Frostcrypt & the Shade King

The giants of Valdeholm

When Solusek Ro raised the Serpent Spine Mountains, a clan of hill giants, the Krithgor, was trapped in the valleys between them. They revered their dead. Giants live long, and in the days of their dominance they seldom needed to fight, so deaths were rare. Frostcrypt, carved into the ice and stone of Icefall Glacier beneath frozen Flateye Lake, held kings, priests, soldiers and common folk alike.

Rites of the dead

The dead were given rites, dressed for their rank and carried down on a litter. The procession stopped at the statue of Rallos before going on to the right wing of the crypt. Each body lay on a stone table with the tools it would need in the afterlife, weapons or the tools of a trade, and each family member left something to travel with it. After three days lying in state it went into a slot in the wall beneath a metal nameplate.

A king’s letter

King Beltron Wulfnor wrote to his son Odeen as he was dying, to explain the choice everyone questioned. Before the war on the Plane of Earth, a loreseeker had brought him the Prophecy of the Tears: “And from great sorrow one tear from nine. A tear of ruin.” No one could agree what it meant. So, in case the Rathe won and came for revenge, Beltron kept most of House Wulfnor at home to protect the royal line, and watched the rest of his giants march off without him. As the war ended he left his palace in Valdeholm to spend his last hours in Krithgor, among his giants and the Rallosians who had served.

The funeral

Thousands marched from Krithgor to Valdeholm for his burial, chanting a war prayer said to have come from Rallos Zek himself. Only loreseekers and nobles went down into the crypt. As they wafted purity smoke over the body, his skin darkened and runes burned across it. The ice gave off a blue-green vapour, and the Warlord’s voice shook the mountain: “BETRAYERS OF YOUR MAKER! … You will know and love the endless struggle of war.” He promised them “a darkness eternal.”

Beltron rose, took up the axes he was to be buried with, and cut down everyone near him. Each victim rose as a Shade of Zek, aqua-skinned and runed. Only Loreseeker Yrgar lived to tell it, and his account survived only because his quill was later found in the Serpent Spine Mountains. Odeen escaped by praying silently.

The Wraithguard

The shades believe their curse will lift when every living Krithgor is dead, so every night they attack Valdeholm and every day they hide in the crypt. The living giants were torn, because killing the shades meant killing their own honoured dead. A lorekeeper named Malgar learned from a shade’s mind a pattern of runes that repelled them, and carved it into a wall and into weapons. The few who took up those weapons called themselves the Wraithguard.

King Odeen publicly cast them out as heretics and ordered them forgotten, but quietly kept them supplied, knowing they were all that stood between his people and extinction. Criminals sentenced to death may now choose to join them instead.

What the shades spare

After so many battles the upper tomb is wrecked, but the royal areas are untouched. Even undead, the giants still honour their royalty.