DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       DnD campaign
  HTML https://dndgurnee.createaforum.com
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       *****************************************************
   DIR Return to: Misc. Lore
       *****************************************************
       #Post#: 759--------------------------------------------------
       The Miracle at Helgabal
       By: Duncan Seastove Date: April 19, 2015, 1:46 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       A few weeks after Damarans began reporting small bands of orcs
       ranging across the border, a great orc horde appeared in the
       snowy plains outside of Damara's capital city, Helgabal. It was
       said to number in the tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, and to
       march with some hellbent purpose.
       King Yarin Frostmantle called all the clans, great and small,
       from the surrounding area to Helgabal to aid in the defense.
       Even so, the Damarans numbered only ten thousand, many of them
       being untrained peasants, young boys, old men, and women, armed
       with little more than sharpened wooden stakes and crude shields.
       They erected palisades and dug pits around the perimeter of the
       city, preparing for a great siege.
       When the orcs came, they surrounded the city, and waited till
       nightfall to attack. They were upon the walls before the archers
       could nock their arrows, and the fighting through the night was
       fierce. In the morning, King Yarin and some of the clans' finest
       warriors led a cavalry charge to clear the areas around the
       palisades. They slew a great many orcs, and earned a brief
       reprieve for those on the wall, but they were soon overwhelmed.
       Not a man to retreat, King Yarin and his warriors dismounted and
       circled up. They say King Yarin slew a hundred orcs with his
       greatsword Frostfire before being overwhelmed.
       At the sight of their King falling, many of the defenders
       despaired and fled the walls. The orcs began to stream in the
       city, and fights broke out in the streets and narrow lanes.
       Fires broke out as the orcs put the city to the torch as they
       moved ever inward. The last of the defenders, led by King
       Yarin's son, Torygg Frostmantle, rallied around the Great Barrow
       in the center of the city, where those unable to fight had
       hidden during the battle. They were preparing to make their
       final stand, when a great blizzard blew in from the east, and
       quickly buried the city in many feet of snow. Suddenly, the
       stream of orcs was stopped, and the defenders managed to regain
       the wall by nightfall. Their the waited through the night, but
       no more attacks came— in the morning, they saw that the orc host
       had moved away north in the night.
       The city was saved, but at what cost? King Yarin and thousands
       of others lay dead, and Helgabal itself is little more than a
       smoldering ruin. And what of the orcs? What purpose did they
       have that they were content to abandon their siege? Still, those
       who survived thank their gods of Winter each day for the life
       they still have.
       *****************************************************