Faction overview: Varangur – the three faces of Korgaan

A Varangur who falls without a weapon in hand doesn't go to the pyre. Their clansmen bury them in a shallow grave, far from the great funeral fires, and their spirit wanders the frozen land. Until one day the Great Deceiver comes to meet it, leads it back to its broken body, and makes it stand up.

One more time. One last time. And this time, they'd better die properly.

Part one: the god who came back

The ones who stayed

The warlike clans of the Varangur have lived in the cold lands of northern Mantica for thousands of years. In the Time of Ice most men were drawn towards the Republic of Primovantor. The Varangur stayed. They held on in their great halls, and instead of fearing the cold and fleeing it, they embraced it and became masters of the wild tundra and the slopes of the Ice Mountains. Only the dwarfs were more stubborn, and it was that stubbornness more than anything that kept them there.

They turned away from the world, grew inward-looking and cut off. They rejected all the new "gods". They were looking for something more.

Something waiting

And something was watching, and waiting. Something immeasurably old stirred and woke. Eyes that had once seen everything turned on the Varangur, looked into their souls – and found what they needed to return.

It wasn't one of the old Celestians worshipped by the great realms of the south. It was something ancient and malevolent – a deity long neglected, reduced to a fading shadow. The Celestians had once pushed it aside, and the mortal races had cast it off. Now it began to whisper in the ears of the Varangur's skalds and magi, carefully at first, then more and more boldly. Gods only truly live as long as someone believes in them, and this one had found a new source of faith and mortal feeling to feed on.

Korgaan, one of the Primogenitors – the Old Gods from before the Celestians – and once the god of air, had found a way back.

Warrior, Reaper, Deceiver

The basest emotions are the easiest to stoke: hate, anger, jealousy and ambition. They're powerful too, and war – between the clans and against the rest of the world – gave Korgaan ever more of that nourishment and bound him ever more tightly back to the world.

He appeared to the clans in three guises: the Warrior, the Reaper and the Deceiver. He united them in a shared hunger to make war on the world, and divided them with distrust, as each clan strove for the approval of whichever face of Korgaan it followed.

Korgaan is fickle and cruel. He began to shape a new culture in his own image, and the Varangur ventured out again – south through the frozen wastes, on great expeditions by land and sea, raiding the fringes of every great empire. Coastal settlements came to dread their raids. The clans thrived, and their primeval god swelled with power, sowing havoc in the wake of the chaos Winter was spreading.

Part two: from the Consul's fleet to the Reckoning

The fleet that never came back

After decades of ever more violent raiding, the High Consul of Primovantor ordered a great fleet to sail north and crush the Varangur once and for all.

A few days after the fleet set sail, the War with Winter reached its apocalyptic end. Primovantor vanished beneath the newborn Infant Sea as it rushed in to drown the lands of men.

The fleet was never seen again.

Faith on the edge

As the Infant Sea swallowed the Republic and the Time of Ice drew to a close, the world was in upheaval. Korgaan needed all his newfound power just to keep his hold on the mortal world, and the clans' faith began to waver – courage was giving way to fear. The old god had woken into a new world, full of new deities and rivals, and he wasn't about to give up his foothold easily. His followers had to be absolute in their belief, their purpose and their worship – and nothing unites like a common enemy.

The Reckoning

Korgaan led the clans to war against the armies of the Wicked Ones – the deceitful, insidious deities imprisoned in the hellfires of the Abyss. He had not forgotten that it was their forebears, the Celestians, who once cast him aside.

A vast horde of clansmen crossed the treacherous Frozen Sea, carved a bloody path through the edge of the Ogre Lands and drove into the heart of the craggy, fiery peaks that ring the infernal scar of the Abyss. Driven on by Korgaan's will, the fanatical warriors pushed everything the Wicked Ones could muster right back to the very edge of the Abyss. All but spent, they claimed victory over the power of the new gods and proclaimed Korgaan the only true, complete god in Mantica.

The Varangur withdrew north, and the survivors spread the word of Korgaan and of the time the clans now call the Reckoning.

Part three: the Shattered Clans

On the shores of the Frozen Sea

The Varangur tribes hold the lands around the edges of the Frozen Sea, north of the Abyss. Their domain shifts: sometimes it reaches deep into the mountains as far as Drakes End, sometimes east and south into the Ogre Lands. Infighting, savagery and a certain wanderlust mean their grip on conquered land waxes and wanes.

