When magic first rose clean and pure in the north, the people of the other directions felt their own magic was but cheap trickery. Buffoonery, nostrums, and foolishness. Gestures and puffs of smoke. Nothing real, only conjured. For, in the north, magic began to permeate the peoples’ very beings, their skin and bones, their heart and soul so that each had a skill, a craft, a calling in the magical, the mystical.

Nothing like this existed in the annals of the directions or the middle. None could explain, so it brought fear and misunderstanding. All calamities were blamed upon secret incursions and forays by hordes from the north. The ravishment of women by invisible despoilers, changeling children and those born “not rightly put together,” dead livestock, rotten crops.

Fear grew into anger, with declaration of war not far behind. South first to cross the middle and break into the beginning of the northern forest. Easily repelled, the north wrongly assumed it’s show of weaponry, not magical powers, would stop other directions with similar intents. Rather, the result was the unprecedented meeting of east, west, and south on the middle. Soon, the calm and buffering peace of the middle was shattered by the hooves of war horses and soldiers.

Lord Skraeling and his army, assigned the north border with the middle, to hold back the blood shed so the stupidity go no further. Their weapons were made from argon, a mystical metal lighter than a feather to bear, but stronger than the heartwood of an ironwood tree to strike. Infused with magic by the smith that forged each piece. For while there was magic in the north, it was magic of the people, not of the wizard or the witch. The armour protected, the talisman protected, the spell protected, but the northerners were still of blood and bone. Not immortal. No wizardry or magic needed to kill or maim them. Hatred and a sword would do the deed.

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