Aenir (Eye-neer)

This group of warriors, raiders, explorers and farmers wandered the large country of what is now Varangia. Many were under the employ of the Latonan Empire as mercenaries and served as fierce warriors-for-hire for many centuries. Underneath the empire, many Aenir were given territories and coin as payment for their service, which the warrior culture of people competed against each other for thousands of years. Most did this as an appeasement for their ferocious gods who wished to have their people die in the glorious blood-drenched violence.
However, not many of the Aenir did die in rapacious combat and instead died committing to the qualities of domesticity, city building and the brewing of mead. Law and order ruled all that were not on the frontier of warfare and would not be reflected on from an outsiders viewpoint of what the Aenir people were capable of beyond pure savagery. Many Latonan's viewed the Aenir as pure primitives even if the Aenir were the largest supplier of wheat and mead in the entire empire. These discriminatory remarks would be ignored time and again by the people of Varangia as it was the whispered as the will of their overgod, Othin, to not pay hedance to ignorance.
The second to last Aenir king, Hreiðmarr Alvísson, appeared around 800 B.D. He was the demigod son of the dwarven king Alvíss who romanced and married the goddess Thrud Thórrsdottir. Thórr was angered at this marriage in the advent of the Holy Great War, and he cursed Alvíss to die and turn to stone. This was done so Thórr could take Alvíss' petrified remains and shatter them completely to prevent Alvíss' from resurrecting. What Thórr did not know was that Thrud was pregnant with Alvíss' child. She then fled into Varangia to give birth to Alvíss' child in the Aenir capital of Tyrifjorden. It took the collective effort of Thrud's mother, Sifjar, and many other gods to prevent Thórr from killing the newborn, Hreiðmarr Alvísson.
Hreiðmarr Alvísson would hold a horrific grudge against his grandfather for Hreiðmarr's father's death and Hreiðmarr's mother's downfall into a Valkyrjur. For over 35 years, Hreiðmarr, would tell the Aenir to forsake Thórr of any and all form of worship. When he threatened to destroyed the oldest statue dedicated to Thórr, Othin and a group of gods planned to journey to Tyrifjorden. Hreiðmarr, though a man of extreme conviction, headed the words of his loving mother and awaited the arrival of Othin, Lothurr, and Hœnir. Each god was a god of magic vowing to gift the knowledge of casting arcane magic by weaving the winds of the Aethereal Plane. However, Lothurr was bored and hungry on the godly trio's trek, and he spotted the shape-changed son of Hreiðmarr, Ottarr. Lothurr killed Ottarr, skinned his flesh and consumed Ottarr after tricking the other two gods that were on the journey.
Hreiðmarr was eventually presented the otter hide that Lothurr had made out of Ottarr's skin. This event infuriated Hreiðmarr as he used his knowledge about the [giant's magic to capture the three gods. Though the gods could easily escape, they did not wish to invoke the destruction of their worshippers. Lothurr was tasked with finding a way to pay the blood debt of both Hreiðmarr's father and son. Lothurr would capture a masterful smith known as Andvarree using a net and saw the most precious ring in existence, Andvarranaut. Nearly captivated by its existence, Lothurr would only free Advarree if Andvarree would give Lothurr the ring. Unwilling to give Andvarranaut, Andvarree cursed the ring in secret as he gave it to Lothurr. Lothurr then gave the ring to Hreiðmarr as payment for the blood debt. Yet, what both did not know is that all except Andvarree would be cursed with extreme possessiveness of the ring, a never ending quest of avarice, and the eventual death of the holder while weilding the ring. Hreiðmarr was smitten by the ring and took ahold of it, and thus both the Aenir and the Aenir god's fates were sealed.
Hreiðmarr's son Fafnir would covet the ring as well as Fafnir's brother, Reginn, but Fafnir would succeed in killing the pair's father and take the ring for himself in 765 B.D. Fafnir would hide away in a cave and stumble upon a group of dragons who gave Fafnir the power to overcome the ring's influence. It was there for five years that Fafnir would learn as the dragons learned and transform into their state through trial and effort. Though Fafnir was able to overcome his own greed, he could not part with the ring until his death came at the hands of Sigurðr who was hired by Reginn. However, the dragons of the cave, who had hidden during Fafnir's fight, revived Fafnir as he continued his study under their tutelage for 13 years. What Fafnir did not know was that madness and greed had struck the Aenir who became obsessed with the ring and its possession. This extended even onto the gods who were in part responsible for the death of most of the Aenir people.
Fleeing the carnage of the Aenir, Varangia, and their own people, the dwarves on Varangia fled east toward what would become Drukalsteim over the following centuries. This came as little solace to Fafnir who would come out of hiding 13 years after the advent of the ring and see the ruins of what was once a great warrior people. Over the following centuries the land that the Aenir took over would be decimated or conquered by others such as the Reich destroying whatever remained of the Aenir once and for all.

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by Zrikk