So toll the bell and sound the drums, for something wicked this way comes.
Beastmen, once having lived in Nomadic tribes, brutish and unnatural creatures that resided in the deep forests, raiding and pillaging villages and towns, have been banded together by a Lord of the beasts. Shador, champion of the Beastmen, unified the raider tribes under one banner. Hagur-Ur, the northernmost part of the known lands, an already barren land became the makings of an empire, an empire ruled by beasts. However, the intent of this army was to reach far further than Hagur-Ur. The gnarled grasp of the North slowly reaches outside of its domain, clawing at the civilizations of Man and all non-beast.
The Beastmen warbands attack with no warning, and villagers, merchants and travelers live in constant fear of ambush. They try to prepare themselves for such an event, and often desperately appeal to the nobles to scour North with their armies - however, at such a time of political upheaval with a pestilence spreading from the East and the dead inexplicably rising from their graves, the nobles have far more pressing concerns than the pleas of low-born villagers. Forced to fend for themselves, terrified villagers hack down great swathes of forests around their settlements, and the better off hire the services of mercenaries to protect them, barricading themselves indoors when they hear rumors of a marauding band within the area.
The more isolated villages and farmsteads are most at risk from attack. Far from any and all aid, travelers frequently will discover buildings or entire villages raised to the ground, cattle and villager butchered alike, lying where they were cut down. Full of malevolence the Beastmen take particular pride in tearing down the carefully constructed and ordered structures of men. For the united tribes of Beastmen, the battles fought in the South as well as the chaos and senseless murder are part of a religious war, an effort to bring down the civilization of man which offends the Beasts’ gods. They believe that after the taint of man has been wiped from existence, the Beastmen shall inherit.