A thousand years and more, in the Age of Legends, in the land that would become Malivar, darkness first tried to take hold of Tarnaclese.
In those days, men and dwarves alike had a great distrust of all giants, and the giants did not trust the smaller races; they all squabbled over the lush, fair lands at the feet of the mountains there, and each wanted all the land for himself, and even brother might turn against brother. There was no peace to be had, and all men were enemies.
Yet, among all the turmoil and strife, four mighty warriors arose from the ranks of men and dwarves and giants. They were the most steadfast of friends, and despite the differences of race and creed they swore a lifelong oath to defend each other, unto death and beyond it. It was said even the gods could not part them.
These warriors were Galfindar Spearbreaker, Kaleth Raven, Jarrod Hammerfell, and Uthgar the Short. Each one had a reputation and legend. Galfindar had single-handedly vanquished an entire tribe of hobgoblins at the tender age of fourteen; Kaleth was the child of the two most brilliant magicians in the land, and it was said he was speaking arcane incantations at an age when most children are still babbling nonsense. Jarrod Hammerfell was the proudest son of the proudest dwarven clan in those parts, and his fiery beard matched his temper; among the dwarves he held the most respect for his drinking capacity, the truly gigantic boom of his voice in so-called debates, and the sheer power of his dedication to the dwarven smith-god. Yet among these exemplary folk, Uthgar stood out the most. For Uthgar was only short among his own kind - the storm giants. Standing a mere ten feet tall, he was considered nearly a pygmy by his own kind, and had nearly suffered exile for his perceived defects of a gentle and quiet nature as well as his un-giant-like height.
But of them all, Uthgar was the most tenacious warrior, the one who simply did not stop or give up until the fight was over. Blessed by many as a savior, he had managed to bring the fueding giant clans to unity, and even managed to work out a truce of sorts between giant-folk and the shorter races. He refused to ever call any race "lesser," no matter how much jeering it earned him from his taller cousins.
And it was these four mighty allies who faced the vilest darkness ever to crawl across the face of Tarnaclese...
Reports had come from the western mountains that some kind of strange object had fallen from the sky, and landed among the empty lands there. The mountains were harsh, frigid, and unwelcoming, but the people were frightened, for the thing that had fallen from the sky had been quite unlike anything ever seen before. Nothing like a falling star, it had come down in daylight, and had seemed bathed in
black flames. A sound was reported to have come from the Black Star as well...a sound like a million lunatics laughing...
And so it was that the four warriors set off to investigate the strange
occurrence.
They arrived at the spot where the Black Star was supposed to have fallen, and were appalled at what they found. What had once been a tiny hunter's village, full of simple folk who lived off the land and trapped what furs they could, was now a flattened, desolate place. The ground was blackened for a mile all around the spot where a great, black rock rested - but there was no crater, no sign of fire. Instead it seemed that the ground had been blackened by some kind of unholy fluid oozing from the black rock at the center of this wasteland.
The words
unholy were apt, for the villagers had been killed instantly by the touch of this fluid; their bodies had been drained of all essence and then, most horribly, the corpses had risen and begun to move. They carried out strange tasks as they shambled about, their eye sockets empty and their mouths open, emitting a low moaning sound even though they no longer breathed.
They stacked small stones in strange cairns, in patterns that made the eyes water and slide away; they chipped more patterns into the rock bared by the spreading black ooze. The rock from the skies sat in the center of this activity, like a dark and foreboding egg. Clever Kaleth sent his magical senses ranging towards the black rock, only to snatch himself back again.
"It hungers," he told his friends.
"We shall not let it feed," announced Galfindar, and charged.
The undead minions turned on him immediately, and the black ooze on the ground rose up itself, as if to smite and smother the mighty hero. Jarrod roared his battle-cry and flung himself into the fray as well
Even as Kaleth and Uthgar hesitated, to their horror, their friends were swallowed up by the blackness that oozed along the ground. Too late they saw that the ooze emanated from the black stone in the center, and even as their friends were ensnared and consumed, they were dragged into the rock, which opened. And within the crags of that stone-like body, Kaleth and Uthgar saw eyes and teeth, and heard a gibbering laughter like the hysterical cries of a thousand lunatics.
