Flames of Barrowburn

The lands of Barrowburn are an unassuming gulch in the northern Ascendant Empire separating the Empire from the mountain realm of Mount-Falun. A thousand years ago this gulch was a thriving community of intermingled tribes folk of the Pure Lands to the east (before the tribes came together to form the Ascendant Empire) and the mountain folk of Mount-Falun to the west. Following the disappearance of the First Emperor and the war of extermination waged by the Drac-Nu, the gulch was plunged into war like the rest of Vandarel.

War of the Drac-Nu and the Court of Fire

During the height of the War of the Drac-Nu, the land was attacked by the winged terrors, their fires and magic scorching the land black and filling the gulch with inferno. Despite this fiery destruction, this was not how the land became known as Barrowburn. The Drac-Nu were eventually pushed out of the gulch by the Court of Fire, an army of Pure Lands tribe folk who had unified in face of destruction and brought the fight to the Drac-Nu. After resting in the gulch for a fortnight, providing protection, relief, and aid to the locals, the Court of Fire marched westward over the mountains intending to strike into the central land of the quickly disintegrating First Empire, where the Drac-Nu prosecuted the bulk of the war. This would be the last time the Court of Fire was ever seen before their final and fatal battle with the Drac-Nu upon the Fields of Paren's Vale.

The Final Resting Place of the Court of Fire

Following the destruction of the Court of Fire, none of the soldiers survived. The soldiers did not rout, instead suffering complete annihilation in hopes to disrupt and delay the terrible plans of the Drac-Nu. Army tag alongs and camp followers watched their friends and family fall to the onslaught of the Drac-Nu and then gathered the bodies of the fallen soldiers intending to bear them back east to their homeland. As they crossed over the mountains of Mount-Falun this funeral procession was ravaged by plague and disease as the bodies they carried had been infected by the exposure to raw magic afflicted on them by the Drac-Nu. The non-combatant camp followers succumbed to their affliction at the edge of the gulch where they once stayed. The final to fall of this funeral procession were the hounds, pawing and howling at twice lost masters, before they too fell to disease.
The locals purged the body with new flame, burning away the disease and plague, and reducing both soldier, camp follower, and hound, to a fine ash. The ash was gathered and scattered across the lands of the gulch, giving a final resting place to the brave who saved them and fought to the very end against a world ending threat.

Forgotten Stories and Legends

After the War of the Drac-Nu had concluded, stories spread across the newly formed Ascendant Empire that the final resting place of the Court of Fire resided in this unassuming gulch, and thus it was named Barrowburn. But stories and legends can be forgotten, and while the story of the Court of Fire is still told within the Empire, so many details are forgotten or misremembered. In time the community that lived amidst the gulch disappeared, its population slowly dispersing across the Empire. Its practices, rituals, and traditions that often honored the Court of Fire and its resting place disappearing with it. Soon the gulch became another landmark, with a name that was only half remembered. Some locals remained, hermits and druids, tending to the land and the old memories of what happened. But there was no one to listen to them.
And thus when a millennia passed, and the Ascendant Empire turned hungry eyes upon a myth shrouded land, believing that it housed ancient treasures, artifacts, and items of power.

Flames of Barrowburn

Soon the gulch was flooded once more with people. But they did not come here to live, to learn, or to remember. They came for the promise of treasure and the promise of old power. They came to dig, to upturn, and to disturb. The wardens of this forgotten land recalled the old stories. They remembered what rested here and what should have been honored and not forgotten. From that old memory the wardens and guardians of the land called forth the Court of Fire once again. From the gulch the cry of hounds sounded out and the inferno that once engulfed the land and the Court of Fire raged in a blinding spectacle. The ash of the fallen, soldier, camp follower, hound, pulled forth from the land and ignited. The pack chased all interlopers from the gulch and for a fortnight the flames rose high into the sky to be seen across the Pure Lands.
And now none dare to trespass on these forgotten lands, less the hounds and flames find them.

Remembrance

Despite dire warning and threat that now shroud the land of Barrowburn, the spectacle that occurred has attracted the contemplative and ponderous types. Citizens of the Ascendant Empire sometimes dare to make a journey to these lands, risking the wrath of the hounds and their fire. But with proper respect, and a well offered meal, the hounds tolerate some interlopers. Like hounds who remember masters of old.