Sword Chronicle: Lords of Misrule [ EDIT ]

The bonds of kinship are put asunder, brothers and sisters defile crowns with blood. The world turns cruel, treachery rife. It is a sharp axe age, a ready sword age. Shields are riven, vows broken and noble lines cut short. It is a raging storm age, a hungry wolf age. It is the age of the Lords of Misrule.

~ Foretelling of Wythling by-Refn

The Terrwyn Isles have seldom known peace. Invaders as implacable and endless as the waves of the tempestuous sea have come at its shores - the sly, mystic, woodsy Muredalish; the warlike, unyielding Waerric with their blue hair and warpaint; the imperious Kraetons on their holy mission to conquer the furthest corners of the world; the resolute and loyalty-bound Ulthern; and the haughty Connolk, as adept in the ways of court and chivalry as swordplay and battle.

But now, a century after the bastard Duke Cruancorr of Parnessy crossed the Dragonback Strait and brought unity and rule to much of Terrwyn at the point of a sword, it seems an age of stability, if not peace, has dawned. King Haemark Fairhand, grandson of Cruancorr is renowned as a stern but effective ruler who has strengthened the institutions of justice and taxation, promoted men and women of talent first rather than mere good breeding, and balanced the ambitions and petty rivalries of his magnates to keep their feuds suppressed. Certainly, the clanlords of the Waerric highlands and free princes of the Muredalish woods and valleys are as insubordinate and prone to raiding as ever, and many of the Ulthern commonfolk and lesser nobles chafe at their Connolk overlords. The royal cadet branches of Harlaeth and Orenvin unsheathe tongues rather than blades to cut each other down and the great houses of Kellthorn and Gauntyke are at one another's throats as always, all rallying their vassals and sworn knights to back their cause, yet some chroniclers dare to hope that this is the dawning of a golden age of peace and prosperity.

They are wrong. This is the age of the Lords of Misrule, as spoken of by the prophetess Wythling by-Refn. Disaster is coming, and with it chaos, disunity, war - and opportunity. Can you taste it on the wind? It tastes of salt, of blood and sea-foam.