Rhiassa Presents: Echoes of Ragnarok V Asgard

Greetings, heroes of the Realms,

I would like to impress upon you as best I can what our lives have been like since the Black Death attacked us. Even after the last ichor-coated enemy disappeared from Midgard, our struggles had only just begun. The very essence of life had been squeezed out of this world, not so much by the losing war that we fought against our common enemy but by the fact that Ragnarok, which was supposed to give us life anew, was halted in its place. Children have not been born since those days, of man or offspring of livestock. While crops still grow, each year the land becomes less potent, the plants more withered, the food less nourishing. All of these things are harbingers of a truth we found inescapable, that Norland would soon meet its irreversible end.

When my Jomsvikings and I first learned of your existence through the work of our soothsayers, hope blossomed for the first time in this fading land. We realized that although our lives would inevitably end in the process, your might and your magic could rekindle the fires of Ragnarok. Norlund would not cease to exist but be reborn from its own destruction as foretold in legends. We rejoiced. Our lives would not be meaningless, the battles we fought, not inconsequential. Our world would survive.

This news was not as universally lauded as I had hoped, however. It is in the throws of despair that evil takes root and certainly that was the case here. In Midgard and in the other realms of Norlund there were those who thrived in the chaos left by the war with the Black Death. They had no desire to allow Ragnarok to befall us, they chose their own meager existence over the continued life of the very worlds which they call home. We thought that there was no option except to war against those who would find purchase in these end times. Certainly you acted as our first blades in that war and delivered mighty blows to these nihilistic enemies.

But in the years you traveled to our lands, as you spoke to others, even our enemies, as you learned from what you saw and what you achieved, your own experiences and knowledge began to eclipse our own. While we believed the only resource for us was to find destruction through Ragnarok or slowly allow our worlds to fade away, you showed us that there was another way. You pledged yourselves to the cause of saving these lands without their destruction, that our lives might continue, that we might find purpose anew.

And then you showed us that these were, in fact, not just honeyed words. You did the unthinkable. Through the path of Mane you forged your own way to Asgard, the land of the gods. Soon you will set foot there and learn from the most powerful beings that have ever existed in Norlund what you must do to achieve your goals and make our lives worth living once again. What lies beyond those gates where our deities once lived is a mystery. We've had scant opportunities to commune with those gods that even still exist after so many were claimed in the war. But certainly if there are any answers for us all, thats where they lie.

In mid-Gormanuour you will again set foot in our lands. You will use the transportation we have built for you that you might travel to Mane and from there to the footstep of Asgard. I cannot imagine what more we can do to aid you except to wish you well and pray for your success. What you will learn and what you will do beyond those gates will set the fate of all of those that live in all of the realms of Norlund. It is a heavy duty that you undertake on our behalves but certainly there is no one so worthy as you to bear it.

That you can stand shoulder to shoulder with our gods and through doing so forge the fate of our world says everything.

Strength and honor,
Ulric of the Jomsvikings