The other peoples of the north look on them the way the elves of the south look on their dark cousins – with loathing, pity and respect all at once. The Varangur see life very differently from the other clans, but they share many of the same traits and traditions and are counted as one face of the peoples of the north.

To the outside world they're a fractured society. Bloody feuds and skirmishes keep them from forming any lasting alliance that could threaten the wider region – which is why outsiders call them the Shattered Clans. They seem mostly contained. For now.

But many fear another Reckoning is coming – and no one can be sure that this time the clans would turn on the Wicked Ones again.

Favoured and cast aside

Those who enjoy Korgaan's favour may receive strange and wonderful gifts from him. Those who displease him are quickly cast aside. The clans' warriors hone their skills fighting each other, in small raids to the south, against other northern clans and, more recently, against the Northern Alliance.

Every Varangur's destiny is to die in battle, bathed in glory. To prove their worth and join their god in his eternal war hall in the afterlife, they must die with weapons in their hands. Those who fall unarmed are disgraced – and that's when the Great Deceiver comes for them. The ones he returns to their bodies are the Draugr, the "again-walkers": shambling, desperate corpses given one last chance to die as they should – fighting.

Chill

The Varangur's armies and customs are organised much like those of other northern clans – and so like the Northern Alliance, ruled from the distant and despised city of Chill. Varangur chieftains and kings spy on the people of Talannar Icekin, the lord of Chill, with no small amount of envy, imagining the riches and power that taking the city would bring them. They suspect Talannar is hiding something behind its walls, and they've tried both subtle and direct ways of finding out what. Many northern tribes have sworn themselves to the Alliance – the Varangur remain mistrustful and hostile.

And among the Alliance's ranks fight the remnants of eastern tribes laid waste by Varangur raids.

Part four: Korgaan's warriors

A core of ice

The bulk of any Varangur war party is made up of bands of tribal raiders – men and women carrying every weapon imaginable. The only thing these bands have in common is the extreme toughness and hardiness that every northerner is born with.

The Bloodsworn are warriors who have made a blood sacrifice to Korgaan in exchange for unnatural strength and resilience. In heavy armour and with even heavier weapons, they form the solid core of any Varangur force. Reavers were once Bloodsworn who put on the Mask of the Reaper and couldn't contain the bloodlust it gave them. Their minds broke. They fell into deep psychosis and became wild, savage, debased beasts.

The Huscarls of the Shattered Clans are commonly known as the Sons of Korgaan, believed to be blessed by the god himself. These heavyset veterans are the most elite and ferocious fighters the Varangur have. But they answer only to Korgaan, and whole groups of Sons have been known to vanish in the night halfway through a raid, called away by their god to some unknown end – even against the wishes of their chieftain or king. Very rarely, a Son of Korgaan succumbs to the Mask of the Reaper too. These cursed warriors care nothing for their own lives and hurl themselves at the enemy in a frenzy of bloodlust.

Night Raiders paint themselves black, go without armour of any kind and move in complete silence. Only when they've crept within a few feet of the enemy do they unleash a hail of axes and arrows before closing in for the kill. Clan horse raiders prefer to strike at supply trains and outposts, and in battle they wait for the enemy to fall out of position, then hit and run with real skill.

Trolls, fangs and giants

Not all trolls are created equal. Many snow trolls of the Ice Mountains have sworn themselves to the Northern Alliance, but a good number have turned to a power they feel closer to – Korgaan, a god their ancestors remember, one they know played a great part in the old Troll Wars.

Frost Fangs, or Dire Fangs as the Varangur call them, are prized here as much as anywhere. Catching and training them can be fatal, but the prestige is enormous, and their riders are seen as favourites of the three-faced god.

Korgaan hates all of dragonkind. It's a bitter grudge with roots in the time before the Celestians, and in their time too. Back when he was one of the Primogenitors, he thought the ancient wyrms, the mothers of dragonkind, clumsy and beneath contempt. If any descendant of the old Great Drakes is foolish enough to stray within Korgaan's reach today, it is captured, tortured, twisted and deformed by his eternal spite. The results are Jabberwocks. Each is different – a repulsive, mocking caricature of what it used to be, chained to the god's malicious will. The true reason for this hatred may be known to Tydarion, an elf who can speak with the great drakes – even the Shattered Clans have heard of him.

