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“We the Arbiters, scholars of the unseen and protectors of balance, summon you. 

While we care not for the affairs of politics and war, Malice has seen fit to draw us from our seclusion.

This powerful and seductive token will be your undoing if used incorrectly, and you will need it if you are to secure your future against your foes.

We will form a Grand Conclave in the Iron Hills after the full moon.

There you will learn what we deign to teach.”

So read the summons dispatched to the far corners of the March, branded upon the doors of the four cultures’ halls of power with arcane fire. The cultures responded swiftly, sending delegations to the place known as Raven’s Roost in the Iron Hills where the Grand Conclave was to be held. Little time was wasted - as soon as the delegations arrived, the newly revealed Arbiters began their lessons. The Malice they referred to was a fell crystal with latent magical energies capable of fueling powerful rituals at great cost. This cost was one’s own sanity and physical strength: exposure to Malice was degenerative, and all were to limit their direct handling of it and act with caution in its presence.

The delegations soon set to struggling amongst themselves for control of Malice and artifacts which it empowered. Swords and spear points flashed as raiding parties traveled between camps and warriors struck each other down for nary more than rumors of the crystal’s location.

It was in the midst of this struggle that a new delegation made themselves known: the undead servants of the Queen of Nightmares. Their blazon was that of the snake and scythe and they brought offers of eternal life in exchange for eternal servitude. What matter was eternity they said, when one’s culture was preserved in all its perfection and uniqueness beneath their Queen’s benevolent gaze? Certainly service was a small price to pay in exchange for this and her undying gratitude. Yet despite their rotting smiles and pretensions of kindness, it was plain for all to see this was no offer which could be denied. Nor was it one that they wanted to accept. In one voice the four cultures gave the Queen’s delegates their response: they would not kneel. With might and steel they returned the restless dead to their graves and scattered their host. In response a relief force of Orcish warband and their thralls descended upon the delegations in greater numbers than ever before encountered, even at the Siege of Schlosswald Garrison which occurred a year before. Their horde would come crashing down like a wave upon the combined shield wall of the four delegations. Yet, like the dead who preceded them, they would be broken and driven from the field.

Despite their victory, as the warriors of the four cultures retrieved their wounded the skies themselves turned against them. Fell magics corrupted once natural rains and made them like the wrath of the Gods as storm clouds flowed over the hills and whipping winds tore camps to pieces. None could stand against the deluge and in haste the delegations departed from Raven’s Roost in disarray. In time the storm would break, but others like it would appear across the whole of the March as the consequences of the actions at Raven’s Roost unfolded, seemingly seeking those who were present at the Grand Conclave to work their wrath. These storms were not the only things that assailed the March - the actions of the delegations at the Grand Conclave led directly to war elsewhere.

In the North, the Suzak-Mar and their many mercenaries embarked on an offensive into Vadurkin territory in retaliation for raids against their delegation. Under cunning officers their army forded the headwaters of the Crystal and Green rivers, circumventing the watchful garrison of Bjorl’s Hammer entirely and ascending into the Northern highlands. Local guides in the borderlands led them through Brestenfjell Pass, a haunted place that was little guarded. Cloaked by the branches of the Forest of Souls beyond the pass the army came within sight of Divinfalls and laborers set to build causeways across the River Matron. Emissaries were dispatched and the city was besieged. Countless assaults crossed the causeways and struck at the city's walls, each time repelled by the defenders at increasing cost. When the day seemed darkest for the Vadurkin,  a great relief host descended from the West and scattered the Suzak-Mar. The other Vadurkin holds had emptied their forces in defense of their most holy city.

In the South, the fragile peace of the Treaty of the Hound shattered as word of Rivlan assassins targeting Hadrian politicians at Raven’s Roost reached the desk of the Imperial Legate in Goldenfold. At their command Hadrian legions crossed the Dakorus to deliver retribution at places like Aedwulf’s Peace and Grandmercy. Ever vigilant for a resumption of hostilities, forces loyal to the Earl marched to meet them on the riverbank and put long ago drafted defensive strategies to use. The fighting was brutal and both sides exacted a heavy toll as the countryside once again burned in the fires of the Ten Years’ War. It would not be the Rivlan defense alone that halted the Hadrian advance, but the defense and nature itself. Like the storms which scattered the Suzak-Mar, a great deluge would come from the North and wash away red and green clad soldiers alike as the Dakorus swelled and lightning rent the heavens.

