Blackwood Blizzard of 1979

Sunday, February 18, 1979 opened as a bitterly cold day, but little could any one predict the events that followed. Koschei the Deathless launched a full scale attack on Blackwood County, calling Jotunn from the otherworld to fight on his side. Wrecca forecasters expected 4 to 6 inches of snow, but 2 to 4 inches fell per hour, blanketing the land with snow. The wrecca blame the inaccuracy on flaws in their predictive models, but they had no way to know it was Koschei's attempt to repeat the victory he had a year before in the Ohio Valley and New England. Outside of the Millgrave Forest, all that happened was snowfall. Within the shadowlands of the county, the storm was feed by the latent magic in the air spawned a winter great hunt, unleashing Herla's hounds and Ghost Riders descending on the people. The Battle of Blackwood's Winter took place amid all the chaos, as the spirits unleashed by the storm ravaged the land. The Salian Order was dispatched to protect as many creatures as they could and to ward off the hounds and riders from the villages in the shadowlands. In the aftermath of the storm, 130 people were injured and 47 people died, among them drymenn, trivians, and wrecca who lived to close to the hunts spawned by the storms. There has been a lot of debate over the years about the whether the storm's severity was caused by Koschei's attack or if it was the prefect cover to strike.

Manifestation

Thunder cracked the sky as the snow began to fall. The clouds darkened like the face of death. Amid the cacophony of the hounds of Herla bayed in hunger for the life of the world. Ghost riders tore though the veil to stalk the night. The heart of the forest trembled with fear as their hooves thundered through the sky in pursuit of the hounds who those who they might devour. In the headquarters of the Salian Order at Blackwood Abbey, the genius loci scried out in pain as the soul of the land tore under the savagery of the storm. Orders were issued, and units dispatched to protect the people and the wild. Wyverns rained from the sky like mammoth hail as the riders slew the entire flock. Trees snapped up their bulk as their lifeless bodies crashed into the ground. The flames from their heart burst into the sky, whipping up the winds as their heat warred against the snows. Golden and white flashes peeled through the night. The wampus fled to their dens, and the American Unicorns gathered in their herds, pooling their magic to defend themselves and their foals from the raging storm. Snow blinded the Salians' best efforts to see the path of the riders and the hounds through the sky. Even Dark Lord Michael Blackwood took to the sky in a vain attempt to calm the storm and fend off the beast that arose from its ferocity. Drymenn gathered in chapels, chantries, and their private residences to call on Taranis, Freyr, and Aeolus to calm the storm. Taranis and Freyr were too far away to assist, but Aeolus pooled the prayers and collective powers of the people to shield as many as he could. For two days, the storm raged on, exhausting the power of those who struggled to quell the confluence of powers that tormented them. When the storm cleared, all the wrecca knew was that a blizzard hit the region out of no where.