Before the Heroes. Before the campaign. Before fate began to remember their names.
Long before men began arguing loudly in smoky halls about who was to blame, the gods had already started losing.
Not in a glorious, thunder-splitting way, but in the slow, uncomfortable manner of realizing that even immortals can make very poor decisions.
It began, as most catastrophes do, with a disagreement that should have remained a tense dinner conversation.
The Aesir, proud champions of order, war, and control, found themselves at odds with the Vanir, ancient keepers of nature and older magic. No one quite remembers who insulted whom first. Some claim it was a dispute over the nature of fate itself. Others whisper that Loki had been involved, which is usually enough to stop further investigation.
Either way, diplomacy failed. Spectacularly.
The war that followed was not merely a clash of armies. It was a collision of realities.
The Vanir wielded magic older than the runes, something deeper, quieter, and infinitely more patient. The Aesir responded with runes twisted beyond their natural form, forced into obedience like reluctant beasts.
The world did not appreciate this.
It began to crack.
Oceans rose in fury when Thor struck the great serpent Jormungandr. Each swing of Mjolnir sent waves crashing across distant shores, while the serpent’s venom seeped into sea and sky alike, turning both into unpredictable, almost sentient forces.
Elsewhere, Fenrir broke free.
The chains that once held him, weakened by the war’s strain, snapped like dry twigs. He did not roam aimlessly. He hunted. And his prey was none other than Odin himself.
The gods tried to contain him. They failed with varying degrees of embarrassment.
Fear spread among them, a rare and deeply unpleasant experience for beings who usually preferred inspiring it in others.
Then came the unraveling of the sky.
Sköll and Hati, the relentless hunters of the Sun and Moon, vanished from their eternal chase. At least, that is what the gods allowed the world to believe.
Without them, the rhythm of day and night faltered. Days shrank or stretched without reason. Nights lingered far too long, as if reluctant to leave. Strange auroras danced across the heavens, less like natural wonders and more like the sky trying to remember how to function.
The Sun itself dimmed, no longer pursued, no longer threatened, simply... abandoned.
And somewhere in all of this, Odin made his choice.
Faced with a future spiraling into chaos far too soon, the Allfather did what he always did when confronted with an impossible problem. He chose the solution that was both brilliant and deeply questionable.
He turned to forbidden runes.
Not mere symbols of power, but fragments of the Wyrd itself, capable of severing bonds between worlds, reshaping reality, and rewriting threads of fate.
Even Odin did not fully understand them. This did not stop him.
“Trust me,” he reportedly said to no one in particular, which history has shown is never reassuring.
With these runes, he shattered the connection between gods, humans, and primordial beings. The Bifrost collapsed. The worlds drifted apart like estranged relatives who had finally decided to stop attending the same feasts.
The result was... complicated.
The world did not end. Not immediately, which Odin considered a success.
But the gods grew distant, their voices fading into silence. The runes became unstable, dangerous, unpredictable. The great tapestry of existence did not tear completely, but it certainly developed alarming holes.
Thus began the Age of the Runic Twilight.
And with it, the slow arrival of the Fimbulvetr.
Winters stretched longer each year. Summers became brief, almost apologetic interruptions. The land hardened, the seas grew restless, and the spirits of the world wandered without purpose.
The gods were not gone.
But they were no longer listening.
Among humans, life continued, as it inconveniently tends to do even in the face of cosmic disaster.
Stories of the war spread through skalds and oracles, though accuracy varied depending on how much ale had been consumed during the telling. Still, the essence remained clear.
The gods had failed.
Or perhaps they had simply stopped answering.
Faith, once as solid as iron, began to crack. Some clung to it desperately, insisting that the gods were merely testing their devotion. Others turned away, convinced they had been abandoned.
And then there were those who saw opportunity.
New beliefs emerged. New voices claimed to understand the silence of the heavens. None agreed with each other, but all were very confident.
In the Kingdom of Norway, these tensions found a convenient stage.
King Håkon Eldrún, a man who had seen too many winters and not nearly enough solutions, struggled to hold his realm together. His authority remained, but it was increasingly questioned by jarls who no longer shared his faith, or his patience.
Some waited politely for his passing.
Others were less patient, though still polite enough to pretend otherwise.
The throne, however, had a designated heir.
Princess Skörta Eldrún.
A shieldmaiden of formidable skill and sharper will, she carried her father’s hope that the kingdom could still be united. Whether the jarls agreed with that hope was, unfortunately, another matter entirely.
Among those jarls stood one name spoken with equal parts respect and concern.
Mikal-Finnvard Arvast.
A man of pride, conviction, and a talent for gathering followers who shared both. He believed the gods had not merely withdrawn, but had failed their people entirely. In his eyes, the Fimbulvetr was not a mystery.
It was a consequence.
And someone, preferably someone wearing a crown, needed to answer for it.
He led a growing coalition, one that did not intend to wait quietly for change.
Yet for all his influence, for all his certainty, this is not his story.
Not yet.
Because in a world where gods fade, kings falter, and faith fractures, the future rarely belongs to those who believe they understand it.
Instead, it often finds its way into the hands of someone far less certain.
Someone like his daughter.
Helena Arvast.
Known among warriors as Helena Ironbraid, for the striking red braid she inherited from her mother and the stubbornness that came with it. Loyal to her father, yet not entirely convinced by his conclusions, she stood at the edge of a world unraveling.
And unlike the gods, she still had the inconvenient habit of asking questions.
Which, as history will confirm, is always where trouble truly begins.