Thus stands the March in the wake of the Grand Conclave. Despite the best efforts of the Arbiters, war once again holds the land in its clutches. The Cultures now lie more divided than they have ever been despite the arrival of a new power and the demonstrated might of their common enemy. Only time will tell what else may come as the chaos and disorder of two new wars takes hold…

In the year 1023 of our age, Viscount Marek Artur beckoned the denizens of the March, imploring aid to mend the fractures riddling the land. Trade routes laid disrupted. Towns once teeming with life fell eerily silent. Emissaries from the Rivlans, Vadurkin, Hadrians, and Suzak-Mar convened at the Iron Pines’ border, united in purpose – to discern and quell the looming shadows.
Their inquest revealed a land tainted by marauding Orcs and bandits. Skirmishes erupted as many sought to halt this rising threat. Whispered tales spoke of the Hillshire townsfolk, ensnared by a malevolent magic, leaving them in a twilight state – neither truly alive nor fully departed, but ravenous reflections of their former selves.
In the unfolding days, the storied Sword of Hillshire, a symbol of sovereignty over the city, was revealed to be cursed. It ensnared its bearer’s will, drowning them in a frenzied bloodlust. Representatives from each faction combined their strength, conjuring a ritual at the Schlosswald Garrison to purify this once-noble blade. As the rite reached its zenith, a horde of Orcs and Undead surged upon the fortress, met with an unwavering resistance of stalwart defenders. When the echoes of battle silenced, the Vadurkin presented the redeemed Sword of Hillshire to the Rivlan leaders in exchange for territories within the Iron Hills.

A sinister evil now emerges from the Iron Hills, a specter threatens to engulf the March, and plunge it into a new age of desolation. This new threat is only rivaled by the emboldened stirrings of Droog, the formidable Orc King. In response to this threat, a secret society of scholars known as the Arbiters reveals themselves to the people of the March, and offers to aid the living against these new threats. They bring news of a rare and enigmatic crystal named Malice – its malevolent glow hints at an untapped arcane power. Much is still unknown about it, but the Arbiters believe it holds the key to saving the March.

Orc drums signal their gathering might. The Undead stir in their Iron Hill graves. The cultures of the March must decide how to survive in these unprecedented times.

Peace has returned to the March! The Ten Years’ War, a terrible conflict between the Hadrian Empire and the Rivlan Baronies, has come to an end with both armies setting down their arms under an armistice popularly known as the Treaty of the Hound. Under its terms, the Western Earldom of the Rivlan Baronies has become a province of the Hadrian Empire and the armies of the Middle and Eastern Earldoms have returned to their homes. Despite this, the peace remains uneasy and border skirmishes occur with tolerated regularity. 

While such skirmishes were considered a bearable price to pay to avoid the devastation of widespread war, the Empress still sought to end this way of things. She thus encouraged Earl Tormand Artur to host a feast to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Treaty’s ratification, where prominent political figures would be invited from all three cultures and lavished with gifts, honors, and food. The Earl’s task at this feat was simple: convince his fellows who remained independent to strike their banners and bend the knee to avoid a second war. The fate of the world lay in the balance.

As the attendees from the four cultures arrived and the feast began, it did not take long for tensions to flare. A retainer for the Hadrian delegation’s leader arrived with a Rivlan at sword point, claiming that they had been discovered raiding the baggage of the commanding Centurion. Letters were produced from their person revealing the truth of the accusation as well as the Empress’ directive to the Earl, and a swift interrogation before the assembled guests revealed that they were ordered to raid the Centurion’s baggage by a noble among the Rivlan party, the Viscount. As the Hadrian party present was drawn from the Imperial Vth Legion, military law took precedence over all others and the Viscount’s hand was taken in punishment for the crime. 

As the feast continued, a wandering merchant would slay a Rivlan guest and flee to the camp of the Suzak-Mar. In exchange for silver the merchant would be turned over for questioning. They claimed their actions were not their own, and that a stranger had placed a powerful spell over them that rendered their mind powerless to stop such impulses. All the while they could feel a “presence” directing, one unlike anything they had ever experienced. It told them that by nightfall the following day, that presence would come for the people at the feast and destroy them. Investigations into the nature of this presence occupied the rest of the night and following morning.

In time the four cultures would be drawn towards a figure known as the Countess, a neutral party who had been invited to the gathering. Following an interrogation, more information regarding the presence was unveiled: it was a creature unlike any other, with the will and intelligence alike to unite beasts of myth and legend into a unified fighting force to rival the armies of humanity. Ultimately, the Countess’ goal was simple - as one of the presence’s servants she was to sow discord between the four cultures so that it could muster its forces and wipe out a number of the most important people in the March in a swift and unpredicted attack.

Knowing now what was to come, the four cultures set aside their differences to plan their defense. As preparations were made and a council convened, one by one guests would go missing as they set about their tasks. It was a trickle so slow it was not noticed until it was too late. From the forests came a war host cloaked in mist and dark magics, among their number the missing guests now afflicted by the same spell by which the merchant was the first night. 

Alongside them stood an even greater foe, though, ones who had seemingly walked out of the March’s legends: Orcs. Unlike those legends these orcs bore weapons and armor forged from iron and steel, a far cry from the leather and hides they were said to wear for clothing and the crude stone things they used for arms. As quickly as they arrived, they descended upon the cultures’ combined defense. Though a bloody battle, the orcs would be repulsed and the kidnapped guests freed from the spells that bound them.

In the aftermath the story would spread far and wide regarding the attack. Many would consider it no more than hearsay and rumor, considering the presence of orcs to be a symbolic one, representing the downright hostility of parties present directed towards one another. Ultimately those who were there knew otherwise, and as the feast was ended they would return to whence they came now burdened with the knowledge of a greater threat to come. In what form they did not know, and few took their warnings seriously as the months began to pass…