Korgaan has also lured a number of titanic Frost Giants to his side, knowing that they, more than any of his followers, can defeat the cursed dragonspawn single-handed.

The Fallen

During the Reckoning, at Korgaan's command, the Sons captured an entire colony of gargoyles. Then the god had them break open the tombs of the Var'Kyr – his first, long-forgotten followers. In a bloody ritual, the essence of the gargoyles, and with it their power to regenerate, was poured into the long-dead remains of those ancient warriors.

The Fallen are deadly fighters. They fight in loose formation to give their heavy glaives room, and they move so fast they'd make an elf look sluggish.

Part five: Magnilde of the Fallen

Herja

Herja was once the ruthless leader of the Var'Kyr. In the Sons' ritual her remains were fused with the body and essence of Sor'ik'su, captured during the Reckoning – bride of Ba'su'su, the Abyssal lord of gargoyles, and queen of his lofty seraglio. Breaking Sor'ik'su's fierce will took an age, and her spirit never fully gave in – and so Herja was reborn as her god's champion, a merging of two mighty beings with the strength and malice of both.

The Eye of the Abyss

Korgaan's favour is fickle, though. When the Green Lady went to war against the Abyss, Korgaan chose to aid her not Herja but another warrior of the clans – Magnilde. It was she who dropped the cursed orb known as the Eye of the Abyss into the boiling depths of the Fourth Circle. Its destruction rippled through the Abyss like a summons to all its foul denizens, who howled for revenge. Delighted, Korgaan showered his new favourite with gifts and praise.

At the same time Herja – Korgaan's captured plaything – had failed. She hadn't stopped an Abyssal assault on the southern reaches of the clans' lands. Bitter, shamed by her god's enormous displeasure and consumed with envy at Magnilde's rise in the Shattered Clans, Herja set out to kill the new favourite.

The duel

Magnilde was leading the clans to a bloody victory over the hordes of the Wicked Ones, fighting side by side with the Green Lady's forces, when Herja turned on her in the middle of the battle. Warriors on both sides fell back in awe as the two champions clashed – one driven by hate and jealousy, the other by her god's blessing and fury at the betrayal.

As both tired from exertion and wounds, Magnilde struck the killing blow, snaring the old Var'Kyr with her whip and burying her blade deep in her heart. Herja's essence finally broke free of the prison of Sor'ik'su's body and seized its only chance: it called on Korgaan, begging forgiveness and more life. Laughing and revelling in the chaos his followers were causing, Korgaan opened the ancient paths of the spirit world straight into Magnilde's failing body. Ecstatic, Herja poured herself into her new host, and both bodies collapsed.

With the battle still raging around it, Magnilde's body opened black, oily eyes and rose to its feet. Once again two souls had become one. Magnilde of the Fallen will lead the clans to glory.

Part six: chieftains, magi and what is coming

Chieftains and kings

Among the Varangur, the old title of thegn has mostly given way to the simpler chieftain. Chieftains are great warriors, loyal to Korgaan and blessed with his power, who lead raids from the front. The mightiest, who have brought several clans under their control by conquest, proclaim themselves kings – perhaps out of arrogance, since among other northerners they'd simply be lords. To truly prove the claim, clan tradition demands that a king capture and tame a wild chimera to ride into battle.

The voice of the god

The Clan Magi are the voice of Korgaan. Those with the gift of magic must first prove themselves in battle. Then they're transformed, their minds melding with the god's. They speak for Korgaan and pass his wishes on to the rest of the Varangur.

Lesser magi join forces in threes, each channelling a different facet of Korgaan's will. Such a conclave can hurl explosive bolts of energy across vast distances, but the effort leaves them all but defenceless. An untrained magus trying the same spell alone would be torn apart by the power. Only someone with strength approaching that of the Ice Queens of Chill would even think of it.

A gathering storm

The Varangur had a hand in the defeat of the Abyss in the Green Lady's war. Korgaan knows the Wicked Ones are surely plotting revenge. When legions of Riftforged orcs struck out across the Frozen Sea, the Varangur fought them on the ice floes, and the legions slowly dwindled – though rumour says they've managed to gain a foothold in the Ice Mountains.

The old god bides his time. He grows stronger as the clans spread slowly and insidiously into the world, like a malignant growth lurking in the north. Korgaan is getting ready to revel in a maelstrom of havoc.

Because a god who came back from oblivion on hate, anger and ambition has no intention of fading away again. And to live, he needs war.