Age of the Ice Serpent

Evidence in ancient documents point to Urrth always having been a cold planet. Locked in a nearly perpetual ice age with short warm season thaws barely long enough for agriculture. There is mention of the arrival of the Alvar who chose Urrth to build their new homes as it was the most like from where they came. Not wanting to shock the development of Urrth culture most migrated elsewhere, but not before their terraforges built devices to pull Urrth from centuries of ice. Slowly, over the next two hundred years, the ice retreated leaving rich soil for the farmers to grow in. So began the long years of Greening and the Famine Wars became a memory. The Alvar were beings of legend made flesh. While still a rarity to see one, and never would more than one make an appeareance, they would arrive with some knowledge or boon for whichever town or village they traveled through. Urrth culture advanced at a rapid rate with very little strife under the gentle prodding of the Alvar.
That peace came to an end with the rise of the Firebrands, a group of agitators fearful of ulterior motives hidden in the agenda of the aloof Alvar. They roused entire villages and fed on the unspoken suspicions. Nearly overnight all interactions with Alvar ceased. Unsatisfied with their inablity to get answers the Firebrands declared a bounty on the Alvar. Mercernaries delved into the far mountains in search of Alvar holdings, and finding them found little more than empty mansions. Impotent, they turned against Alvar sympathizers and those that had obtained knowledge or boons from them, killing many and destroying some of the Alvar artifacts. The Unification War came as a result of the Firebrands attempting to gather all the people under their banner to wipe all traces of the Alvar from Urrth. Although they failed, and failed miserably such that the fractured cultures of Urrth united against the Firebrands. Despite that the Alvar never reappeared. After centuries of warmth and growth out of the frosty shadow of glaciers, they resumed their slow march down from the poles. Each year colder than the last, winter coming ever sooner. Scholars began to believe that the first crop failures may happen in the next few decades.
News of this reached the ears of an ambitious Jarl. He raised an army and either took or bound to his service all the Jarls and lands around him. Declaring himself Earl, emptied his lands of every person capable of fighting and brought war to one of the southern kings. His victory marked the first year of the Serpent and cemented the reality that the ice was truely returning. Stories of old have begun to circulate once more.

Type

Natural