They fled that place, lamenting for their friends and swearing vengeance.
No army could defeat such a foe, which fed on the very lives around it. To bring arms against it would only mean strengthening it, as it fattened on the deaths of their men. Kaleth flung himself into magical studies for three days and three nights, as Uthgar rallied the people of the land, exhorting them to form a border against the western mountains, warning them of the horrific monstrosity that lay fattening among the crags. Indeed, the people could see the threat for themselves, for with every passing day the blackness crept further out of the mountains, cloaking the peaks in greasy black ooze, visibly growing and approaching the settled lands. And with that ooze came more hordes of shambling undead. The ooze was not choosy. It resurrected humans, dwarves, and beasts to carry out its insane and evil tasks. Nothing was safe from its hunger. Hordes of animals began to flee the mountains – even the ants and birds poured into the flatlands by the hundreds and thousands. Nothing living survived the touch of the blackness; anything it consumed rose again, and began advancing upon the living.
At last Kaleth emerged from his tower of magical might, his parents beside him. All three were ashen gray as they told Uthgar what they had learned.
“It feeds on life itself,” said Kaleth. “We cannot kill it. We can only imprison it.”
“What must be done to accomplish this?” demanded Uthgar.
Kaleth was grim. “Someone has to die to power the magical construction of the prison,” he said. “Another person must die to lock it. And one more person must die to keep it going.”
Before Uthgar could answer, Kaleth said, “We have a problem, old friend. We three can manage to trap and imprison this Thing. But someone must hold off its minions, or the land may well be overrun before the trap is complete. The more lives it claims, the stronger it gets.”
Uthgar raised his axe in answer. “I will hold them back, even unto the freezing of Hell itself,” he swore.
Kaleth left then, magically transporting himself and his parents to the place where the Black Stone lay waiting for them. Uthgar went out to the last outpost – a hilltop tower, the last point of defense before the un-living hordes could sweep over the helpless villages of the flatlands.
What mighty magic he worked there, what prayers he spoke, what wonders he wrought, we do not know. The hill became as a mountain, the tower became as a spire of rock, and Uthgar himself grew in size. Twenty feet, thirty feet tall, tall as the mountain he stood upon – his head scraped the clouds. His axe was like a lightning bolt; his voice was the thunder. His fury destroyed thousands of the undead at a stroke, knocking them to bits or turning them to ashes; the wind that came behind his axe swept their remains into the sea. Still they came, swarming the mountain, climbing upon his legs, clinging to his axe and to his arms, feeding upon him even as he crushed them and roared his rage.
For a night and a day he battled the swarming, babbling horde; for a night and a day he stopped the tide of destruction and halted their advance, as they all focused their efforts on this one foe. He seemed indestructible, even though his wounds were great.
As the sun set, his attacks began to slow. He bled from thousands of wounds; his armor was torn nearly asunder from his body, and yet he carried on. The sun touched the horizon, making the sky looked bathed in blood. The people cowered and prayed, certain that even mighty Uthgar could not survive another night of relentless battle against the hungering horde.
The sun slipped below the horizon, and Uthgar let loose one last roar, full of defiant rage.
Then, as if the sun had come up again, a great light swelled in the west. The mountains were bathed in white light, and where the light touched, the blackness went up in smoke and the undead dropped where they stood and dissolved in pools of noisome fluids. A great chanting swept over the mountains down to where Uthgar stood, and as the light and sound washed over him, the enemies around him were struck down and destroyed.
Uthgar himself was also struck by the mighty magic Kaleth had wrought – but its effect on him was quite unexpected. He was frozen in place, turned to stone.
And that, they say, is how the mountain now known as Uthgar came to be – it is the legendary hero it is named for. They say he still watches the west, and waits for the day when the Black Star breaks free of its prison. They say that when the darkness comes again, when all is lost, Uthgar will wake from his rest and once more save the people.
