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[center][b]Hrein[/b][/center]

[b]Rank:[/b]
Revenant Major

[b]Description[/b]
A recognizable and wholly intact corpse of what was once an imposing man near his prime, preserved relatively well over the centuries through burial in a rocky tomb that was both dry and frigid. He was interred within a suit of antiquated armor and with his crown, and the iron fared worse than his flesh. Time has melded together the links of his mail and made it into something more akin to solid plates of rust, and the twisted crown deformed around ice-swollen flesh and is now practically grafted into his head. Scraggly strands of hair the color of sun-bleached straw remain as a ragged mess on his head, and a beard still clings to his jawline.

[b]Background[/b]
A petty-king in life, Hrein had many epithets: [i]Redsword. The Cruel. The Reaver. Earl of the Ice Coast.[/i] His lands were poor, devoid of resources save for fish, furs, salt, and iron. There was of course a living to be eked out enduring the cold and sailing far and wide to peddle those goods, but in the warmer lands across the sea, people were weak. Why trade with greedy strangers and give up what few treasures you have in return for mere trinkets, when you could instead take all that they own for the price of just steel and some blood? That was how Hrein's folk thought, and he was no different. Many years of merciless raids upon distant coasts, combined with a failed attempt to outright conquer and carve out a realm of his own upon warmer shores, have earned him a fearsome reputation that still lives to this day, centuries later, in a few poems and songs, and in tales meant to scare children from wandering or disobeying their elders lest they be abducted by the shores and carried off by the monstrous reaver and his men.

[b]Wards[/b]
The Ice Coast is a strip of rocky fjords and narrow shoreline carved by glaciers along the far northeastern coast, nearly due north of Necron. Floating icebergs, strong currents, and the occasional tempest migrate southward from the vicinity of Cape Hoarfrost and make even the Ice Coast a treacherous place to sail, and for that reason alongside its comparatively remote location, it has never been very populated or prosperous. In more modern times it had declined even further and become even less relevant than it was in the times of old, when the lands as a whole were more fractured and vulnerable, and at least the frequent raids under Hrein and his like brought in an influx of slaves and wealth from afar.

As the undead had little use for salt, fur, or fish, they were slow moving into the far north and only did so out of a thoroughness in Eagor's ambitions and desire to eliminate some of the most isolated and last remaining holdfasts of the living. Now even the undead have little presence in the Ice Coast, helping to explain why Hrein was only just resurrected from his remote barrow after so long.

Though there is next to nothing in the form of infrastructure or settlements left in the Ice Coast, Hrein's folk gave him a lavish and ceremonial burial in a great barrow, as they did to his lieutenants and successors. Despite the scarcity of resources, tradition demanded that even a prominent warleader, much less an earl or self-proclaimed king, be interred in a barrow alongside his weapons, armor, regalia, favored thralls and other possessions, which in some cases includes even their longships. Prominent warriors who died in battle were likewise, whenever possible, carried back to their homeland rather than left for the crows, and many such men were buried not far away from Hrein’s own resting place. [i]Those[/i] are the true resources of the Ice Shore now--ancient warriors with their arms and armor, their long-buried but preserved and salvageable warships, and the names of men and banners of men like Hrein that can still spark fear in the hearts of the living.
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