a tan glove. They did not forget the strong alcohol - a faithful protector against cold, disease, and other evils that threaten the valor of the brave guard. From tavern to tavern, they traveled together in a state of extreme courage and valor, trying not to deviate from the familiar path beneath their feet and not to be distracted by extraneous irritants, unless those were a stray merchant or a wagonload of women. None of the representatives of the wild lands appreciated the merits of the warriors, so they periodically raided the poorly guarded carts, dragging lonely travelers deep into the dusty plains.

Beyond the wide road, winding between sparse inns, lay the vast sea of the Grey Wastes. By day one could see the occasional shadow of its inhabitants, be it the silhouettes of the fierce Beastmaster, or the slouching figures of brooding half-trolls scurrying about the pale skyline. And still farther, beyond the waves of stocky hills and the cold sky, were undiscovered and inaccessible ridges shrouded in the pale light of endless winter. Only in clear weather their distant outlines revealed their majestic existence to the most inquisitive gaze. And sometimes the glow of the distant rising sun covered the sharp shoulders of the mysterious giants with a scarlet mantle for a brief moment.

Beyond the northwestern borders of the Dark Frontiers lay the dense Grey Forests, where beyond them, nearer to the Farthlands, was a once mighty stronghold, now a shadow of the past: the Grey Shelter, called in ancient parlance in its heyday Selltiriand, the last dwelling place of a few wanderers and guardian elders who burned in the flames of time.

Eisteld was returning from one of his wanderings in the Grey Wastes, where he had studied the habits and causes of the Beastmaster's attacks on nearby villages. Their mannerisms, however, were a much more complex scheme of complicated, almost human relations with one another, and a blind herd mentality of unbridled hatred for anyone who differed in appearance or scent from them in any way.

The reasons for the constant raids were equally known to the diminutive king of the southern residence, and to the wise friar who risked his wagons and his own skin on the insecure tracts of the north. Observing for months the constant movement of restless tribes and depriving skilled scouts of the opportunity to return to the chiefs with reports, the wanderer turned his attention to far more interesting causes than hunger, inhumanity, and a perpetual thirst for violence. Unbroken by their indomitable desires, the tribes were especially violent on full moon days and invariably roamed in search of selestial deposits reaching the surface. Eisteld knew the futility of these attempts, for he had studied almost every rock in the Grey Wastes. If such deposits ever existed, they have long since disappeared beneath the earth's strata over the centuries.

Each time, watching the furious impotence of the angry tribes and the tattered land left behind, the wanderer asked himself questions: "What causes the awakening of an ancient and almost forgotten thirst? Whence such a longing for long-lost springs?" Since the disappearance of the Primordial, all of his creatures, creatures nurtured in the dust of the moon and serving him as unwilling slaves, have been dispersed, slaughtered, and the remnants driven into the darkest corners of Elradan. The Gurlluks, the Beastmasters, the Archathorns, disappeared from the daily fears of the Southerners, becoming legends, mingled with tall tales, eventually becoming ridiculous stories in front of the fireplace over a mug or two of beer.

Here on the northern frontiers, rumors of incursions were growing. The Grey Council was determined to learn what caused the sudden appearance of the twisted creatures, and how to ward off this threat from the unprotected Brown Frontier. To that end, Eysteld was sent here.